State group to make recommendations on turbine noise regulations

Massachusetts panel to include turbine neighbour and acoustician Stephen Ambrose

State group to make recommendations on turbine noise regulations | SouthCoastToday.com:

Recognizing potential shortfalls of current noise regulations, the state Department of Environmental Protection has formed an advisory group to help steer the agency's policy.
The 16-member technical advisory group includes acousticians, public health professionals, representatives of the wind industry and a neighbor to the Falmouth Wind turbines. The group will consider changes to MassDEP noise regulations and policy as they relate to wind turbines.
"It is an acknowledgement that noise from wind turbines is different," DEP spokesman Edmund Coletta said.
In Massachusetts, any noise source is considered in violation of noise regulations if it is more than 10 decibels louder than ambient noise, or the background noise level of a particular area or neighborhood. Those regulations do not take into account the different nature of noise from wind turbines, which many say can be more irritating because of its "wooshing" quality, called amplitude modulation.
"When the blades are spinning, the sound is different; the amplitude modulation makes it different," Coletta said. "That's really what the group is looking at more than anything else."

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