Home/ Sources

Sources

Where the claims come from.

The institutional, peer-reviewed, regulatory, and reference base for the claims made across the site. Listed by category, with notes on which page each source primarily supports.

Public-health guidance

  • World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe — Burden of Disease from Environmental Noise (2011) and the WHO Europe noise fact sheet. The dose-thresholds (less than 30 dB(A) inside bedrooms; less than 40 dB(A) outside; less than 35 dB(A) in classrooms), the cardiovascular effects, the cognitive impairment in children, and the equity dimension all derive from this body of work. Underwrites Health.
  • WHO Environmental Noise Guidelines for the European Region (2018) — updated noise-level recommendations across road traffic, rail, aircraft, wind turbines, and leisure noise. Underwrites Health and Sound.

Occupational standards

  • OSHA Occupational Noise Exposure standard, 29 CFR 1910.95. Permissible exposure limit of 90 dB(A) as an 8-hour TWA, with a 5 dB exchange rate. Underwrites Workers.
  • NIOSH Criteria for a Recommended Standard: Occupational Noise Exposure, revised 1998. Recommended exposure limit of 85 dB(A) TWA with a 3 dB exchange rate — the more medically-protective standard. Underwrites Workers.

Regulatory precedent

  • California Assembly Bill 1346 (2021) — directs the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to phase out new gas-powered Small Off-Road Engines (SORE), including leaf blowers, beginning 2024. The leading state action; the empirical existence proof that bans are operationally feasible. Underwrites Policy.
  • D.C. Law 22-281 — District of Columbia ban on gas-powered leaf blowers, taking full effect in 2022. Underwrites Policy.
  • Massachusetts municipal-ban inventory — a growing list of New England towns and small cities have enacted seasonal or year-round bans. Quiet Communities Inc. and similar advocacy organizations maintain working maps; treat their lists as starting points and cross-check against current municipal-code text for any specific jurisdiction.

Acoustical and infrasound research

  • Vic Tandy — “The Ghost in the Machine,” Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 1998. The standing-wave-at-18 Hz study that documented physiological and perceptual effects of infrasound at intensities not consciously detectable. Underwrites Sound.
  • Acoustical Society of America publications on amplitude modulation, the frequency-following response, and low-frequency noise. Underwrites Sound.

Sleep and cardiovascular literature

  • Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep (2017). Synthesizes the contemporary literature on sleep deprivation as a driver of cardiovascular outcomes, cognitive decline, immune function, and metabolic disease. Underwrites the public-health framing on Health and Habituation.
  • Recent meta-analyses on chronic noise exposure and cardiovascular outcomes — available via PubMed searches on “chronic noise” + “cardiovascular,” “noise pollution” + “sleep architecture,” and similar.

Houston / Texas regulatory environment

  • Texas Local Government Code — noise-related chapters; the absence of a statewide preemption explicitly authorizing or restricting municipal noise bans on lawn equipment.
  • City of Houston Code of Ordinances — noise, nuisance, and residential zoning chapters; existing quiet-hour provisions where they exist.
  • City of Houston 311 Open Data — via the City of Houston Open Data Portal. The dataset for assessing the actual frequency, time-of-day distribution, and disposition of residential noise complaints in Houston.
  • Texas Legislature Online (capitol.texas.gov) — for any historical or pending legislation on small-engine noise or air quality at the state level.

Worker advocacy and audiometric data

  • OSHA enforcement-data portal — for the citation history of commercial-landscape operations.
  • NIOSH publications database — for occupational-noise-induced hearing loss research, including studies of commercial-landscape worker populations.
  • State workers’-compensation claim databases — for documented hearing-loss claims in the landscape sector.
  • Fe y Justicia Worker Center (Houston) — an immigrant-worker advocacy organization positioned to engage with the equity dimension of the worker-exposure argument.

Contact

Corrections, additional sources, or pointers to municipal ordinances, audiometric data, or research that should be cited here: blownaway [at] honto [dot] me.