DENVER -- Posted: 6:24 a.m. MDT October 12, 2001 -- The contractor for the Interstate 25 expansion project will be allowed to make roughly as much noise as a lawnmower on some nights during the five-year project, the city has decided.

A city ordinance restricts nighttime noise to 50 decibels in residential neighborhoods.

But the Denver Board of Environmental Health voted 4-1 Thursday to give a one-year variance to Southeast Corridor Constructors that allows it to make an hourly average of 78 decibels in noise at the highway's edge.

SCC also can make 86 decibels of noise on single noise "events," and unlimited noise on the nights it demolishes seven overpasses.

The contractor plans to offer $100-a-night hotel stays for residents who live within the area where bridge demolition is expected to be louder than the limits.

Resident Bob Shaklee said he and neighbors are concerned about sleep deprivation. He had asked the board to lower the limit to 68 decibels. SCC said it couldn't meet that limit.

SCC has argued since filing the request in August that it is impossible to do the $1.7 billion addition of lanes and trains to Interstates 25 and 225 in five years without working at night.

It also says its studies show that decibel readings along I-25 are already well over the limit, in the low- to mid-60s, at night.