Gail Darrell compares the noise to a cyclone. A constant, steady hum that sounds like an airplane is getting ready to take off in Center Barnstead.

She lives about a quarter mile from Lakes Region Pellets LLC., a woodchip plant that's been operating on Depot Street since July. Darrell and several neighbors have complained that noise from the plant's turbine can be heard almost constantly, along with a perpetual grinding from machinery used to turn the wood into pellets. Worst of all, neighbors said, is the relentless beeping of backup alarms that sound late at night from industrial equipment used to transport raw materials around the site.

"It wakes me up again and again, but I'm able to fall back asleep," Darrell said Thursday. "I can tune it out, but for people who live down river, it's really loud."

Residents may now have relief from the beeping - a company secretary said yesterday that new alarms had been installed Thursday and are currently in use.

Jason Darrow lives about a mile from the plant and said he's lost significant sleep since it opened. Along with the earplugs, he said, he listens to classical music at night to drown out the noise.

"You get this 'beep beep beep' all night long. It's terribly frustrating," Darrow said. "I shouldn't have to sleep with earplugs."

Darrow said that Gregg True, the company's executive vice president and chief operating officer, first dismissed complaints about the noise and told him the beeping alarms were an OSHA requirement. Darrow said he found quieter OSHA-certified alarms and offered to pay for them weeks ago.

True could not be reached for comment Thursday or yesterday. The quieter alarms were installed Thursday night and are now running, a company secretary said when a reporter visited the site yesterday.

Darrow criticized the town for what he said has been a slow response to citizens' concerns. In a letter to selectmen this week, he told them he was "disgusted at how little concern" they had for residents and that he was paying his taxes in protest.

Selectman Gordon Preston disputed Darrow's claims. He said the town had listened to residents and was working with the plant accordingly.

"We're working with the owners to ameliorate this problem, within reason," Preston said yesterday. "To say that we're not doing anything is nonsense."

Preston questioned whether the sounds were really as intolerable as some have described. When he measured, the maximum reading came to 50 decibels, he said. The noises are directional and seem to travel up the river, he said.

"Yes, I could detect it, especially at night when it's very quiet," Preston said. "Two miles away, you can hear it and detect it. Whether that makes life unbearable is another matter."

Kathy Jenks, who's lived in Barnstead nearly 25 years, said she doesn't remember problems when the Timco sawmill sat on the 135-acre plot. Before the plant closed in 2003, one could hear a whooshing sound when steam was released from the stack, but that was infrequent and tolerable, she said.

Now, "it sounds like a wind tunnel or a tornado coming through, and it's very loud," she said this week.

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