The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday presented the Guyana Police Force with 25 sound level meters which will significantly aid in the Force’s efforts to curb noise nuisance.
The items were presented by EPA’s Legal Officer, Shareefah Parks to Commissioner of Police (acting) Clifton Hicken at the Officers Training Centre, Eve Leary.
“As part of the MoA signed between the EPA and the Guyana Police Force, we are handing over these meter readers for noise as part of our programmes. We do look forward to your continued support and an effective team to tackle noise management,” Parks said a in statement issued by Police Headquarters.
Hicken, during his remarks, noted that noise pollution is a topical issue and the meters will aid the Force in noise management and addressing complaints of noise nuisance.
“As we develop our partnership with the wider stakeholders, we are going to ensure that we focus on noise pollution in a constructive way, and this will be done in conjunction with the EPA,” Hicken said.
The Top Cop further asserted that “members of the public can look out for the Guyana Police Force’s proactive arrangement in terms of dealing with noise pollution, which is expected to bring some degree of relief.”
The MoA was signed in May this year and will see collaboration between the EPA and the Police in training and noise management.
The REED R8080 Data Logging Sound Level Meter has a quick responding triple range sound level meter with a backlit display, analog bargraph, and built-in memory to data log up to 64,000 points. It also has the ability to record samples on internal memory and keep track of registered readings with a time and date stamp. Calibration is an essential part of the necessary maintenance, and this will be done every three months.
Noise pollution impacts millions of people on a daily basis. The most common health problem it causes is Noise-Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL). Exposure to loud noises can also cause high blood pressure, heart disease, sleep disturbances, and stress.
This country is a noise factory. The place is lawless and many people don’t care about the noise they make. Those extremely loud noises from vehicles traveling on the public road could cause people’s heart to go into arrhythmia which could prove fatal because these vehicles come and go quickly which brings an extremely strong, loud noise of quick duration and could totally surprise a person and cause cardiac arrest.
Who knows how many people had cardiac arrest after these vehicles passed and no one knew that was really the fault.