NEWS RELEASE -- Focus: Tamworth

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Club Motorsports’ Army Corps permit challenged

Freedom of Information Act request results in request for reconsideration

TAMWORTH , NH , April 24)

This week, Focus: Tamworth will file a request for reconsideration of the Department of the Army Permit under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, issued to Club Motorsports Inc. by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in August 2005. The reconsideration request is based on the belief that Corps officials failed to adopt the recommendations of a sound expert hired by the Corps to advise on the noise impact of the proposed racetrack development on Mt. Whittier in Tamworth .

Using the Freedom of Information Act, Focus: Tamworth has obtained a copy of the report that the Corps sound expert produced. That report advised the Corps to impose strong limitations on permitted noise from the proposed racetrack. But the Corps failed to adopt those standards, and instead accepted the significantly higher noise limits proposed by the applicant.

By Federal statute, the Corps is charged with evaluating a broad range of community impacts for significant projects like the Club Motorsports proposal.

During the Corps’ 18-month consideration of the permit, it invited public comment on the project and held a public hearing in Tamworth . Noise was a major concern both for speakers at the hearing and in written comments submitted to the Corps.

Two professional noise studies of the track’s impact, one commissioned by the Tamworth Foundation and one by Club Motorsports, were also submitted to the Corps. The Tamworth Foundation study, performed by Harris, Miller, Miller and Hanson (HMMH), indicated that the noise from the proposed track would have significant adverse effects on the town; the Club Motorsports study, by Tech Environmental (TE), indicated no major impact.

During its consideration of the permit, the Corps hired a third expert, James Cowan of Acentech in Cambridge, MA, to evaluate the two conflicting studies and make recommendations for conditions to be attached to the permit.

Cowan’s report was highly critical of the TE study. He noted that the Traffic Noise Model used by TE was “not appropriate or adequate for modeling racetrack noise,” and that the criteria on which TE evaluated noise impacts were “not intended for use in the analysis of racetrack noise.”

Cowan recommended that the Corps set a noise limit of 89dBA, measured 50 ft from trackside. This is the limit currently in place at Connecticut ’s Lime Rock Park , a facility that CMI officials have cited as similar to their proposed track. It is also the trackside noise limit that was recommended by HMMH as one of the noise limitations for the original draft of the Tamworth Race Track Ordinance. That limitation standard was challenged by CMI.

Cowan noted that as proposed, the CMI project will generate noise levels of 100dBA at 50 ft, more than twice as loud as Lime Rock. He also noted that the Lime Rock site is relatively flat. The proposed CMI site is on the side of a steep hill, with a granite ledge that will reflect noise back toward the town.

“The frequency content and the duration of noise events that could be caused by this facility will sound like no other sound sources in the area. Without appropriate limits, this will change the environment of the Tamworth area,” Cowan’s report concludes.

“When the Corps granted Club Motorsports’ permit and accepted the noise standards proposed by the applicant, we were concerned. When we saw the Acentech report itself, we felt that we had to ask the Corps to reconsider its decision,” said Focus: Tamworth spokesperson Charles Greenhalgh.

The reconsideration request will be directed to Army Corps Attorney Michael Hicks. “If the request for reconsideration is not successful, the next level of appeal would be to the U.S. Federal District Court ,” Greenhalgh said. “We understand that process could take more than a year.”

Focus: Tamworth is a coalition of local residents who support careful and fair regulations that protect Tamworth ’s economic and natural resources. More information on Focus: Tamworth is available at www.focustamworth.org.

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