Dear Editor:
Re: Noise is 'anti-us', Burnaby NOW, Nov. 30.
Noise is all around us. It is easy for people to have read the article and dismissed it as another case of someone whining about something.
Fact is, the ones who dismiss it the easiest are usually the ones that don't have someone in their neighbourhood in the middle of the night making a constant racket while they try to sleep. In a basic sense, I do.
The article seemed to be focused in on the most recent of the incredible procession on noise-making devices that has visitied my neighbourhood, the concrete pumper.
I have, in fact, had to deal with multiple large excavators which were used in the demolition of the old building and the digging of the foundation pit, an industrial rock crusher used to break the old building concrete into small, manageable pieces, a long procession of dumptrucks, dumpsters and demolition bin trucks into which large amounts of debris where often noisily dumped, pneumatic industrial rock drills even Worksafe B.C. says are too loud, and finally concrete pumpers and concrete mixers that rev their engines for hours. In the article, the City of Burnaby assistant director of engineering and environmental services, Dipak Dattani, said that there were measures taken to reduce the noise of the concrete pumper.
That effort has been that they now lay several pieces of blue styrofoam insulation in a haphazard fashion against the side of the pumper truck. This effort blocks little if no noise at all.
The trucks and other vehicles are not the only culprits in this. There are the workers themselves.
The construction industry seems to be allowed to make a great deal of noise for some reason. One can speculate on the reasons, but there does seem to be very little will on the part of city politicians to interfere with or change things. These construction projects bring in millions of dollars to the city coffers, is there a reluctance to upset that income stream?
Quieter constuction methods and equipment must be out there, why are they not employed? Is it too costly for the development companies to use them, which would interfere with the millions of dollars they stand to make from each of these projects?
All I have asked for is the same protection that everyone who works the typical 9-to-5 job gets. Not everyone in this society works the same hours. Some of us have to stay up late so that the rest can have their world working properly when they get up in the morning.
Brian Martyn, Burnaby
