HomeMy WebLinkAbout57 Johnson11/13/2019 Testimony on ZON 18-00036 - Planning Commission Desk
https://owa.co.jefferson.wa.us/owa/#viewmodel=ReadMessageItem&ItemID=AAMkAGM0ZTI0NjQ3LTE2OGItNGQzZi05MWNjLWE2NTE2NGZjMzFhN…1/1
Testimony on ZON 18-00036
CAUTION: This email originated from outside your organization. Exercise caution when opening attachments or clicking links, especially
from unknown senders.
Diane Johnson <drdianejohnson@gmail.com>
Fri 11/8/2019 2:37 PM
To:Planning Commission Desk <PCommissionDesk@co.jefferson.wa.us>;
1 attachment
PC Written Testimony, Sound, 11-8-2019.docx;
November 8, 2019 Jefferson County Planning Commission plancomm@co.jefferson.wa.us Re: Testimony regarding ZON 18-00036 By Diane Johnson, 1521 Dabob Road, Quilcene The proposed amendments to Title 8 JCC (Health and Safety) & Title 18 JCC (Unified Development Code) related to commercial shooting facilities in unincorporated Jefferson County under consideration by the Jefferson County Planning Commission are supposed to protect the safety and health of those who use those ranges and that of the surrounding community members. I propose that the intensity and duration of noise emanating from shooting ranges are a significant public health issue that falls under the auspices of the Environmental Protection Agency, which makes it a SEPA issue (see references), and must be considered in their siting, which is a land use issue. SUMMARY: The County is essentially rural in nature; the sounds of the country are more likely to be of a natural origin, animals calling or crashing through the brush , or the wind, or rain, the sound of waves, an occasional tree branch snapping off, those for which our hearing apparatus was adapted. Its residents are only
intermittently exposed to the kinds of industrial sounds/noises, such as helicopters, heavy machinery, chain saws, sirens, explosions, banging and clanging, freeway sounds, or even loud music that residents of more urban environments must endure, either in their jobs or in their surroundings, and certainly, to the sounds of shooting that mimic war. These types of sound have been declared “noise pollution” and a national hazard by Congress as early as 1972 due to their negative effects on human health. The sense of hearing is our early warning system, it operates 24/7, and its purpose is to stimulate our bodies to get ready to defend ourselves or move rapidly away in avoidance. (The same is true for domestic and wild animals.) If the perceived sound is annoying or upsetting or causes fear, or causes damage to the body, whether or not the individual is aware of those effects, it is defined as “noise.” Noise can be of any magnitude or duration, therefore, and the degree of upset is determined by its meaning to the individual and the individual’s perceived ability to control the noise. Noise creates a stress response in the body, which leads to changes in the neuroendocrine system, including the release of cortisol. If the noise is extremely loud, unremitting or repeated over a long period of time, or interferes with task performance or speech, a chronic state of preparedness/stress can occur, eventually
even when the stimulus is not present. Such a state leads to the General Adaptive Syndrome, where the neuroendocrine system NEVER returns to a calm state. Damage from such system overloads can eventually lead to medical conditions such as gastric ulceration, immune system disorders, hypertension, atherosclerosis, sterility, obesity, and personality changes, such as excessive irritability and anger responses. So, NOISE, as defined as any unwanted and uncontrollable sound, CAN and DOES cause physiological changes and ultimately, damage, in the human body. The effects and their costs may not be, generally are not, immediately perceivable, but they undoubtedly account for a large percentage of the ever-increasing costs of medical care in this country. With respect to gun sounds/noise, one of my friends said it best: “Most normal people become upset, annoyed, or anxious at the sound of gunfire, and we never get used to it!” Researchers have also found that healing from the effects of noise can come through exposure to natural environments and sounds, and to total quiet. As I noted in my comments on the 2018 Jefferson County Comprehensive Plan on Tuesday evening, Jefferson County, being predominantly rural in character, is perceived and valued for its “high quality of life” by others who choose to visit, recreate, or locate here. Preservation of open space and enhancement of the rural identities and quality of life are seen as economically as well as ethically desirable, according to the Comp Plan, and can therefore, by extrapolation, be seen as a place where people come to rest, and, yes, be removed from and heal from their noisy, busy urban lives. Whether some like it or not, noise, especially noise like the percussive, alarm-system-activating sounds of gunfire, significantly impair the possibility that such repose and restoration can occur, either for visitors or for year-round residents. The compelling reasons for action are the facts that substantial groups of the population are vulnerable to adverse health effects from noise, that the quality of life is generally eroded by annoyance from noise, that sleep is disrupted, that productivity is reduced, and that the concentration required to learn is affected by noisy environments. A significant responsibility rests on the business or industry to actively reduce noise emission at the source. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE JEFFERSON COUNTY ORDINANCES: First, it is imperative that noise from a commercial gun range be addressed in the ordinance, not as a ”nuisance,” but as an extreme kind of the modern, industrial/urban sound proven to cause emotional and physiological harm to humans, especially children, and to wildlife. For this reason, Washington State WAC 173-60-030 and 173-60-050 should be applied. Further, testing for the noise pattern should be done at maximum utilization and weapon caliber, and with helicopter noise, not with a single or few random pistol or rifle shots. Those are related to what we are used to from hunters for a brief season of the year, and while still alarming, are of magnitudes less intensity and duration.
