Quite simply, they blow

Leafblowers do more harm than good

by Steve Davies

Friends, neighbors, lawn care companies, lend me your ears — if they still work.
There is a loud, smelly beast in our community. Idle, it is quiet as a mouse but, when sparked, can be loud as a freight train. Prized for its ruthless efficiency, its real skill lies in stirring things up.

Armed with more power than a horse-drawn carriage, these despoilers of our natural world excel at damaging eardrums and clogging nasal passages. On balance, they do a lot of harm and little discernible good.

Yes, I'm talking about those gas-powered machines that are called “leaf blowers” but are used whether leaves are on the ground or not throughout the warm months. In Takoma Park, I have seen them used to blow cigarette butts and trash from the sidewalk into the street, to keep parking lots looking spiffy on 90-degree days, and to ensure that gravel driveways are not marred by the sight of twigs or even the stray leaf.

Most people seem to think the machines are not a problem. One friend of mine even thought leaf blowers were already prohibited. He assumed that none could comply with the noise ordinance. And most people commute to their jobs, meaning that they don't see, hear, or smell the machines at work in their neighborhoods.

From personal experience, I know that many homeowners who hire crews often do not know what is being done in their absence. The crews arrive during the day at their appointed lawns, trailing gas-powered lawnmowers, blowers, and trimmers. They park wherever they want to and are gone within 30 minutes, finishing with a quick back-and-forth with a blower (or two) to get the dirt off the front steps.

For home-based workers like me, the racket and pollution can be very annoying. It's even more frustrating because it's happening in Takoma Park, the self-proclaimed “Berkeley of the East,” known for its ban on buying nuke-related equipment (unless it has no other choice) and for courageously devoting a few more dollars to wind energy. Takoma Park, where we're supposed to think locally and act globally, is perfectly content to let its air be fouled by machines that even its own supporters concede are often used irresponsibly.

Lawn and garden crews aren't the only ones to use the contraptions. Homeowners themselves get out there with ear protection and blow their leaves and detritus to the curb and the city's maintenance crews also get into the act each fall when they clear leaves from our parks with the aid of fossil fuels.
New standards being phased in by EPA require manufacturers to reduce emissions substantially. But older, 1990s-era blowers are incredibly efficient polluters. In a 2000 report, the California Air Resources Board cited data showing that an average 1999 model produces as much carbon monoxide as a car driven 440 miles at 30 mph.

The figures for hydrocarbons were even more astounding. Thirty minutes of use produced as many hydrocarbons as a car driven 7,700 miles (also at 30 mph).
Larry Will, a former Vice President of Engineering at blower manufacturer Echo Inc., says on his web page that “current emissions standards have eliminated the pollution problem once associated with two stroke engines.” He also says that “new designs are no longer noisy.”

Will was gracious enough to respond to a pointed email from me. In his response, he said that blowers are used incorrectly 99 percent of the time.
I guess that must have been an old model that was producing the high-pitched whine I heard outside a couple weeks back. When I stepped onto my front porch to investigate, I smelled exhaust coming from the yard 100 feet away, where a crew was diligently finishing a landscaping job by clearing “excess” dirt from the backyard -- and cleaning dust off the homeowner's car.

The noise itself would be bad enough. A recent Consumer Reports said that, despite industry's attempts to lower noise levels, every gas-powered blower on the market hit 85 decibels at close range. (Will disputes that.) Of course, that's not how they're measured for noise control purposes. The city's ordinance allows blowers to be 70 decibels at 50 feet. Even the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute (OPEI) says operators should “make sure bystanders, including other operators, are at least 50 feet away, [and] stop blowing if you are approached.” (If you can get the operator’s attention.)

Just how polluting are they? It's difficult to find reliable, up-to-date data, but the general rule is the older, the dirtier. Cumulatively, however, the numbers tell the story. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments ranks lawn and garden equipment as the second-biggest contributor of volatile organic compounds to our air, at 81.6 tons per day. The same category ranked fourth in nitrogen oxides, at 12.6 tons/day. VOCs and NOX contribute to unhealthy ozone levels.

What can be done? Last fall, I organized a Rake Brigade in my Circle Woods neighborhood on the day after Thanksgiving, which just happened to be perfect fall weather. A handful of neighbors and I got together and raked a good portion of Spring Park. We formed leaf circles around the trees as mulch and raked the rest to the curb, where they sat for a couple of weeks. I came back on my own to get some more leaves, but by mid-December I couldn't do much more. The city, which supported the effort, came in to finish up.

Here are some other suggestions:

• Form your own Rake Brigade and rake your local park. Tell the city you don't want the gas-powered blowers and get together with your neighbors. Make a party of it!

• Find out whether your lawn care company is using gas-powered blowers and ask them to stop, or switch to cleaner, less noisy models. Electric blowers work just as well.

• Compost your leaves. It'll probably be easier than getting them to the curb. Montgomery County gives away composting bins for free.

• Hire some local kids to rake.

• Ask the city to stop using gas-powered blowers and ask our municipal candidates where they stand on the issue.

You might also want to ask our lawmakers how the use and abuse of leaf blowers is consistent with the city's goal of becoming a certified Wildlife Habitat Community. After all, if you can't hear the birds singing, why try to attract them in the first place? More to the point, does anyone really think our feathered friends enjoy the sound?

And remember those leaf circles that were so flimsy they were endangering the kids? The city made the park safe again using the latest technology: gas-powered leaf blowers.

Steve Davies has lived in Takoma Park since 1992. He is editor of “Endangered Species & Wetlands Report,” a newsletter, and serves on the city's Noise Control Board.