November 2004 (PDF 11.6 MB) - Barrick Gold Corporation

activities may include construction, andtraffic generated by holiday periods and byspecial events such as concerts or sportingevents. Normal daily traffic is not consideredto be extraneous.Feasible and reasonable measures: Feasibilityrelates to engineering considerations andwhat is practical to build; reasonablenessrelates to the application of judgement inarriving at a decision, taking into account thefollowing factors:—noise mitigation benefits (amount of noisereduction provided, number of peopleprotected)—cost of mitigation (cost of mitigation versusbenefit provided)—community views (aesthetic impacts andcommunity wishes)—noise levels for affected land uses (existingand future levels, and changes in noiselevels).Greenfield site: Undeveloped land.High traffic criterion: See Section 2.2.3.Impulsive noise: Noise with a high peak of shortduration, or a sequence of such peaks.Industrial noise sources: Sources that do notgenerally move from place to place, forexample, stationary sources. Except whereother more specific guidelines apply (forexample, construction activities, road or railtraffic, emergency diesel generators etc), allindustrial noise sources that are scheduledunder the Protection of the Environment OperationsAct 1997 are considered to be industrialsources. In general, these include:• individual industrial sources such as:—heating, ventilating and air conditioning(HVAC) equipment—rotating machinery—impacting mechanical sources—other mechanical equipment and machinerysuch as conveyors—mobile sources confined to a particularlocation, such as draglines and haultrucks.• facilities, usually comprising many sourcesof sound,including:—industrial premises—extractive industries—commercial premises—warehousing facilities—maintenance and repair facilities.(In this case, the industrial source isunderstood to encompass all the activitiestaking place within the property boundaryof the facility.)Intrusive noise: Refers to noise that intrudes abovethe background level by more than 5 decibels.The intrusiveness criterion is set out inSection 2.1.L A90: The A-weighted sound pressure level that isexceeded for 90 per cent of the time overwhich a given sound is measured. This isconsidered to represent the backgroundnoise.L Aeq: The equivalent continuous noise level—thelevel of noise equivalent to the energyaverageof noise levels occurring over ameasurement period.Low frequency: Noise containing major componentsin the low-frequency range (20 Hz to250 Hz) of the frequency spectrum.Masking: The phenomenon of one sound interferingwith the perception of another sound. Forexample, the interference of traffic noise withuse of a public telephone on a busy street(Bies & Hansen 1996).Maximum noise level: See the fifth column of Table2.1.Median: The middle value in a number of valuessorted in ascending or descending order.Hence, for an odd number of values, thevalue of the median is simply the middlevalue. If there is an even number of values themedian is the arithmetic average of the twomiddle values.Meteorological conditions: Wind and temperatureinversionconditions.NSW industrial noise policy57