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Gas-powered leaf blowing: Going the way of the dodo in New Haven?
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Pagan: Hard on workers. Mattison: Hard on ears, climate.
Are gas-powered leaf blowers an environmental hazard, or an economic necessity?
And do the noise and air pollution dangers they present outweigh their benefits for working-class landscapers?
Local land-use commissioners wrestled with those questions during the latest regular monthly meeting of the City Plan Commission. The virtual meeting took place online via Zoom.
The vote that the commissioners wound up taking on the matter was about as preliminary as they come.
They unanimously recommended that the Board of Alders hold a public meeting on whether or not to phase out gas-powered leaf blowers. They called on the alders to “take extra steps” when scheduling that public meeting to ensure that they “include the voices of all stakeholders, including the workers who employ those devices in the course of their work.”
The proposed resolution — which was submitted to the Board of Alders by the city’s Environmental Advisory Council in early September — now heads back to the local legislature for review and a final vote.
Not on whether or not to outlaw gas-powered leaf blowers. But on whether or not to hold a public meeting on the matter at all. (See more below for an overview of the Environmental Advisory Council’s submission.)
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Last week’s City Plan Commission meeting.
“We shouldn’t over think it,” Westville Alder and City Plan Commissioner Adam Marchand told his colleagues at the meeting last Wednesday evening. “This is giving advice on a request for a public hearing. There’s not even any legislation yet.”
The debate that preceded that unanimous vote, meanwhile, hinted at just how divisive such a proposal could become if local legislators ever do try to phase out those noisome and ubiquitous lawn-care tools.
Too Loud? Slippery Slope?
File photos
Pagan: Hard on workers. Mattison: Hard on ears, climate.
The staunchest defender of gas-powered leaf blowers during the City Plan Commission debate was Commissioner Ernest Pagan.
From the start, Pagan framed his dissent on economic terms.
“I understand the environmental piece,” he said, “but I also know there’s a lot of small businesses in the community that can’t afford new equipment.” Initially, Pagan said, he opposed even holding a public meeting on the matter.
Commission Vice-Chair Ed Mattison noted that “a considerable number” of municipalities across the state and country have already limited or outright banned the use of gas-powered leaf blowers. “The alternative,” he said, “is plug-in kinds, to replace them with electric blowers.”
While these electric and battery-powered leaf blowers aren’t cheap, he said, they are significantly less loud than their gas-powered equivalents.
“There is a feeling that the noise created by these leaf blowers, especially when there’s a whole bunch of them operating at once,” is just too much, Mattison said. He argued that loud noises alone warrant a public meeting on whether or not these devices should be banned.
Pagan warned that a public meeting on the matter would likely result in alders hearing only “from the environmental side of things.”
“I don’t know too many landscapers who work a 9 to 5,” he said. “I don’t think they will even attend this meeting, to be honest with you.”
Mattison replied that, when he sees people using gas-powered leaf blowers in his neighborhood of East Rock, they’re often working as employees of relatively large landscaping companies. “It is large entities that hire people to operate these machines. They’re actually owned by the company they work for.” And those companies will almost certainly send a representative to a public meeting on whether or not to ban these devices, he argued.
Commission Chair Leslie Radcliffe cautioned Mattison not to think only about his own neighborhood, and about larger landscaping companies. “We also have smaller businesses, individuals, and several local residents that have created their own entrepreneurial companies that may have one, two, or three employees,” she said. While larger companies will make sure to send a representative, these smaller companies may not be able to.
And for some of these smaller companies, “purchasing an electric leaf blower is not in their budget.”
Pagan agreed. He also offered a slippery-slope argument in his defense of current landscaping practices.
If the city bans gas-powered leaf blowers, he asked, what’s next? “Everybody’s got to own an electric car?” If certain leaf blowers are banned, will the city next go after weedwhackers? Lawnmowers?
Deputy Corporation Counsel Roderick Williams helped put an end to the debate by letting the commissioners know that the alders can hold a public meeting on the matter with or without the City Plan Commission’s advice. “If you do not act on this tonight,” the alders could just go ahead anyway and hold a public meeting. And the City Plan Commission doesn’t have the statutory authority to host a separate public meeting on this matter itself.
Ultimately, the commissioners unanimously voted in support of having the Board of Alders host a public meeting on whether or not to phase out gas-powered leaf blowers, while prioritizing that landscape workers be able to attend such a matter.
