Project:
Bahama Rock, the largest mining operation in the vicinity of Freeport, Bahamas, has been mining aggregate resources for many years. From the original quarry in the 1970s to current years, Bahama Rock mining has produced quality material and, at the same time, created Freeport Harbor. Because the harbor will become one of the largest container ports in the western hemisphere, the production of aggregate, harbor development, and shipping of materials must be balanced with community relations.
Problem:
Community relations efforts in neighborhoods adjacent to the mining identified noise levels as an issue that could potentially affect the community. Efforts to monitor the noise had to take into account multiple days of operations, weekends, noise from the community, and the port itself. Compounding the noise evaluation was the fact that the neighborhoods and mining operation are directly under the flight path into Freeport International Airport. Bahama Rock needed a comprehensive evaluation of community noise.
Solution:
With blasting operations already monitored by GeoSonics/Vibra-Tech's Re:mote seismograph system, an expansion of the technology into noise monitoring was the solution. The Re:mote system is versatile in logging data from multiple sources, so this allowed for noise monitoring and incorporated Type 1 (Laboratory Grade) integrating sound level meters. Noise could then be recorded and presented in multiple formats.
By installing three Re:mote units in the adjacent community, noise was measured over multiple 24-hour periods. This type of monitoring alleviates the need for portable units to monitor short-term noise and allows a full-community evaluation to be performed. Combining noise measurement and noise modeling allowed Bahama Rock to evaluate noise with a greater focus on their neighbors.
