The Quietest Place in America Is Becoming a Warzone

August 14, 2018 7:34 AM

After years of painstaking acoustic measurements, Hempton identified this spot on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula as the quietest place in the U.S.—the spot most free of our man-made noise pollution. He has nurtured this square inch, guided people to it, and protected it from encroaching cacophony of our modern world. But now it faces its biggest threat yet.
posted by ellieBOA (20 comments total)

Previously.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:43 AM on August 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

"Now"

This has been under "discussion" for some time now.
posted by humboldt32 at 8:50 AM on August 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Good luck arguing with the Navy about overflight noise. I once assisted in a lawsuit against the FAA regarding overflight noise from commercial flights over a remote Indian reservation. We lost on "public health and safety" grounds, regardless of the merits of our case.

Anyone who goes up against the Navy on noise issues is likely to lose on "national security" grounds unless they can prove that the noise has significant effects on endangered species or other specially protected resources. Generalized emotional disturbance will not suffice: the Navy gets a lot of deference in this sort of situation.

That said, I hope they can win this argument, because a flight every 5-10 minutes sounds utterly intolerable, and the effects on sensitive species are certain, if hard to calculate.
posted by suelac at 9:10 AM on August 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

Despite the mounting pile of evidence that noise is pollution, the government doesn’t really treat it as such. The Environmental Protection Agency launched an Office of Noise Abatement and Control in 1972, two years after the agency came into existence. Its purpose was to study noise pollution and enforce the Noise Control Act created that same year. Yet the office was wiped out by Reagan just nine years later in an unprecedented move.

Welp.
posted by asperity at 9:36 AM on August 14, 2018 [12 favorites]

Oh man, I was camping on Whidbey Island a few weeks ago and those Growlers are crazy loud (you feel it in your whole body) and keep going until midnight. Very sad to hear the Olympic Peninsula is also being polluted by that noise.
posted by borsboom at 11:21 AM on August 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

In the article is another fascinating thing to consider: what's the furthest distance you can get from a road in the lower 48 (a scant 19 miles!) Here's the Peakbagger list of most far-flung locations in the U.S..

Last month, my friends and I hiked packrafts in to spot #4 on the list, the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana (15.6 miles from the nearest road). It was absolutely gorgeous and truly remote--which is just what we wanted.

That is, until one of our party snapped a dead standing tree that had been seasoned to rock-hardness, and it sprung up so forcefully that it split his lip and cheek open, badly, on the first night of a planned 5-night hike and paddle.

We sat there field triaging him with our paltry assortment of butterfly bandages and an airplane bottle of mouthwash someone had brought, trying to figure out the best move (hike back uphill 14 miles to the trailhead, where we had no car and no cell reception? Forge ahead, double-time, hoping the ranger station 20 miles downstream was staffed and able to stitch him up or radio a helicopter?), we truly felt the remoteness of the region in a way that I never have before.

The trip ended up working great--we walked out the next morning, passed one other group of backpackers who ended up giving us the keys to their car(!) so we could get our friend to the ER; we put in at another more accessible point on the Flathead River, paddled for three days and went to Glacier National Park for an afternoon. Phenomenal trip: my friend has a scar but survived and was able to do the impromptu itinerary with us.

Great link, thanks!
posted by andromache at 12:20 PM on August 14, 2018 [9 favorites]

Scientists have found that airguns used to survey for oil underwater cause reef fish to scatter or cower in fear. Their use was outlawed by Obama, but Trump is planning to reverse that decision.

GAH!
posted by numaner at 2:44 PM on August 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

I realize that this Square Inch of Silence might have symbolic significance for a cause, but frankly, I find it kind of silly. It's not that hard to get to places that are away from all man-made noise. I have done it regularly without much effort. But there is virtually nowhere that an occasional airplane doesn't fly over, even if it is once a day, week or month.
posted by JackFlash at 2:44 PM on August 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

my friend has a scar but survived

Such is how tales of greatest glory are born! Or bar stories. Whatever you want to call them.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:46 PM on August 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

I dunno, JackFlash, from inside my house I routinely hear the Whidbey Island Growlers taking off, and I live 60 kilometers away, in another country. This is nothing like a commercial aircraft. Can you imagine what it would be like in an otherwise silent rainforest?
posted by Rumple at 3:57 PM on August 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Oh, I agree that having military jets flying over wilderness areas is annoying. I'm just disputing the idea that there is anything spectacularly special about this one Square Inch of Silence. There are a lot of quiet areas.
posted by JackFlash at 4:47 PM on August 14, 2018

> I'm just disputing the idea that there is anything spectacularly special about this one Square Inch of Silence. There are a lot of quiet areas.

