Noise Issues

The Highland Companies intends to blast 6 days per week, drill 7 days per week,
 crush stone 7 days per week, load trucks 7 days per week,with truck movements in and out of the quarry 7 days per week, and has used a benchmark of 150 trucks per hour each way, or 7,200 trucks per day, although Highland has not said that this is a maximum. Other than blasting, Highland intends to operate 24 hours per day.

We live in a quiet, peaceful rural area with very little ambient noise. In such an atmosphere, noise and vibrations travel very far, and their force is exacerbated. A noise that would otherwise be substantially drowned out by ambient noise in an urban area will be heard over greater distances in a rural setting such as ours. The applicant’s materials and studies do not adequately take these differences into account. There are many references to decibel levels, but they are measured in absolute terms and do not appear to adequately take into account the greater distance that sound travels in a flat, quiet and open country side. A significant amount of the decibel level testing appears to be centred on the areas immediately adjacent to the County Road 124 traffic, and do not adequately take into account receptor areas that are distanced from that highway, nor do they appear to measure ambient decibel levels that exist late into the evening, overnight or in the early morning, when sound levels, even at the highway area are at much reduced levels due to limited traffic. This notwithstanding that the application contemplates being operated 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.