Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, CA

Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center (MCAGCC) Twentynine Palms strives to engage with community stakeholders early and often to mitigate incompatible development surrounding military installations in San Bernardino County. MCAGCC Twentynine Palms developed an effective Sound Reporting program, where individuals can report excessive or disruptive noises. Individuals and groups experiencing noise impacts can call or email designated mailboxes and will receive a follow-up call from the Range Sustainability Program Manager to discuss their concerns and answer questions. In practice, the Range Sustainability Program Manager will also follow up with the appropriate directorate if a complaint does not align with scheduled training activities. MCAGCC's team also provides routine updates via social media, local radio, newspaper publications, and the installation's website. Participation in community meetings and events provide additional opportunity for the MCAGCC Twentynine Palms to inform and educate the public, as well as learn more about how military training noise affects the community. Targeted informational products that inform why and how military activities create noise are developed based on the most frequent noise issues and concerns unique to the base.

https://www.29palms.marines.mil/News/Sound-Advisories/

Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Beaufort, SC

Since 1960, Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Beaufort has served as a home station for military jet aircraft. Air operations have been a routine presence in Beaufort County and the surrounding area since the air station's inception. Pilots using the MCAS Beaufort airfield conduct approaches and landings not practical elsewhere in the region to meet their proficiency and critical training requirements. To address community interest, the air station established a Noise Inquiry Program. MCAS Beaufort officials direct all inquiries and noise complaints to the Community Hotline, and inquiry forms are also available on MCAS Beaufort's website. MCAS Beaufort's staff addresses questions and concerns as quickly as possible and maintains a log of all the inquiries received. If information from these channels indicates something unexpected, staff apply additional scrutiny and further investigate the claim.

Individuals are encouraged to leave the time, date, location, direction of flight, how many aircraft and their description, such as one or two tails, color, jet or propeller, and any other details, and to indicate if they would like a return phone call. MCAS Beaufort also created a comprehensive brochure to educate the public about its operations beyond the Noise inquiry Program, which includes answers to commonly asked questions and operational significance of the air station. These efforts make information readily available to MCAS Beaufort's stakeholders and establishes two-way communication between parties interested in learning more about the air station's activities.

https://www.beaufort.marines.mil/

Fort Benning, GA

Fort Benning, GA fires more ammunition than any other Army installation in the country and frequently conducts prescribed burns in order to manage training lands and prevent wildfires that have the potential to impact nearby communities. To keep nearby communities informed of these training activities and events, Fort Benning maintains a website where public notices are posted along with a calendar of training/prescribed burn events and an interactive map of the ranges at Fort Benning. Community members can access the event calendar and know exactly what activities are taking place on a particular day, where those activities are taking place, and what types of ammunition or weapons are being fired on range. Using the interactive map, community members can locate the area where training events are occurring and see videos of the activities, along with a description.

http://www.benning.army.mil/garrison/SmokeandSound/

Hill Air Force Base Shares Noise FAQs with the Utah Community

Operations flying out of Hill Air Force Base (AFB) number approximately 45,000 operations annually, with many aircraft flying to the nearby Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR), which includes 12,574 square nautical miles of airspace and 2.3 million acres of Department of Defense-owned (DoD) training and testing land supporting the DoD mission. Noise from mission activities can have an impact on the estimated 1.14 million people living in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area. To help nearby community members better understand the noise impacts they are experiencing, Hill AFB has developed a Noise FAQ document that explains why residents hear noise on or around Hill AFB or the UTTR, to include examples of the missions going on at the sites, and how the installation minimizes its noise impact on the community.

https://www.hill.af.mil/Portals/58/documents/Hill%20AFB%20Noise%20FAQ%20-%20Aug%202018.pdf

Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, NC

MCB Camp Lejeune strives to keep neighbors informed about on-base training activities by releasing a weekly noise report every Friday listing any potential noise generating events on the base's public website. Staff monitor and collect data on short-duration noise events to ensure live fire operations do not repeatedly exceed recommended peak decibel levels. Additionally, MCB Camp Lejeune maintains a dedicated noise hotline where individuals can address all concerns regarding noise, vibration, excessive dust, low-flying aircraft, and/or maneuver damage. The base also responds and engages with noise-related feedback received on social media platforms and in the local media, including letters to the editor, editorials, and blogs. Social media has allowed MCB Camp Lejeune to directly respond to comments and reach large groups within the community. MCB Camp Lejeune has received positive feedback from the community when updates are posted about large-scale exercise and training that may generate significant amounts of noise, especially during the spring and summer months when limited night training is conducted during established quiet hours.

Hammocks Beach State Park is located roughly 30 miles away from Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in Swansboro, North Carolina. To avoid interfering with park visitors' ability to enjoy their surroundings, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ) asked the Maine Corps to establish measures for eliminating overflights and addressing the noise signature from the base. After capturing community comments from the base's Range Operations Environmental Assessment and North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation officials, the Marine Corps worked with NCDEQ to develop an engaging poster to be placed at the dock and the Bear Island Pavilion within Hammocks Beach State Park. This poster is intended to educate park visitors about the different aircraft and heavy weapons systems they may hear when attending Hammocks Beach State Park. Involving NCDEQ in the poster's creation allowed the Marine Corps to strengthen its relationship with the surrounding community through a low-cost solution.

https://www.lejeune.marines.mil/News/Noise-Advisories

Naval Air Station Meridian, MS

NAS Meridian partnered with Lauderdale County to post signs near areas exposed to higher levels of aircraft noise from nearby military training activity. The CPLO worked with the County to determine where to post the signs, using the AICUZ noise contour map. The signs have helped inform new home buyers, lessees, and realtors of areas exposed to higher levels of long-term aircraft noise exposure . While new home buyers may not be aware the airfield or the AICUZ maps, the signs are hard to miss.

Atlantic Test Ranges, Naval Air Station Patuxent River, MD

The Atlantic Test Ranges Sustainability Office (SO), maintains a Noise Disturbance Response System (NDRS) to formally handle and respond to noise or aircraft disturbance reports. The NDRS process ensures noise disturbance reports are received via a central Hotline number, investigated, responded to and recorded in a database. The SO also presents an annual aircrew awareness briefing to pilots assigned to the Naval Test Wing Atlantic (NTWL). This brief promotes internal awareness of the process that SO uses to respond to noise complaints and provides an overview of community concerns related to noise from aircraft operations.

Fort Riley, KS

The Fort Riley's Noise and Training Advisory webpage is an effective way to provide advanced notification when noise and vibration may occur, in a method that's easily accessible to Army and civilian communities on-and off-post. The Training Advisory page takes public notification one step further, posting daily training schedules approximately one-week ahead for an upcoming two-week period. The page lists the date of the training activity and whether the training is expected to yield significant amounts of noise. If so, a time for the training activity (beginning to end) is then listed. The Fort Riley Community Relations Office contact information is easily accessible on the webpage and provides a way to address concerns regarding noise, vibration, excessive dust, low-flying aircraft, and/or maneuver damage.

https://home.army.mil/riley/index.php/about/noise-training

Air Force Research Lab Acoustics Research Complex, White Sands Missile Range, NM

Hosted on the Army's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the Air Force Research Lab's Acoustic Research Complex is the first of its kind within the Department of Defense and the research community as a whole. It is used to help with the design and modification of current and future aircraft. The facility collects acoustic data from operating aircraft via microphone stations near the ground and on acoustically instrumented tall towers. The facility provides a capability not available anywhere else within the Department of Defense and the private sector. Testing at the Acoustics Research Complex allows for the real-world validation of existing acoustic models, to include those currently used to assess noise exposure to residents living adjacent to military airfields.

http://www.wsmr.army.mil/testcenter/testing/landf/Pages/AcousticResearchComplex(ARC).aspx