Airboat noise < click here to hear!
Ever been overwhelmed or disturbed by prop blast on what was going to be a quiet kayak paddle, while fishing on your boat, during a lake-side walk, or just while lounging on your back porch? Well, some folks in central Florida have had enough:
- The Sierra Club Suwannee/St. Johns Group and Quiet Lakes of Alachua County (www.QuietLakesofAlachuaCounty.com), collected the necessary petitions last spring, placed a proposed nighttime curfew (7pm-7am) on the November ballot, and won the vote for the ordinance, 56% to 44%.(38,000 voters); the ordinance went into effect on 1/1/11.
- In the first week of the 2011 legislative session in Tallahassee, state Senator Steve Oelrich filed a bill that essentially would nullify the hard-earned ordinance. The proposed statute overrules the voter-approved ordinance -- and raises the noise level allowed for airboats limited in a prior statute, from 90 dBa to 107 dBa. The Senator and ex-sheriff stated on TV that this bill will, "reduce the noise allowed for airboats." Hello!?
- Comparative loudness is tough to represent. But most of us know what is really loud noise. For a reference table, click here.
- A detailed talking points essay is posted on the Sierra Club Florida website, Florida.SierraClub.org, (click thru from the home page), along with contact information for the politicians and committees.
All concerned citizens are implored to communicate with these politicians who are attempting to trammel HOME RULE for Florida's local governments -- and who seem to have no sensibility for quiet in nature.
Thanks,
Whitey Markle, Conservation Chair
2 comments:
Airboats have been around for many, many years. They do make noise the same as airplanes, trains. sirens, helicopters, harleys, stock cars, etc. When people buy a home one of the first things that should be considered is location. If you buy a house by an airport, your going to have planes flying over all day and all night. If you buy a house next to a RR track your going to be awakened at night by an ocasional train going by. If you live in the city your going to have sirens and bump, bump music blaring. If you take away, and discriminate the airboats in time the gator popultion will continue to grow until eventually your pets and children will become victoms, and probably a few kayacers. Why does everyone talk about how we are losing more and more of our freedom each day, alot of it is brought on by ourselves. Airboaters aren't all alike, the same as any other groups. You have a few bad apples that make the whole batch look bad. Most airboaters are good people that also enjoy nature, and help to keep nature in check. There is no prop in the water damaging the manatees, and plant growth, and polluting the water. The vegatation airboats run on is the same vegatation that we taxpayers pay companies big money to remove so we can run our water polluting outbourds. Airboats have many valuable assets, and because of being a minority are being discriminated upon by the majority of people who have probley never even taken a ride on one. Do you think airports are going to shut down at 7:00 PM because of poeople who bought a house at the end of the runway don't like hearing them? Do you think the railways,and the harleys, and the kids being kids are all going to just go away? No, there will always be something that we don't like, but if we all try and work together, we can all enjoy nature, but by banning airboats after 7:00 PM is discrimitory and the effects will be felt by those enforcing it. Take a look at how many gator tags are selling for Orange lake and Lochloosa.
MyFWC.com/alligator.
The past 7 years have sold out in as little as the first 30 minutes, not this year, no arboats at night.
Just my opinion, not looking for trouble with anyone, just think more important issues should be consentrated on rather than taking away a privledge that has been here for more years than all of us.
Thanks for listening, Mark Fowler
jmc8778@yahoo.com
The best way to silence an airboat is to use the hearing protection as a bullseye for a head shot
Post a Comment