Have you heard it? Or more likely felt it in your chest? That low rumbling almost sound that seems to pervade your house and life now in Bonney Lake. Maybe you have noted it before but more now? Barely on the edge of perception during the day before bed when the TVs are on and home work at the kitchen table is in progress. Now at night (all night) and most mornings it sounds like a loud rock band so far away that all you hear is the base notes rumbling through the air and your home, the structure of your house resonating with the “beat”.

I have heard this sonic intrusion for several years living near Lake Taps, on and off mostly at night and mostly in the summer when windows and doors get left open. “Live music somewhere” I thought at first. My wife, Midwestern farm girl, used to load noises and used to disregarding them, would cock her head to the side, listen then grin at me like I was mad. She didn’t hear it, then. Now she does and some nights it’s so loud that is causes me to reach for the ear plugs, which don’t help all that much because this intrusion is as much a felt as actually heard. Being recently retired I had time to do some informal research and have a preliminary theory, that most likely this new and ongoing base rumble that some of my neighbors have brought up in conversation is sound transmission from the valley train yards. Through the ground/air and possibly the lake itself acting as a sounding board. For decades this sound was muted I think by cold weather, closed home portals and intervening large vegetation, i.e. trees. Now with the Lakeland Heights and other clear cut operations the sound damping trees are gone and the rumble of moving multi ton transports on base sound resonance re-enforcing steel tracks is becoming clearer and clearer at all hours to area residents it appears.

Can this base rumble assault be ameliorated? Don’t know. Maybe the building of homes and infrastructure in the long run will (I hope) substitute for the missing green live sound wall that kept us comfortable for so many years. The state was forced to build sound damping walls along long sections of I-5 because of noise complaints very similar to this, I have my doubts much can be done, but hope springs. Lets see … Google search, white noise machine.

Craig C. Sarver

Bonney Lake