Outside Pacific Power’s Hazelwood substation on Southwest 17th Avenue on May 29.
A reader who lives in the Broadway Neighborhood of West Albany has been bothered by a mysterious humming noise at night, and she wondered if I had any ideas about the cause.
“It is a sound with a vibration, like being on an airplane feels,” she wrote. “Some nights it is quite loud and hard to fall asleep to. Other nights it is quite faint, but ever present nonetheless. It comes through ear plugs which seem to accentuate the vibrational hum.”
I don’t know the source or cause, but she lives a couple of blocks from the newly enlarged Hazelwood substation of Pacific Power. The bike took me to the substation on May 29. And here’s what I heard:
Whether this is what my correspondent has been hearing I don’t know. The environmental impact, including the possibility of noise, did not come up at a public hearing in July 2020, when the Albany Hearings Board unanimously approved expansion of the Hazelwood substation.
In an online publication, the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin, had this to say on the subject:
“The noise produced by an operating substation can be quite loud to ajacent property owners. A constant humming or buzzing noise may be audible several hundred feet from the substation fence. The sound may be especially noticeable during nighttime hours when ambient noise levels are lower.”
The resident who asked about this lives two streets over, on 15th Avenue. If it’s the substation hum that reaches her, it’s remarkable that residents closer to the source have not complained. (hh)
The Hazelwood substation was expanded with the addition of a “ring bus” in 2021.
If ya wanna turn on lights, TV, and computer…gotta live with it. We’re peeved about the train noise. Those horns have gotta go! Eugene has a “quiet zone”. Why can’t our City council get one going???
Federal law requires the railroad to sound the horn when approaching a (non-exempt) grade crossing, as most folks know. When I was in Sacramento I was less than a block from the RR tracks and the horns sounding every few hundred feet were annoying as could be. One day, around 2008, the city, the railroad, the PUC, and probably other concerns had to agree on several changes in order to establish the quiet zone. Among those, I was told, was that the city would assume any liability if a train ran into a car. I haven’t verified that, but it might go a long way toward explaining why smaller towns, with smaller budgets, might be avoiding the move. Food for thought anyway.
From what I understand if they want it to be a quiet zone they have to upgrade all the crossings, so it’s a project that would cost many millions of dollars.
I guess moving near an electrical plant and not expecting increased noise it’s much different than moving near train tracks and not expecting noise. ♂️
Sounds like vibration from a loose cover plate.
Howdy all
Been around transformer yards for a long time. This is NOT a normal sound. Most stations top out sounding like bumble bees
The citizen isn’t an out-of-order-complainer. The real question is —
Who should she contact , how???