Indeed. But very few places where they conduct Naval Electronic Warfare Training exercises, using "mobile training emitters". And THAT'S the real point here. This Square Inch would be just as affected as any square inch anywhere by such callous disregard by the Navy for the its neighbors.
posted by humboldt32 at 5:07 PM on August 14, 2018

It's just a focal point for the legitimate interest in protecting the natural serenity of the area. That said, it probably is hard to find an unpopulated coastal area (if that's what's needed) that isn't worth protecting for the same reasons (although maybe not as worthy as this particular rainforest).
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:07 PM on August 14, 2018

On one level, all this effort can seem a bit like NIMBYism. If Hempton, Smith, Youngberg, and others succeed in getting the jets routed around Olympic or convince the Navy to fly training missions from other bases, the flights will just piss off another community and stress out other wildlife. There’s always going to be a sonic sacrifice zone.

It's not NIBYism if we solve the problem by abolishing the military. Not on the menu right now, obviously, but just saying.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 5:11 PM on August 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

vibratory manner of working

Eponypertinent.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:57 PM on August 14, 2018

andromache: "In the article is another fascinating thing to consider: what's the furthest distance you can get from a road in the lower 48 (a scant 19 miles!) "

This was a real wow for me. BC does a lot better (mostly in the mountainous north naturally) but that is still a pretty astonishing number. There has been some effort to revert this state here in BC and next door in Alberta with some park areas that used to be open to motorized traffic being converted to roadless parks.
posted by Mitheral at 6:54 PM on August 14, 2018

From the comments after the article, here is a sample of the sound of that silence and an opportunity to buy more as a way of supporting their efforts.
posted by TreeRooster at 7:36 PM on August 14, 2018

I know people who have hiked the Thorofare (linked by andromache above) and can attest that, unless you count a ranger mule train or another group of hikers doing the loop alongside/counter to you, it's remoter than hell.

I've personally done Union Falls, which is close to #14 on that list and can also say that it felt like a far cry from humanity, I think partly because it was the first hike I've taken with a major stream crossing (like, not just take off your boots/socks, but take off your pack and have an exit strategy if things went wrong) on the way in/out. Bonus points for the fact that you can see wagon tracks from steel rimmed wagon wheels worn into the rocks at some points along the trail on the way in.

It makes me happy to see several Yellowstone sites on that list and, regarding the point of the OP's post/link, I think it bears mentioning that, at least as I understand it, YNP is immune from flyovers from planes, at least I noticed a much smaller number (if any?) of them while I worked there. The one exception was a lifeflight chopper out of Old Faithful one day, I didn't work at that location and I'm sure they had those more frequently than once a summer but you get the idea. Further googling of the subject seems to be mixed between strongly discouraged to 2000 ft AGL to 5000 ft AGL, so maybe I'm wrong on this. Regardless, once you're a few miles from the roads you'd think you were a hundred. I haven't been to Canada or Alaska or Patagonia but I imagine it's a similar feeling for mere mortals like myself.
posted by RolandOfEld at 8:10 PM on August 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Commercial air tours over national parks are restricted. [PDF]
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:38 PM on August 14, 2018

what's the furthest distance you can get from a road in the lower 48 (a scant 19 miles!) Here's the Peakbagger list of most far-flung locations in the U.S..

No, it's the largest circles that can be inscribed within the boundary lines of a congressionally designated Wilderness area. It does not correspond to the largest roadless areas in the lower 48 because many non-wilderness areas are also roadless and are farther from a road.

They didn't look at roads at all. They just looked at the boundaries of all Wilderness areas on a map and drew the largest circle that would fit inside of it. It doesn't tell you anything about the maximum distance from a road other than that you won't (usually) find one within the circle.
posted by JackFlash at 10:06 PM on August 14, 2018