Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Noise pollution

It takes a special type of person to build a home next to one of the largest military training facilities on the East coast, and then bitch about the noise.

These people think that Fort A.P. Hill owes them our tax money to fix their house because they were too stupid to think that the vibration from our warriors practicing their deadly craft on base would cause nail pops on their drywall.

This sums up everything:
"We came here expecting a quiet place. "
Yah, right next to a freaking military base. Geniuses, these two.

But then we have a man ironically named Boyd Wisdom who says:
"How could something so powerful and destructive be approved without an [environmental assessment] and public hearing? I would like to know what they are doing." He suggests that there is no location on base where that noise could be mitigated.
He's talking about a line charge, which is used to destroy mine fields.

Honestly, we have military bases for a reason, like for letting Soldiers and Marines use powerful and destructive things without having to get public permission to do so. Did he think that in building a house next to such an establishment that everything would just quiet down?

The more I keep reading the article, the more I shake my head:
"With 76,000 acres, you'd think they could figure out where to put this training" so as to not affect neighbors, said William Smith, a retired government worker, who moved to Portobago Bay 11 years ago with his wife, Sandra.
Well, with 3,794,066 square miles of United States, you would think that he would have figured out that putting up a house next to where bombs are dropped would be a stupid idea, but you would be wrong:
"We're all 100 percent behind the military. We understand. But this being the only place to do it? We know that's not true." They say they've contacted Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Rob Wittman about the noise.
Seriously? Excuse me mister G.I., but why do you have to drop your bombs so loud on that federal base made exclusively for dropping bombs? Why don't you drop them some where else?

The answer is because they built the base to drop bombs, and if the US Army decides to appease these folks and un-ass the base and move elsewhere, clueless citizens will build houses next to it and bitch about the noise.

1 comment:

flashman said...

My VARNG unit used to fire 105 and 155 howitzers at AP Hill. Back in those days there weren't any housing developments around. So people buy houses next to an existing Army post and expect quiet? We live probably 10 - 12 miles as the crow flies from Quantico and can hear HE when they're firing big guns.