JBLM sees uptick in noise complaints as more folks are home to hear artillery training
If you live in the Puget Sound region, you’re likely familiar with the booms that come from Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
Some call them the “sound of freedom.” Others say they’re intrusive. Like it or not, they’re a nearly daily occurrence in the Pierce County area.
In the last five years, as more units have stayed at JBLM than have deployed, the base’s Public Affairs Office has ramped up efforts to keep surrounding communities informed about large-scale or late-night training, according to Joe Piek, JBLM public affairs officer.
“We generally don’t announce daytime, routine training because that’s what we do here every day of the week and sometimes on weekends,” Piek told The News Tribune. “But it’s when training goes into the nighttime hours we want to notify communities that we’re going to be making that noise.”
In most cases, soldiers are using mortars and artillery and firing into the artillery impact area on the south side of the base. Mortars fire a smaller caliber round and have a shorter range. Artillery refers to a heavy class of weaponry usually towed by a piece of equipment, like a truck or helicopter, according to Capt. Danny Mathews, public affairs officer for the 2-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team.
People who live in Yelm, Rainier, Lacey, DuPont and the Nisqually Tribe are most likely to hear the sounds of the Army’s training activities. Piek said because of the frequently cloudy conditions of the region, the sound produced by the impacts of mortar shells and artillery can travel long distances.
“As long as I’ve been here, the farthest distance we’ve had a phone call from was north of Belfair,” Piek said. “When we’ve had very hazy days with a lot of artillery training, we get calls from North Tacoma, Gig Harbor and occasionally Olympia.”
Piek said in 2020 the JBLM public affairs office had a significant increase in the number of calls about training noise. He attributed the increase to the fact that more people were staying home during the day for work because of the pandemic and that the Army had a training hiatus from February 2020 until May 2020. Piek said once the Army returned to training in May, there was an increase in the number of calls.
An average week brings in about three to five calls about training noise, Piek said. When the sound travels farther, the office can get up to 40 calls in a week, he said.
The noise comes from JBLM’s Army units, including the 7th Infantry Division, which has to do semi-annual qualifications on artillery, according to Maj. Adam Williams, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT), 7th Infantry Division. The qualifications consist of written tests, dry-fire tests and live-fire tests. The latter is where the big booms come from.
Soldiers with 7th ID’s 2-17 Field Artillery Battalion completed part of their live-fire qualification for the M777 howitzer on April 20. The M777 is a 155 mm artillery piece that made its debut during the war in Afghanistan.
Each howitzer is operated by a seven-person squad. The team must do both daytime and nighttime live fire to pass its qualification. They then move on to platoon certification, which includes three to four squads, then battery-wide certification, which includes three to five platoons. According to Capt. Zach Stettler, Cobra Battery Commander, 2nd SBCT, 7th ID, this April marked the first time JBLM has done battery-level certifications on base in over two years.
“We normally do battery qualification at the Yakima Training Center because it has more space,” Stettler said. “There are one or two areas on JBLM where we can fit an entire battery, which just saves us time and money. It also allows our soldiers to focus on deployment when they go out to Yakima.”
The howitzer can fire up to 30 kilometers with rocket assistance and has an effective casualty radius of 50 meters on impact.
Despite the fact that noise from the base seems to be an everyday occurrence in the South Sound, homeowners aren’t required to disclose their proximity to the base when selling property.
“Joint Base Lewis-McChord noise ordinance has been talked about on and off over the years, but it is a complicated issue,” said Mike Stewart, office leader for John L. Scott Real Estate’s Gig Harbor office. “Noise disclosure is not required currently. However, the Seller’s Property Disclosure offers the seller an opportunity to disclose.”
While the base is comparable in size to other military installations such as Fort Bragg and Fort Hood, Piek said it’s nearly impossible to compare because no other base is surrounded by metropolitan areas the way JBLM is.
“When the base first began in 1917, we were quite a distance from Tacoma, but communities have now grown out to the edge of the base,” Piek said. “So, that’s one of the first things I tell people when they’re new to JBLM because we truly are surrounded by 10-12 different cities. We need to take those communities into consideration as we’re conducting our training.”
Questions or comments about the noise can be made to a JBLM hot line, 253-967-0852.
This story was originally published May 2, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
