This story by Liberty Darr was first published in the Other Paper on Jan. 30
From noisy neighbors and construction to cars and airplanes, the world around us, at times, can seem incessantly loud.
That sentiment is the basis for the 2023 documentary, “The Quietest Year,” which chronicles one woman’s personal quest to curb noise pollution in the village of Stowe that ultimately uncovers the dire consequences of lax noise regulation which she calls, “an urgent yet overlooked crisis for both public health and civil society.”
The documentary takes viewers on the personal journey of director Karen Akins, who shares her battle with noisy farm animals on the property that abutted her home and, as the film progresses, through a series of other noise-related issues experienced by Vermonters across the entire state.
The 74-minute film took roughly two years to make and is what Akins has dubbed her “pandemic project,” with most of it filmed, ironically, through what has been called one of the quietest periods of time the world has ever experienced.
This is Akins’ second film related to public health and social justice issues. Her first go at documentaries began in Mexico with “El Susto,” released in 2019, which explored the politics of sugary drinks and diabetes in the country.
But this film was something much more personal to her.
“I didn’t intend to make another film, but when I was stuck in Vermont during the pandemic, I had my own personal noise issues, which you’ll learn about when you watch the film, and I was like, ‘Here is something that’s a very overlooked health issue,’” Akins said. “I decided to record myself during the pandemic because I honestly thought I was going to be having to enter into a lawsuit with my neighbor.”
While no legal action ensued, the humorous short film she made during that time ultimately evolved into the award-winning documentary seen today. The dispute did, however, land itself on the front page of the Stowe Reporter more than once, partially since Akins took the hot topic to the local selectboard with the hopes of passing some sort of noise ordinance that would remedy the issue.
It just so happened that one of the leading experts in studying noise and its relation to health, Les Blomberg, was located just a few miles away from her home at the Noise Pollution Clearinghouse in Montpelier.
“It kind of snowballed and I kept reaching out to other experts and learning who the real thought leaders were in the field, and who was doing the most cutting-edge research on noise and health,” Akins said. “And it led me on this path, and slowly over the pandemic, I interviewed people that were both sufferers and experts.”
One of those people was Michael Shank, a former Brandon resident whose lifelong dream to operate an animal farm sanctuary was shattered by the lack of noise ordinances, which allowed his neighbors to continually fire off assault weapons, subjecting him to the sound of near-constant gunfire.
“I saw that, even with my own problems, if your elected officials are totally deaf to how harmful this would be to experience this, and I’m not just talking about me, it is a pattern,” Akins said. “I’m not just saying it was me and my personal problems.”
Another major highlight of the film focuses on the arrival of the F-35 fighter jets at the Air National Guard Base located at the Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport in 2019 — a battle South Burlington residents know well. The noise, four times louder than its predecessor, the F-16, rendered many neighborhoods unsuitable for residential use and even prompted officials at the airport to introduce residential soundproofing programs for homes located within a certain proximity to the base.
The issue, Akins said, at one point almost dominated most of the film, forcing her to scale some of the discussions back because she didn’t want a movie solely about the effects of the jets.
The battle, however, has been at the forefront of local issues since 2009 and has sparked years of vehement opposition from residents in its flight path due to “bone-jarring” noise and undue environmental impacts caused by the military aircraft.
“We kind of zoom out to a bigger picture where you’re looking at impacting the whole community,” Akins said.
Despite the personal accounts showcased in the film, it is strange to think that Vermont, known to most of the country as a sparsely populated rural place, could be subject to such noise pollution problems. And the root of that issue was one Akins couldn’t quite put her finger on initially.
“It reminds me of a canary in the coal mine,” she said. “That’s the thing, if we’re having these problems even in Vermont, imagine what the rest of the country is dealing with. You can’t even get away from it by moving to Vermont.”
Subjects in the film liken Vermont’s lack of noise regulation to “the wild west of noise ordinances,” particularly in towns that resist any form of regulation from local government. Akins was met with staunch resistance and even personal attacks circulated online and in town when attempting to petition her local municipality for change.
For Shank, the backlash ultimately forced him to sell his home and move out of town.
While the issue, Akins said, mostly stems from the lack of regulations in many municipalities and on the state level, it could also be the drastic change of Vermont’s landscape from mostly rural and agricultural to now, a place that proved to be a haven for the mass flock of people who moved to the state during the pandemic.
“Maybe it’s what happens when you start out being a mostly rural place where everybody lives on big farms as far apart. You don’t have a culture of having to regulate noise because you don’t have that many densely populated places where people are bothering each other,” she said.
Another part of the problem is that Vermonters hold tight to the tradition of simply working out the issue with neighbors directly. The truth is, Akins said, sometimes you just can’t.
Since filming, she said she has commissioned a full professional noise study of Maple Street in Stowe and hopes to bring the information to local leaders.
The film will air on Vermont Public’s “Made Here” on Feb. 6.
The airing coincides with ongoing debates surrounding the F-35 program. Three municipalities — South Burlington, Burlington and Winooski — recently passed resolutions calling for Vermont’s Congressional delegation to request that the Air Force change the mission of the Vermont Air National Guard to one that is compatible with surrounding communities.
Retired Air Force Col. Rosanne Greco, a key voice in the opposition, offers insights in the film.
