SEQUIM — It sounds contradictory at first. Burnt Hill, that sometime battleground for dirt bikers and homeowners south of Sequim, will be closed to off-road vehicles Oct. 7 and 8.
During that weekend the state Department of Natural Resources, which manages 5,100 acres of Burnt Hill land, will measure ORV noise there.
“Vehicles will be randomly selected from a pool of typical vehicles,” said the department’s Diane Perkins.
“People who ride in the area are volunteering,” to go up on Burnt Hill, make noise and have it analyzed.
Three motorbikes, three all-terrain vehicles and three four-by-four trucks or jeeps will be allowed on Burnt Hill during the study, Perkins added.
The tests will cost the state $7,500 to $8,000.
Natural Resources hired Skillings Connolly, a Lacey engineering firm, to conduct the noise analysis.
It’s a step toward reinstating the Burnt Hill Recreational Trail Plan, a document calling for, among other things, construction of a parking lot for ORV users.
Complaints about noise
The plan, adopted at the beginning of this year, upset a group of 20 Burnt Hill residents.
The Burnt Hill Home Owners Association filed a lawsuit Jan. 30 to stop construction.
In May, Natural Resources withdrew the plan, saying it needed to study ORV noise and its impacts on people and wildlife.
The noise study, by using a controlled number of ORVs, will “build a baseline understanding” of noise levels, said Charlie Cortelyou, Natural Resources’ Olympic region manager.
The department can multiply the study’s readings later to figure the noise levels from larger numbers of ORVs, he added.
Richard Tipps, a Burnt Hill-area resident since 1996, said ORV noise around his house “kind of runs in cycles,” no pun intended. It seemed louder in early summer, and then tapered off.
A noise analysis, Tipps added, may measure decibels and determine that ORVs aren’t damaging anyone’s hearing.
“But it won’t do much to quantify what he calls “an irritant.”
Suzy Traband, a dirt biker who’s enjoyed Burnt Hill trails in recent years, said she was pleased to hear about the pending noise study.
“I’m glad to see it’s going to be done very fairly,” she said, adding that she considers ORV noise to be no worse than a neighbor “using a weed-eater or a chainsaw, with a burnt-out exhaust.”