Given the geography of the area, the sound-carrying capacity of the atmosphere, and the extreme quiet of most county soundscapes, the distance of one mile for considering residential effects is a joke—the sound of the average hunting rifle can easily be heard at one mile. For example, due to the increased intensity at the existing shooting range, the Sheriff says complaints are coming from much farther away, 2 miles or more, in Port Townsend. The proposed new range has four communities within two miles, and one major business just over a mile away that would be radically affected by the noise. One mile is not adequate—three miles is a more realistic radius for consideration of the much more intense, persistent shooting of a shooting facility with multiple ranges and helicopter pads. These stipulations need to be made in the ordinance to bring them under control of the operating permit. Such siting issues come under the land use concerns of community compatibility in the Comprehensive Plan. The best solution from the point of view of the general public for whom the noise of a shooting facility would form a feature of their soundscape would be for all gun/shooting ranges to be indoors. I urge you to seriously consider that option for the future of gun ranges in Jefferson County. If outdoor shooting facilities are to be built, the regulations should require the proposing party demonstrate a clear plan to include sound-mitigating berms or whatever appropriate mitigations would create adequate protections from noise. An even better plan would be to place the facility in a deep ravine at a distance of no less than three miles from the nearest inhabitants. One local citizen told me he knows of such a place right now that would meet that criterion. Or perhaps the county could work with DNR to make an appropriate land swap to facilitate such a solution. It is also important for shooting hours be limited to daylight, and there be designated days of respite, at least one of which would be a weekend day. Lastly, local shooting facilities should provide training in firearm operation, care, and safety, as well as personal self-defense to individuals, including groups of individuals, hunter safety for children and adults, and a safe environment for practice and sport of shooting. However, given the greatly increased intensity of weaponry (calibers) and helicopters, and the increasing density of Jefferson County, I urge you to prohibit organized military training at shooting facilities in Jefferson County, and that organized police, sheriff, or other law enforcement training be limited to local law enforcement, with a prohibition on explosions of any kind. Since local law enforcement training is brief in duration and only periodically required, its impact would be more tolerable to residents.
DOCUMENTATION BACKGROUND: Revitalization in Jefferson County and throughout America in last 10-20 years has focused on the rural economy and conservation and revitalization of productive soils, and clean air and water. Locally, I am involved in the revitalization of Chimacum Grange, and am aware of an increasing cadre of young farmers who are committed to permaculture and other regenerative farming techniques that seek to work with the land and nature’s cycles of growth and fertility, rather than relying on chemicals, fertilizer or poisons, for nurturing their crops. “Local food” and “food security,” including the sustainability and diversity of local agriculture are BIG topics in Jefferson County involving many people, e.g., Local 20/20. In addition, former city dwellers, retirees, and veterans have moved to our county in numbers significantly greater proportion to our census than to other areas, even other rural areas of Washington, according to census data. Why? To escape the hubbub and the noise of cities and war, valuing both the calm of living in our area’s abundant natural beauty and its peaceful, quiet environment. (There are actually therapies for mental illness and stress based on contact with both exposure to nature and to extended periods of quiet.) Intensification of local conservation efforts in the last 20 year has led to creation of County Critical Areas, Shoreline, and water availability(WRIA) Ordinances and Rules to protect those resources that will only be more critical as our population grows and problems of pollution and scarcity occur. Our State and County have seen increasing attempts to guarantee the continued availability of farmland and to protect our water resources, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars locally. I doubt that more has been expended anywhere locally than in the Tarboo watershed and Tarboo and Dabob Bays. Both our local Chimacum Grange #681 and the Tarboo Ridge Coalition (TRC) are committed to preserving as much of the rural character and values of Jefferson County as still remain. We believe that Forests, Farms, Families, and clean water for Fish define the rural Jefferson County Character, not the unrelenting sounds of military helicopters and gunfire that come from large commercial shooting facilities.
