Yakima, WA Wal-Mart Supercenter Store Noise Study Report (2004)

Topics: Environment | Traffic/Sprawl | Hiring an Expert

This developer-produced report concludes that, with some mitigation, the noise generated by trash compactors, trailer truck deliveries, garbage truck collection, pneumatic tire wrenches, roof-top HVAC, parking lot sweepers, and customer vehicles for a 24 hours a 65 day, 7 days a week Wal-Mart Supercenter, will have no significant noise impact and will meet state and city codes for noise limits. Rather than being an illustration of a noise impact study, this 38-page report is an excellent example of: why we need independent studies. Using “hourly statistical noise levels” as a way to manipulate their noise level data, some of the findings include:

• …there will only be 13 heavy trucks arriving at the store during a normal week. Since each truck arrival event uses only one-third of an hour, the arrival of 13 heavy trucks involves only 4.3 hours, or 4% of the 120 hours in the Monday to Friday period.

• Pneumatic tire wrenches in the auto center operate intermittently for no more than 12 minutes or 20% of an hourly period. This amount of time is required to
service 9 cars per hour in the 3-car bay of the automotive center, with 4 tires being serviced per car, 5 wheel nuts being loosened and tightened per car, and 2 seconds of pneumatic wrench operation per nut loosening or tightening.

• People who move into the new residences built on the new lots will not experience an increase in the ambient noise levels because the store generated noise levels will be present before the residents arrive.

The best response to this typical developer-friendly document is to find your own noise expert to challenge the report’s methodology, findings, and conclusions. Another approach is to see that that the selection of a noise engineer is out of the hands of Wal-Mart’s developer. In this case, the City of Yakima required the developer to produce a noise impact study as part of an environmental impact statement (EIS), and to determine if any noise mitigation measures are needed. Under such circumstances, the self-serving response is no surprise.