A month ago, a car drove slowly through our neighborhood. The driver seemed lost. He stopped in front of our house and got out, leaving his car idling. I walked outside to see if he needed assistance. He was just admiring our garden. He was quite friendly and happy to explain the funny-looking antenna on the roof of his car.
He lives in Logan and drives to Moab once a month to read gas meters for Dominion Energy. His next stop was Monticello. A light went off in my head. I realized several months had passed since I heard that annoying buzz of the Dominion Energy plane relentlessly circling for hours in order to pick up gas meter signals. He added that due to numerous customer complaints about the airplane noise as well as an assessment of the cost-effectiveness of reading meters from the air, Dominion opted to utilize drivers to read meters instead.
I smiled, thanked him, and shared with him that many people in the community will be happy to learn how Dominion solved the problem to everyone’s benefit.
Contrast Dominion Energy’s response to customer concerns with the motorized off-road recreation industry in Moab. Where Dominion’s noise was constrained to several hours for one or possibly two days per month, the motorized off-road industry noise onslaught occurs daily and even hourly often at significantly greater intensity. In response to overwhelming residential
noise complaints, Moab City and Grand County governments sought to address the problem. Unlike Dominion, the OHV industry retaliated.
The Idaho-based BlueRibbon Coalition, along with a dozen Moab OHV businesses as co-plaintiffs, sued us, the victims of their noise abuse, alleging discrimination and lost revenue. The suit even alleged the plaintiffs’ free speech rights were violated, as if assaulting people with
noise is protected speech under the First Amendment.
Executive Director of the BlueRibbon Coalition, Ben Burr, seems to believe Moab and Grand County noise ordinances illegally target street-legal OHVs. If they’re street-legal, one would expect them to meet the same standards as any other street-legal vehicles. He can’t have it both ways. Furthermore, by his reasoning, former Police Chief Jared Garcia must have discriminated against cars with illegal mufflers when he reported to the City Council about a year ago that his officers had issued numerous citations to vehicles with extra-loud, illegally modified mufflers.
Thank you Judge Torgerson for dismissing with prejudice 11 of the 12 claims and releasing all of the individual defendants named in the lawsuit. Thank you Grand County Attorney Stephen Stocks for representing and defending us against what many Moab residents believe is a frivolous lawsuit.
Quieter technology exists. The OHV businesses in Moab ought to follow Dominion Energy’s example of how to be a good citizen.
Pete Gross
Moab
