Drone Delivery Evidence Checklist

A worksheet for operators, program managers, and local officials who need to quote — or challenge — a drone-delivery environmental filing without misreading it. Built from the errors we have corrected in our own coverage. Sources checked September 15, 2026.

1. Before you quote any noise number

Name the metric. SEL, Lmax, Leq, DNL, and ambient are different quantities. The FAA defines SEL as all the acoustic energy of a noise event represented as if it occurred within one second — it captures level and duration, and it is not the loudest instant a listener hears (that is Lmax). See the FAA's Fundamentals of Noise.
Cite the exact table and page. Write down the appendix, table number, PDF page, and printed page. Verify which appendix actually holds the noise data — cover pages matter (in the Baton Rouge EA, the noise technical report is Appendix E; Appendix D is Section 106 consultation).
Copy the distance column's own label. A table row's distance (for example, "Distance to PADDC" at 25 feet) is the measurement geometry the table states. Do not reinterpret it as a demonstrated aircraft-to-person distance or a doorstep measurement.
Record the event duration. SEL values from events of different lengths are not interchangeable, and subtracting one SEL from another does not give a perceived-loudness difference.
Do not transfer numbers between sites. A figure filed for one market is evidence about that filing, not a measurement of a different city's operation.

2. Proposed versus issued

Find the action words. "Proposes to operate up to…" describes what is being requested and analyzed. It is not an authorization, a permit, or a ceiling anyone has been granted.
Identify the document type. A draft EA evaluates a proposed action. A final EA plus a FONSI/ROD is a decision on the environmental review — and even then, operating authority lives in separate instruments (Part 135 certificate, exemptions, OpSpecs).
Treat absence carefully, in both directions. A missing final EA does not prove an operation is unauthorized, and a public portal with no entry for a site does not prove no document exists anywhere or that a review was skipped. Record what you checked, where, and on what date.

3. The national Programmatic EA's conditions (Part 135 delivery)

From the Final PEA, FONSI/ROD and appendices (mitigation and supporting-data discussion at F-11–F-12):

The evaluated reference case is 1,150 average annual daily deliveries from a hub sited at least 600 feet from noise-sensitive land uses.
Quieter aircraft, or aircraft operating sufficiently far from airports, may support higher volumes without significant noise impacts.
Lower-volume hubs take lesser setbacks, per the table in Appendix C. Its rows are stated in average daily DNL-equivalent deliveries, which the table defines as daytime deliveries plus ten times nighttime deliveries.
Applicants must submit vehicle noise data with applications that rely on the PEA; volume beyond the reference case requires a noise demonstration.
None of these are unconditional permissions — applicant data and FAA review still control.

4. Questions worth asking an operator or agency

Which NEPA lane did this site clear under — a site-specific EA or the national PEA — and what document records that?
What are the site's proposed daily volume, hours, and operating radius, with a citation to the filing page?
For each public noise claim: which metric, which table, what measurement distance, and what event duration?
What is the distance from the launch/recovery area to the nearest noise-sensitive parcel, and how does it compare with the PEA setback table for the proposed volume in average daily DNL-equivalent deliveries (daytime deliveries plus ten times nighttime deliveries)?
What measured noise data for this specific aircraft accompanied the application?

This worksheet is a planning and reading aid, not legal advice, and it does not substitute for the documents themselves. Primary sources: FAA drone-environmental portal · FAA Fundamentals of Noise · Final PEA/FONSI/ROD (PDF). Checked September 15, 2026.