Improving the persuasiveness of the noise consultant report—A critique and proposal

The author, a retired mechanical engineer and patent attorney, sat on an HOA Board that converted four tennis courts to 13 pickleball courts without installing the noise absorbing barrier recommended in three reports by two acoustical consultants. A nuisance lawsuit seeks an injunction to close the courts and money damages. Consultants study the pickleball noise and recommend mitigation options to the deciders. Deciders are laymen, such as city officials and HOA boards, unfamiliar with noise science and under pressure to meet the insatiable need for more pickleball courts. When mitigation is not implemented, or not successful, litigation ensues. Judge and jury become deciders. This paper starts from the premise that the consultant makes technically competent recommendations and is motivated to fully educate the lay deciders. We explore the communication gap between consultants and deciders. Proposals include embedding wav. noise files in the written report, reference to ANSI standards for highly impulsive noises, deference to the lack of research on health issues of long-term exposure to persistent repetitive impulsive noise. We introduce the missing metrics of “pickle pops per hour” and the “predictable worst case noise impact” occurring when intensively used courts are introduced into residential neighborhoods.