Noise Pollution

When the leaf-blower ban goes into effect, and people call the cops to crack down on the gardeners, I hope the LAPD gives priority to that other noise problem we have: the sound of gunfire. WARREN W. CEREGHINO Los Angeles

Silver Lake residents can't wait for this construction job to bite the dust. More than two dozen residents living along the path of a $40-million water pipe project say they are suffering respiratory problems from particulate matter stirred up by construction trucks and heavy-duty trenching machines. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is replacing a massive neighborhood water conduit as part of a larger, federally mandated plan to retire the Silver Lake and Ivanhoe reservoirs, which are exposed to airborne contaminants.

If raucous pop music from your neighbor's Walkman prevents you from enjoying your Brahms tape, you may appreciate this invention. Japan's Sony Corp. has designed new headphones for its portable Walkman stereos that reduce audio leakage. "The idea is not to disturb others," a spokesman said. Riders of trains and buses have often been bothered by noise pollution from high frequency sounds that escape from Walkman headphones, especially when played at high volume.

Does the endgame loom in the decades-long tussle over Santa Monica Airport? In 2015, all land and building leases at the airport expire, and city officials — and thousands of Westside residents weary of life in the flight path — say the obligation to operate the facility as an airport ends too. Santa Monica has hired consultants to study the 227-acre campus and early next year will begin asking for the public's input on potential future uses....

The infernal racket of urban life can drive you crazy, but there's only one person left at the Environmental Protection Agency who can hear your complaints above the din. EPA scientist Kenneth E. Feith is the guy who picks up the phone and listens to laments about noisy trucks and trash compactors, shrieking jet planes and the banshee howl of the neighbor's lawn mower.

The Los Angeles city attorney's office has charged a Canoga Park Mexican food manufacturer with nine counts of violating state air and noise pollution laws after neighbors accused it of fouling the area with the smell of burning tortillas and blanketing it with "flour storms." The complaint, filed in Los Angeles Municipal Court on Wednesday, charges Mission Foods Corp.

You recently published an article by Andrew LePage concerning the proposed Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) being designed for the City of Industry (Nov. 21). I was disappointed to note only passing mention of a nearby "hospital." As the administrative service director at Lanterman Developmental Center, I feel a responsibility to share some facts with your readers. First of all, the proposed MRF would be located approximately 4,000 feet from Lanterman. Lanterman Developmental Center is home to almost 1,000 residents with severe and profound developmental disabilities.

At least 100 million Americans are exposed in their daily lives to persistent noise loud enough to cause hearing loss, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Noise also can cause other physical ills. Since 1981, when the Reagan Administration ordered the termination of the Environmental Protection Agency's noise-abatement program, most programs and progress in noise abatement have ceased. In the meantime, the world gets noisier.

Every night that there's a concert at the Hollywood Bowl, its operator, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, sends beams of light into the sky above. The purpose isn't to create a lot of showbiz hoopla, says Deborah Borda, the Philharmonic's president and chief executive. It's to tell pilots of helicopters and small aircraft to stay the heck away. But increasingly, Borda says, attempts to communicate both in light and in words have fallen on deafening ears. Not a summer concert night goes by now, she says, without the purity of music falling prey to choppers dealing noise pollution.

"In the Middle Ages," Sara Maitland writes in her brilliant "A Book of Silence," "Christian scholastics argued that the devil's basic strategy was to bring human beings to a point where they are never alone with their God, nor ever attentively face to face with another human being. " Hence our Faustian pact with Facebook, with cellphones, with virtual everything . Overstimulation is one outcome of social media and the sheer intrusiveness of modern life, the noise of it all. But in 2010, the backlash began in earnest.

Question: I have been on my homeowner association board of directors off and on for more than 15 years. With more than 40 town houses in our development -- and with nearly every unit having more than one vehicle -- we've got a growing noise problem. Angry homeowners write the board asking that something be done about car alarms that go off at all hours day and night. To activate and inactivate some alarms, including opening and closing car doors and trunks, the vehicle owner has to press a button that honks the horn.

The boisterous Venice Beach boardwalk could become considerably more sedate pending a new edict from Los Angeles city leaders to the drum circles, DJs and would-be guitar heroes who perform on the famed pedestrian strip: Quiet down after dark. Facing more than 500 noise complaints from boardwalk neighbors over the last 20 months, the Los Angeles City Council directed city lawyers Tuesday to draft new rules, including a ban on musical instruments and amplified sound between sunset and 9 a.m. Council members also hope to grant new authority to the Los Angeles Police Department to ensure that performers who attract big crowds rotate in and out of shared spaces.

The noisy dispute in Cerritos has become a humdinger. John Davis contends that a new electrical transformer behind his home of 33 years produces a constant humming sound that resonates through his house and keeps family members awake at night. But he says complaints to Southern California Edison about the problem have produced a corporate ho-hum. The transformer is enclosed in a 4-foot-wide metal box in the southeast corner of Davis' backyard on an otherwise quiet cul-de-sac called Rusty Fig Circle.

Up to half the aircraft that land at Los Angeles International Airport each day now use an arrival technique that saves fuel and reduces noise and air pollution in neighborhoods along the eastern approaches to the nation's fourth-largest airport, the Federal Aviation Administration has announced. Officials said Thursday that the technique also increases the safety of landings, one of the most critical phases of a flight.

Officials who oversee Bob Hope Airport in Burbank decided Monday to seek federal approval of a controversial nighttime ban on flight operations -- restrictions, they assert, that will reduce noise in nearby communities and have little effect on other airports in the region. The proposed curfew would prohibit flights by airlines, cargo operations, couriers and private pilots between 10 p.m. and 6:59 a.m. with exceptions for emergencies, law enforcement, medical flights and military aircraft.

The songs that whales and dolphins use to communicate, orient themselves and find mates are being drowned out by human-made noises in the oceans, U.N. officials and environmental groups said this week. That sound pollution -- from increasing commercial shipping and seismic surveys to a new generation of military sonar -- is not only confounding to the mammals, it is an added threat to the survival of the endangered animals. Studies show that these cetaceans, which once communicated over thousands of miles to forage and mate, are losing touch with each other, the experts said at a U.N. wildlife conference in Rome.