August 25, 2014
In an effort for the Village and its residents to better evaluate the noise disturbance from bridge construction, Village officials met this morning with representatives of Brüel and Kjær, a manufacturer of sophisticated sound monitoring equipment. The Village has begun a trial of the company’s equipment and now has access to independent, real-time monitoring of noise.
The new system has been initially sited next to the existing Thruway Authority-sponsored sound monitor station at Salisbury Point. This will help us check for correlation between the two systems. We are working with the Thruway’s environmental compliance team to arrange to allow us to monitor some of the specific construction activities that have been especially noisy.
The data stream from the Brüel and Kjær monitor provides a real-time noise reading every one second, so should better capture the true level of noise associated with pile-driving and other construction. The data stream is available for instant viewing at this public website: http://southnyack.tr1.noisesentinel.com/ (depending upon your browser, you may need to enable browser interactivity software). (We’ll add a link to this site from the Village website.) On the website map, the number inside the circle gives the instantaneous noise level and the graphs show the second-by-second noise over recent hours. During periods of loud noise an audio clip is automatically recorded – click the music note symbol on the lower graph to play the clip. For comparison, noise data from the Thruway Authority stations, available at http://newnybridgegallery.com/noise/rockland.php, is averaged over a 15-second time window and is posted on-line after a delay of about 30 minutes.
The new noise-monitoring equipment allows Village officials and residents to gain an independent and more accurate evaluation of the impact of bridge construction noise. Our environmental consultant, Brook Crossan,will also access the new data.
Our thanks to Brüel and Kjær and Brook Crossan.
Bonnie Christian