I’m awakened again at 4 am by a low vibrating noise emanating from an outdoor planer operated by Zip-O-Laminators near west Eugene’s Four Corners. At least 100 people, up to four miles north, have suffered from this incessant sleep-disrupting noise on countless pre-dawn weekday mornings for over two years. It runs for hours, and it’s exhausting.

Eugene’s municipal noise code has a hole in it. The planer’s peak noise was measured at 20 decibels above background levels, but the outdated code measures in dBA, which doesn’t measure low frequency noise. Obviously, this is a problem for many people.

Living with businesses is important for Eugene’s health, but who is regulating a business that doesn’t care for the health of its neighbors? They promised it would stop, but it’s still ongoing. They can move the planer inside, and they can move shifts four hours later, but they have done neither, because they don’t have to. The noise code is much stricter for citizens than for industry; this needs changing.

A Nov. 21 Eugene City Council meeting will be addressing this. Please testify, or email them at MayorCouncilandCityManager@eugene-or.gov and ask them to fix the city noise code and allow residents to sleep.

Dharmika J. Henshel

Eugene

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