Frac’ing is noisy.
In my community, and others, Encana/Ovintiv installed compressors without noise assessments or mitigation, in violation of the noise control directive. Encana’s noise roared 24/7, disrupted my sleep and that of my loved ones, and drove out songbirds.
I documented the company’s law violations, noise data and fraud, and sent it to the AER asking them to regulate. All I got was lots of bullying attempts to silence me by AER lawyer Rick McKee, lies, more noise, more fraud, AER deregulating to make Encana’s law violations vanish; Encana violating my privacy rights (handing out in public meetings copies of an aerial photo pinpointing where I live with my full name after telling farmers I was taking away their prosperity by destroying the oil and gas industry); AER violating my charter rights, judging me a criminal, in writing (with no evidence, due process, trial, hearing, arrests, or fingerprinting; they didn’t even let me know I was on trial); and copying the RCMP and AG trying to intimidate me.
Encana’s compressors (now owned by Lynx, so Encana avoids clean up and aquifer repair), 20 years later, still violate my legal right to quiet enjoyment of my land and home.
Group sues to get EPA back in the noise regulation business by Sean Reilly, June 8, 2023, E&E News
A Massachusetts advocacy group has gone to court to force EPA to revive a noise regulation program scrapped more than four decades ago.
“Since abandoning its duties under the Noise Control Act in 1982, EPA has made no progress in protecting the American people from the many harmful effects of noise pollution,” Quiet Communities Inc. wrote in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
As E&E News reported last month, Quiet Communities has waged a slowly escalating campaign to restart the program, with a formal warning to EPA in March of plans to pursue legal action. In the newly filed suit, the group asks a judge for a mandatory injunction ordering EPA to “promptly” resume its responsibilities under the Noise Control Act.
Citing standard policy, an EPA spokesperson declined Thursday to comment on pending litigation.
Under the 1972 Noise Control Act, Congress gave EPA the lead in coordinating noise research and control programs across the federal government; the law also charges EPA with setting noise regulations for construction equipment, among other categories.
The agency has thus far, however, evinced no enthusiasm for again becoming the nation’s lead noise regulator after the Reagan administration shut down the program in 1981.
While acting air chief Joe Goffman, whose office once housed the program, has expressed sympathy with the Quiet Communities’ concerns, for example, “he made no commitments” to reinstating it, the group wrote in its March letter.
And in the Biden administration’s fiscal 2024 budget proposal for EPA, there is no sign of any planned funding for noise reduction.
In the suit, Quiet Communities, based in Concord, Mass., says it has more than 200 “formal members” and 25 professional advisers and has worked with hundreds of communities nationwide.
The other plaintiff is Jeanne Kempthorne, who is described as a Massachusetts resident who “continues to suffer from the harms of noise pollution and has been and continues to be adversely affected by EPA’s failure to fulfill its duties under the Noise Control Act.”
Refer also to:
New study: Songbirds’ reproductive success reduced by natural gas compressor noise.
University of Michigan researchers on noise: Turn down the volume for health’s sake
Fracking firm stops drilling in Balcombe after “rattling” noise complaints