RURAL CHARACTER: What does rural character mean? When we think about driving, biking, or walking around Jefferson County, what do we see? Primarily little valleys with fields, cattle or other grazing animals, acreage with flowers and vegetables, grains or grass, and scattered houses, all surrounded by trees. Trees and underbrush, including our state flower, the rhododendron (some might believe it’s scotch broom,) line our roadways for hundreds of miles. There are myriad wonderful seascapes. Essentially, as far as the eye can see, there are fields, water, or trees. A few small villages, quickly passed through, dot the landscape as well. These are our local viewscapes. Our soundscapes are what we can hear. In most areas of Jefferson County, it is generally quiet. Where I live, you can hear a coyote howling from at least a mile and a half away,
traffic noise like loud trucks, motorcycles, and sirens, and dogs barking from a mile or more away, and voices, and even sometimes words, from a quarter mile away. There are occasionally low flying planes and helicopters that can be very loud. The sound of gunshots can be heard easily from as far away as two miles. At night, the sounds of cattle ruminating across the road, frogs croaking in the nearby pond and ditches, and chipmunks raiding the fruit on the porch can all be heard against the nearly absolute silence. The ecoscape is defined as the organizational shape or layout of an ecosystem. An ecoscape is a multidimensional landscape of a social-economic-natural complex ecosystem, combining geographical patterns, hydrological processes, biological vitality, anthropological dynamics and aesthetic contexts. Concepts used in understanding the ecoscape include: Restoration ecology, Applied ecology, Ecological design, Sustainable engineering, Ecoscaping, Environmental restoration, Precipitationshed, Conservation agriculture, Sustainable, Agroforestry, Erosion control, and Nonpoint source pollution, among others (U.S. Natural Resources Conservation). In Jefferson County, the most familiar ecoscape designations are our watersheds, including Tarboo, and regionally, Puget Sound. So, our ecoscape is the soils, water patterns, the diversity and health of animals and plants, native and otherwise, the people who live there and their values and health, the beauty, or lack thereof, of the area, the economy of the area, and all of the impacts from natural and human sources and activities. Tarboo Ridge Coalition addresses several of these ecoscape concerns in our requests for amendments and additions to the proposed regulations governing the establishment and operation of gun ranges in Jefferson County.
RELEVANCE OF THE SOUNDSCAPE OF AN AREA TO THE OPERATION AND SITING OF
GUN RANGES: I propose that the qualities of the soundscape of an area in which a shooting facility, especially an outdoor facility, are very important to the health of the people who are exposed to them. I present scientific research on hearing and sound generally, and the effects of noise on health. Unless otherwise indicated, the information in this section is drawn from a National Institute of Health-funded research article by Westman and Walters, 1981, and can be found at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1568850/ (underlining is mine, for emphasis).
HEARING The fundamental purposes of hearing are to alert and to warn. As a result sound directly evokes emotions and actions. The auditory orienting response, startle reflex and defensive response translate sound stimuli into action and sometimes into stress-induced bodily changes through the "fight or flight" neural mechanisms. Because of its defensive purpose, hearing cannot be turned off, and sound registers in the brain even during sleep. The auditory apparatus is connected to the entire central nervous system and the neuroendocrine system as well. Sound plays a vital role in maintaining arousal of the brain and thereby influences the basic physiological functioning of the body. The arousal level of the central nervous system depends upon the intensity, complexity, variability, predictability and meaning of sound stimuli.
The brain first responds to any sound with the orienting response, simply, where and what it is. The second basic auditory response is the startle reflex which is evoked by sounds of sudden, intense, or frightening significance. The typical reflex is completed in less than one second. The startle reflex components involving the lower centers in the brainstem are not subject to habituation, i.e., you don’t get used to it. The defensive response, number three, does not require sounds of high intensity. This response is produced by sounds of sufficient intensity, significance or duration to be perceived as threatening, mobilizing the "fight or flight" reaction. This response can become the stress that leads to the General Adaptation Syndrome with its alarm, resistance, and exhaustion stages if the sound stressor is of sufficient duration, quantity, and quality.
NOISE: The human auditory system was designed to process the frequencies and intensities relevant to survival in the sound environments of nature. The evolutionary process has not allowed humans enough time to adapt hearing to sounds generated by loud modern noise sources. This means that the auditory apparatus is not prepared to cope with commonly encountered urban and industrial noise. Consequently, we find ourselves exposed to sound environments that overload the auditory system. An analogous situation would occur in the visual system if we were forced to look at the sun and thereby damage the retina. Noise was identified as a national hazard by Congress as far back as 1972, in the form of the Noise Control Act, and in 1978 in the Quiet Communities Act. Noise essentially is unwanted sound. As such, subjectively experienced noise is any sound that produces annoyance or communication or task performance interference. The same sound stimulus may be perceived subjectively as noise by some and not by others. For this reason it is useful to define noise objectively as sound that produces harmful bodily effects which may or may not be subjectively perceived. This point is important because noise can be subjectively or objectively stressful, or both, i.e., can cause harmful arousal and physiological effects outside one’s awareness of those effects.
