The legal regulation of noise pollution
In Georgian law noise is not a mere technical parameter but a factor of environmental impact: the law on environmental protection names among the constituent factors of the environment energy, noise and radiation, as well as waste, chemical substances, emissions and other types of pollution that influence or are presumably expected to influence the constituent elements of the environment. Under this definition noise stands legally as an object of environmental protection, and its limit values are determined by the state normative system.
Maximum permissible norms for noise
In the list of quality norms of the condition of the environment under Article 29 of the law, the maximum permissible norms for noise, vibration, electromagnetic fields and other physical impacts appear directly, side by side with the norms for the concentration of harmful substances in air, water and soil and with radiation impact norms. These norms are determined once every 5 years by the regulation on quality norms of the condition of the environment, which the ministry of labour, health and social protection develops and approves in agreement with the environmental ministry. The acceptable level of noise is thus determined not by local rules but by a regulation established at the state level and periodically renewed.
For an enterprise owning a noise source, two consequences follow. First — compliance must be assessed not by general perception but by measurement, against the normative limits. Second — measures connected with noise enter, through their environmental component, the circle of activities that become the object of assessment procedures, since noise is recognized by law as a factor of impact on the environment.
State control and supervision
Article 57 of the law governs the system of state control. In the sphere of environmental protection and the use of natural resources, control is exercised — within the powers granted by legislation — by the ministry, the department, the Agency of Protected Areas, the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Agency and the state forest management body. The department carries out inspection, which covers the planned or unplanned checking and the viewing of the object of regulation. The basis for a check is an individual administrative-legal act issued by the minister or the head of the department, the appeal of which does not suspend the check; a viewing does not require the issuance of an act. In the border zone, the periods of checks are coordinated with the border police.