Noise monitoring goes virtual

The World Wide Web holds information on just about everything. You can now track our noise performance online.

Now at the click of a button, information can also be accessed on HIsmelt's® noise monitoring results.

After a year of technical work developing a way for the results to be available online, an environmental monitoring section has been added to HIsmelt's website with recent trials proving successful.

By logging on, community members working and living near the facility can see the results from one of the three ambient noise monitoring units placed in the vicinity of the operation.

The type of data recorded by the monitors has a very technical name - "Sound Pressure Levels (SPL) A weighted" - which simply means it measures what the average person would hear if they were standing at that location.

HIsmelt Environmental Advisor Sean Parker says the online noise monitoring system is the first of its kind in Western Australia and works on a 24-hour cycle.

"Noise monitoring is an extremely complex science, particularly when it comes to accurately determining its source," says Sean.

"To best understand how complex trying to measure cumulative noise is, imagine standing in the middle of a pond and three different sized rocks are randomly thrown in around you."

"As the ripples expand they'll overlap before reaching you in the centre making it hard to determine the individual source of the ripples, the larger of these ripples ultimately being the most prominent wave received. Very simply put, this is how the monitors receive the sound."

"So, to assist in determining where the sound is coming from, we have two graphs on the website, one showing ambient noise measured by the monitors and the second showing wind direction, as wind direction is one of the many extremely important variables influencing the spread of noise from a particular source."

"If the ambient noise recorded on the graph exceeds a certain level we can cross reference the timing of the increase with process data, a second monitors' data located very close to the plant and the wind conditions at the time to help determine if our operation contributed to the spike."

"We are very pleased to be able to make our environmental monitoring results, such as noise, available to the public as part of our ongoing commitment to transparent environmental management," says Sean.