EFFECTS OF NOISE ON THE BODY AND HEALTH: The damaging effects of noise usually are regarded as limited to the structures of the ear through impairing one's ability to hear sounds such as speech and music. The fact that noise has more pervasive physiological effects has not received as much attention. The auditory orienting response, startle reflex and defensive response translate sound stimuli into action and sometimes into stress-induced bodily changes through "fight or flight" neural mechanisms. When this mechanism is activated, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis is mobilized with resulting increase in adrenal cortisol and epinephrine levels. The first level of damage comes from noise overload, which results from an excess of the number or rate of sensory or symbolic stimuli or both. Human experiments have shown the
disorganizing and psychotogenic effects of sensory overload, in the form of heightened and sustained arousal, mood changes, and in the extreme, illusions, hallucinations, and body image distortions . Low frequency noises have effects similar to the more familiar piercing high frequency sounds. Over time, one might manage to adapt to this noise routine, but not without changes in irritability and loss of effectiveness. If one becomes resigned to a lack of control over their noise environment, the resulting "learned helplessness" itself may become a stressor and contribute to additional symptoms of depression. Investigators found that an individual's ability to control the noise source, and even the belief that one could, reduced the adverse impact. An experimental study of humans performing mental arithmetic problems under noise exposure found that blood levels of cortisol were significantly higher in persons with no control over the noise source than in those with control. (This may explain why even a person with PTSD related to artillery fire in battle is not bothered by his own gun shots while hunting.) The second level of damage comes with the General Adaptation Syndrome, which is activated by intense and persistent stressors that produce a specific effect on the adrenal glands, thymus and stomach. Most prominent of the neuroendocrine reactions are the significantly higher plasma cortisol levels and increased activity of the sympathetic nervous system, including increased secretion of epinephrine by the adrenal medulla in persons with no control over the noise source than in those with control. The sustained effects of cortisol may appear in the form of gastric ulceration, inhibition of immune responses, hypertension, atherosclerosis, sterility and personality changes. In a separate study, Arhlin elaborated the concept of “annoyance.” Annoyance can be experienced from the direct effects of noise, such as loss of hearing or sleep, or interference with task performance or speech, and/or from the indirect effects of noise, such as blood pressure elevation, headaches, fatigability, anxiety, depression and accident risk. In other words, the experience of annoyance serves to warn an individual of unpleasant or harmful environmental conditions, and thus serves a useful survival purpose as one of the variables in responding to a given sound. He says that annoyance is heightened when noise is perceived as unnecessary, when those responsible for the noise are perceived as unconcerned about the exposed population's welfare, when other aspects of the environment are disliked, when noise is believed to be harmful to health, and when noise is associated with fear. It can probably be safely inferred, in the light of all the forgoing information, that the more annoyed a person is, the greater the physiological reactions the person will experience, and the more likely that there will be physiological and psychological damage.
REFERENCES Borsky, PN. Review of Community Response to Noise. Proceedings, 3rd International Congress on Noise as a Public Health Problem. American Speech and Hearing Association, Washington, DC, 1980. Cameron, P., Robertson, D., and Zaks, J. Sound Pollution, Noise Pollution, and Health: Community parameters. J. Appl. Psych., 56: 67-74 (1972). Kondo, MC, Jacoby, SF, and South, CS. Does Being Outdoors Reduce Stress? A review of real-time stress responses to outdoor environments. Health and Place. Vol 51, pp. 136-150, 2018. Lam, M, MD, MPH, Lam, J, ABAAHP, FMNM, and Lam, C, MD. Silence Therapy: The new wellness approach., 2017. www.drLam.com/silence -therapy-the-new-wellness-approach/ Langford, Kate (October 14, 2011). "New Study Finds 400,000 Farmers...* http://www.worldagroforestrycentre.org/newsroom/press-releases/new-study-finds-400000-farmers-southern-africa-using-%E2%80%98fertilizer-trees%E2%80%99-dram Office of Noise Abatement, Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D. C. 20460. Westman, JC and Walters, JR. Noise and Stress: A comprehensive approach. Environmental Health Perspectives. Vol 41, pp291-309, 1981. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1568850/