The Town of LaSalle won't be changing their Noise By-law to accommodate loud pool pumps.
During Tuesday's council meeting, a couple went forward requesting for an amendment to the Noise By-law to include an operational time for private pool pumps.
Jia Wu and Xiang Chen are residents of LaSalle and expressed that they have experienced severe negative impacts of noise pollution due to their neighbours running a pool pump near their bedroom window for 24 hours a day, seven days a week without any pause last summer.
The couple says they were able to hear the high-pitched noise of the pump, causing a nuisance to them as they could not spend extended periods of time outside, could not open their windows, and had to take sleep medication almost every night as they had trouble sleeping.
Wu and Chen told council they have spoken to the neighbours about turning the pump off at night, but they say the resident made no effort to minimize the noise.
The couple also went to Town Hall for aid, but the Town was unable to enforce anything as the current by-law, which states: "residents have the right to and should ensure an environment free from unusually, unnecessary, or excessive sound or vibration which may degrade the quality and tranquility of their life or cause nuisance", does not regulate pool pump noises.
Xiang Chen, LaSalle resident, says they were told from the Town that the pump noise was urban noise, such as an air conditioner running.
"The difference is that those urban noises are not running non-stop, 24 hours, seven days a week. But this noise is different. They're running it non-stop. This is really excessive. We can tolerate urban noise, there's no problem, but for this kind of an excessive noise, we can not afford that."
Chen says both of his neighbours have pool pumps.
"And on one side we don't have any problems at all. The pool pump runs very quietly, we don't have any problems about that pool pump. The other side, the pool pump did make a lot of noise."
Allen Burgess, Supervisor of Planning and Development with the Town of LaSalle, says Town staff went to the couples house to observe the noise.
"While they were there they did not believe it was excessive. For us to go out and take on a new approach as far as noise is concerned, setting out limits, I think it does open up a very large degree of risk as far as the number of incidents that we would have in a given year."
Councillor Sue Desjarlais says she sympathizes with the couple, however, it's a civil issue.
"I think that this is one of those incidents, unfortunately, where our by-laws are even straight across the board. We do not have the staff, the knowledge, the capacity to become noise experts. I think that this is going to become a civil issue to take up with your neighbour."
Mayor Crystal Meloche says she understands their concern, however, some pools like salt water pools, do need to consistently run.
"Looking at creating a by-law around pool pumps probably isn't something we could consider. Excessive noise is the only part of this by-law that we could look into a little bit more, but as staff indicated, we don't currently have the staff or the technology to be able to do that reading of excessive noise."
Council decided to follow the recommendation of Town staff to deny the amendment to the by-law.
Council has directed the couple to look into the options of attending Civil Court with their neighbour.