“New Haven Should Be Next”
The Environmental Advisory Council submission itself lays the groundwork for a legislative push to phase out gas-powered leaf blowers.
It does so by describing the noise and air pollution caused by these devices, and by citing other municipalities that have already implemented such bans without the world coming to an end.
The proposed resolution itself — which can be read in full here—defines gas-powered leaf blowers as leaf blowers that use a mixture of gasoline and oil to power an internal combustion engine.
It also makes an argument about why and how these gas-powered leaf blowers are harmful, and makes its case for why they should be banned. The proposed resolution’s arguments include:
• The noise pollution caused by gas-powered leaf blowers can cause hearing loss, and is “uniquely stressful and travels unusually far.” “[A] landscaping crew operating multiple leaf-blowers typically exceeds the WHO recommended daytime noise levels of 55dB (which is also the New Haven residential noise ordinance standard) for 800 feet in all directions, affecting large numbers of residents,” the proposed resolution reads.
• The air pollution caused by these leaf blowers includes the emission of “toxic pollutants at alarming levels, including ozone-forming and cancer-causing compounds.” According to the resolution, those include “include volatile organic compounds (VOCs), nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO) and fine particulate matter (PM 2.5); these pollutants are well-known causes of serious health problems including increased respiratory symptoms, cancer, heart disease and stroke, and preterm birth, low birth weight, birth defects and asthma severity in children.”
• The banning of gas-powered leaf blowers is a “social justice issue, whereby low-wage workers hired to operate gas-powered leaf blowers are most likely to sustain long-term hearing loss and respiratory and heart disease as a result of prolonged exposure to air and noise pollution from gas-powered leaf blowers and do not always have eye, ear, and breathing protection, as stipulated by manufacturer guides.”
• And that communities ranging from Greenwich and Ridgefield, Connecticut, to Tarrytown, Yonkers, and Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.; to Burlington, Vermont, to Cambridge, Mass., to Washington, D.C., have already phased out or limited gas-powered leaf blowers.
The proposed resolution also includes an Aug. 25 letter from three Yale School of Medicine doctors and faculty: Ada Fenick, Karen Jubanyik, and Naftali Kaminski. That letter details their support for phasing out gas-powered leaf blowers, or GLBs.
“Growing dependence on GLBs for cleanup and routine landscape maintenance in Connecticut is contributing to a public health emergency,” the three doctors wrote. “The main argument of the landscaping industry is that they need these powerful, polluting, noisy machines to do their job. The truth is that, in spring and summer, there are few leaves to be blown. Grass clippings are actually good for the grass, and those that fall on patios and sidewalks can be taken care of with brooms, rakes, or left as is.”
The four major health and environmental hazards of gas leaf blowers, they continue, are noise pollution, exhaust pollution, fine particulate pollution, and environmental degradation — including water pollution and animal habitat destruction.
Noise from gas-powered leaf blowers can range from 95 to 115 decibels at the ear of the operator, they write. That’s well above the 85-decibel threshold that can result in permanent injury to a person’s hearing in as little as two hours. “In many neighborhoods, even the quietest GLB will affect 23 homes at greater than 55 decibels, whereas many louder GLBs will impact as many as 91 homes with a noise that can be heard at greater than 55 decibels. The common practice of using multiple GLBs at the same time is particularly toxic.”
As for exhaust pollutants, in one hour, gas-powered leaf blowers create “the same amount of hydrocarbon pollution as driving a F‑150 pickup from Connecticut to Texas,” the three doctors write.
The fine particulate matter spewed by these devices, they continue, has been linked to “all-cause premature death, myocardial infarctions, anxiety, strokes, CHF, and respiratory disease – including asthma attacks — and can increase the severity of chronic lung disease in the elderly.”
And they “high velocity air jets” of between 150 and 280 miles per hour that are caused by these devices “destroy nests and small animal habitats; desiccate pollen, sap, and other natural plant substances; and injure or destroy birds, small mammals, and beneficial insects.”
More than 200 cities and towns across the country have already enacted legislation restricting or eliminating the use of these devices, the doctors conclude.
“New Haven should be next.”
Start with the universities and Parks Department because they can afford the changes and they occupy the most space.
Many Millennial homeowners are dying to be seen outside using their fancy EGO equipment, the ban would thrill them!