Sound and Unfury

Residents of Canton, Ill. (pop. 14,000), regulated their lives according to the seven blasts heard each day on the town's whistle, perched on top of the local International Harvester plant. They awakened to the first morning whistle at 6 a.m., set their watches by it, and moved in steady, sure steps throughout the day, alert to the whistle's sound. The Environmental Protection Agency heard in the whistle not the sound of a community ordering its hours but a D.B.A. (for decibels adjusted) measurement of 89, 28 points higher than the limit allowed by a state noise-pollution law slated to go into effect in February 1975.

There was already on the books a state nuisance law EPA could apply to the whistle, so they wrote Plant Manager Robert Nelson warning him that he could be in violation of the new law. Nelson cooperated by promptly shutting down the whistle. The town schedule went haywire: men were late for work, women got their children off to school at odd hours, and lunch and dinner did not appear at the appointed times.

Within 48 hours after the shutdown, 7,000 persons had signed petitions protesting the silencing of the whistle. As a consequence, it was turned back on. Said an EPA spokesman: "We were just reacting to a complaint and seeing if we should do anything about it. There is obviously not much nuisance if the majority of people like the whistle."

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