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Noise Study
Flaw Puts Brakes on Resort Plan
Wednesday,
April 02, 2003
By
WAYNE FISHMAN
The Express-Times
ELDRED
TWP. -- The checkered flag township supervisors dropped for the proposed
Alpine Rose resort for car enthusiasts may have been premature.
Resort
officials now admit that their noise study is flawed because it uses
a faulty method that underestimates how dramatically the noise level
will increase.
This
revelation may give township officials new doubts about the plan and
has given resort opponents new ammunition in their fight to prevent
the project from being built.
"They
hoodwinked the township," said resort opponents' attorney Charles
Elliott of Easton.
In
November, supervisors granted conditional approval to the resort plan,
which is slated for about 350 acres in this Monroe County municipality's
southern end. The site abuts the Appalachian Trail.
Among
other amenities, the resort is to include a road course -- about 3 miles
in length -- on which cars will travel at high speeds.
The
supervisors' decision was appealed in December by the Blue Mountain
Preservation Association and the Appalachian Trail Conference, which
is based in Harpers Ferry, W.Va. A court proceeding is scheduled for
Monday in Monroe County Court.
In
numerous and lengthy hearings conducted last year, township residents
complained vociferously about the noise impact the resort would have
on their tranquil community and the nearby Appalachian Trail. These
complaints persisted despite assurances from a resort-hired expert that
the noise impact would be minimal.
In
July, Greg Richardson of Traffic Planning and Design Inc. of Pottstown
told the township planning commission that with mitigation no point
exterior to the resort site would experience a noise increase of greater
than 4.9 decibels. Any change of less than 3 decibels is undetectable
by the human ear, he said.
But
following court briefs and depositions leading up to Monday's court
date, Alpine Rose attorney Emil Kantra admitted last week that Richardson's
study is flawed.
In
a March 26 letter to Elliott, Kantra wrote: "After reviewing the
testing data as requested by me, Mr. Richardson reported to me that
his prior reports and testimony were, in fact, in error"
Neither
Richardson nor Kantra returned telephone messages seeking comment Tuesday.
Richardson's
study employed the Traffic Noise Model, a computer model for projecting
noise level that is generally accepted among engineers.
The
design of the study was to measure existing ambient noise levels at
a number of key locations outside the resort site, use TNM to predict
what noise levels would be while the road course is in use, and compare
the results. In this way, Richardson determined that the noise increase
would be no greater than 4.9 decibels.
The
problem with Richardson's study, all parties now agree, was that the
measured and predicted noise levels did not employ the same scale.
Elliott
said there are two scales on which to measure noise levels -- one using
A-weighted decibel units and the other using linear, un-weighted units.
He said TNM gives results in A-weighted units, but the ambient noise
levels were measured in linear units.
Elliott
said the error resulted in ambient noise measurements that were 10-20
decibels higher than they would have been recorded using the A-weighted
scale. Thus, he said, the projected noise increases would have been
10-20 decibels greater had ambient noise been measured on the correct
scale.
Additionally,
Elliott said the information that the scales did not match was discovered
after documents were subpoenaed from Traffic Planning and Design and
that Richardson's noise studies falsely represented that ambient noise
measurements were taken in A-weighted units. He said Alpine Rose tried
to quash the subpoena.
Elliott's
claims are based on the representations of Appalachian Trail Conference
acoustics expert Christopher Menge. Elliott said Menge has about 30
years experience in the field and was one of the developers of the TNM
computer model.
In
a letter to Kantra and township Solicitor Wieslaw Niemoczynski dated
March 25, Elliott quotes a memorandum he received from Menge:
"As
you know, TNM calculates A-weighted sound levels, therefore the computed
A-weighted noise from the proposed driving course is being compared
to un-weighted levels -- an apples to oranges comparison."
Elliott
said resort opponents are asking the court to overturn supervisors'
grant of preliminary approval to the project and are also contesting
supervisors' refusal to consider a challenge to the township's subdivision
and land development law. The challenges are partially based on the
Pennsylvania Appalachian Trail Act, which requires municipalities through
which the trail runs to protect it.
The
Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources has filed
a friend of the court brief in support of resort opponents.
In
correspondence to Elliott and Niemoczynski dated March 28, Kantra said
he intends to ask for a continuance of Monday's scheduled court proceedings
to allow time for another engineering firm to take ambient noise readings
using the proper scale. Elliott said he will oppose the request.
Reporter
Wayne Fishman can be reached at 610-258-7171 or by e-mail at wfishman@express-times.com.
This article
reprinted from The Easton Express-Times at http://www.pennlive.com/expresstimes/
