Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve: Acoustical monitoring report

Pipkin, Ashley

Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve (EBLA), a unit of the National Park Service (NPS), is located approximately five miles south of the Naval Air Station (NAS) Whidbey Island. The Department of the Navy (Navy) is proposing to increase the number of EA-18G Growlers (Growlers) stationed at NAS Whidbey Island (Revised Notice of Intent, 2014). The National Park Service and Navy met in March 2015 to discuss operations on Whidbey Island and potential impacts of Growler noise at the reserve. The NPS and Navy agreed that additional acoustic information, collected at the Reserve, would be beneficial for the NPS to adequately respond to the NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) document being prepared by the Navy. In July 2015, NPS started acoustic data collection. Natural and cultural sounds are integral to ecosystem function and are one of the many resources and values that NPS managers are responsible for preserving and restoring. NPS evaluates federal actions that may impact the human and natural environment within our public lands. The acoustic environment of national park units, like air, water or wildlife, is a valuable resource that can quickly be substantially harmed by inappropriate sound levels and frequencies. Intrusive sounds are of concern to the management of the national park system because they can impede on the ability to accomplish the NPS mission of resource protection and public enjoyment. Anthropogenic noise may also disrupt ecosystem processes by interfering with predator prey relationships and the ability of wildlife to communicate, establish territory, reproduce, support and protect offspring (Siemers and Schaub, 2011; Schroeder et al., 2012; McClure et al., 2013). Visitors to many NPS units come with expectations of seeing, hearing, and experiencing phenomena associated with a specific natural or cultural environment, yet in many cases these environments are being increasingly impacted by anthropogenic noise altering their experience (Lynch, Joyce, and Fristrup, 2011). Two acoustic monitoring systems were set up and recorded data for 28 days on NPS property in the Reserve. The systems were deployed near the Reuble Farmstead (EBLA001) and adjacent to Ebey’s Landing at the Ferry House (EBLA002). These systems collected continuous audio and sound pressure level (SPL) data for 731 hours and 741 hours respectively. A total of 1,853 Growler overflight events were identified during the measurement period. A single deployment of a Growler may have resulted in multiple events depending on the flight path.

Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve: Acoustical monitoring report

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