Countywide : Airport May Get New Noise Monitors

A proposal to install a new noise monitoring system for airplanes departing John Wayne Airport will go before the Board of Supervisors today. The $1.2-million system would replace the 15-year-old technology now used at the airport.

“Noise has been a very, very important issue with us,” said Courtney Wiercioch, an airport employee who works with the community on noise concerns. “We have one of the most stringent noise control regulations of any airport in the country.”

The decibel level of a departing airplane cannot exceed 101.5--about the same as an average lawn mower, she said.

The proposed monitoring system, consisting of 10 devices set up in Newport’s Back Bay area, would be installed and maintained by Larson Davis Laboratories. The devices are metal poles with microphones at the top and electronic boxes at the base, Wiercioch said.

The monitors, connected to a main computer at the airport, would record the noise from the airplanes daily. Every three months, airport officials come up with a quarterly average of the noise levels, and if the noise exceeds the levels required by the county, the airlines are sanctioned or a fine is imposed.

“But that rarely happens,” Wiercioch said.

She said a noise level agreement was reached in 1985 between the surrounding community and the county, and that there are very few problems.

The money to pay for the new system would come from the airport’s operating fund.