Guns, MPP, and Delegates all produce Harmful Noise.

What guns, concert promoter Seth Hurwitz of I.M.P. Productions, and MPP management all have in common is they each produce I.M.Pairment by Harmful Noise. By degrading hearing, causing tinnitus, impairing heart health, inducing carb-craving, and violating the sanctity of our homes, they are preventing rest, renewal and the enjoyment of our property.

The Howard County Delegation has added their own harmful noise to Ken Ulman's and MPP's insistence on the concert venue getting a "Special Exception" to 2012 MD Gen'l Assembly's HB-190, which went into effect October 1 2012, not yet tested in a concert season, in which MD counties maintain Noise Ordinances locally. The state gave counties the power to enforce noise laws and collect fines up to $10,000 for infractions.

Our local leadership is selling out hearing, health, and our peace and security at home. The Town Center Community Association board with dozens of citizens from six of Columbia's villages provided testimony the Delegation ignored to submit MPP's bill. The Howard County Council could be soliciting input from the Health Department, Environmental Health department, and local citizens, many of whom leave their homes with their children over entire weekends or else hide in their basements running TV's and other noise sources loudly enough to disguise MPP concerts.

Residents from many Columbia villages and Allview Estates report being unable to open windows or be outdoors at their homes in the summer over many years. Now Maryland Delegates in the Environmental Matters committee are considering HB-1514, which would codify MPP's acoustic assaults and open the rest of the state to special exceptions from bars, casinos, and clubs.

Harmful Noise levels at the Mall, restaurants, and movie theaters are not regulated at all because they are "private property." In other attractive places to live like Portland OR, San Francisco CA, and Tampa FL, police and city governments require venues to install sound mitigation or barrier walls and to pay yearly for independent monitoring to protect residents.

• HB-1514 doubles the allowable sound pressure crossing residential property lines, thousands of which are apartments, townhouses, and condominiums with no acoustic buffer zone. Over 24,000 children under 18 live in these residences.

• Levels would be allowed to rise from 64 dBA (a conversation at 3 feet or a lawnmower at 10 m distance) to 72.5 dBA (unsilenced wood-shredder at 10 m) for HOURS or ALL DAY.  HB-1514 allows this additional impact until 11:30 pm (from 10 pm).

• The bill specifies no entity responsible to monitor sound levels at or around MPP. Tampa FL requires an outdoor amphitheatre in Hillsborough County to provide $50,000 & more for independent monitoring, after it required it to spend $2.4 million to construct sound barrier walls around its perimeter.

• The bill does not address the need to lessen damage from pounding bass and subwoofer amplification to persons and property, including rattling windows which is not allowed by aircraft. Guy Guzzone, a sponsor of the bill, and Frank Turner have both said they can feel the deep bass vibrations and hear loud sounds from MPP at their homes in Kings’ Contrivance village: 4½ miles away from Merriweather!

• This bill allows 95 dBA for 1/4 mile radius around MPP. To prevent hearing loss at 94 dBA, permissible exposure is one hour. Concerts last 2 – 3 hours. All-day “festival” events last 10 to 12 hours, plus set-up time.

• Hundreds of residents live within the ¼ mile where this bill would permit the 95 dBA from 9 am to 11:30 pm: Town Center and Hickory Ridge villages.

• To prevent hearing loss, this bill requires children, parents and families to wear ear protection in their own homes for hours at a time. Risk of heart attack and stroke rises exponentially: 300% for women, 50% for men.

• Sound levels in this bill interfere with residents’ ability to enjoy their homes, let alone productively work there, which requires 40 dBA or less, according to the EPA. Most operators of loud equipment are required to wear ear protection by MOSH and OSHA and advised to wear it by CDC and EPA.

• The bill increases the time for damaging impacts from MPP’s sound levels that:
  • rattle residents’ windows,
  • startle babies into crying loudly,
  • waken children repeatedly,
  • raise blood pressure,
  • increase heart attack and stroke risk, and
  • create a public nuisance more damaging than air pollution.

• Hearing protection is not provided for employees of MPP, concessionaires, vendors, or Howard County Police; nor for ticket-buying concert-goers. Since 2002 San Francisco police have required venues to install sound mitigation, provide hearing protection for venue attendees, and provide water at no charge wherever dancing is permitted.

C.H.O.R.D.S: Community Health Over-Rides Disruptive Sound.