Newton home owner and WBZ talk show host Dan Rea discussed Newton’s proposed leaf blower ban this week. You can listen to it here.
Dan Rea: It’s landscapers vs. the busy bodies in Newton
by Greg Reibman | Jun 17, 2016 | Newton | 27 comments
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I also wanted to share this column by Andrew Martin from the TAB a few weeks back which proposes mulching as a solution to leaf blowers.
I wish landscapers would offer mulching as an option. I’d be willing to pay more for it.
Wow, so all of us who are concerned about leaf blowers “need to get a life”? This show is not making the pro-leaf blower community look reasonable.
An 8am start time means all our youngest lungs will continue to breath the toxic benzene, toluene and xylene from the 2-stroke engine exhaust as they walk to school. This is a public health issue. To protect our most vulnerable, a start time has to be after 8:30 when elementary kids are safely in school.
The blower industry is being faced with a challenge to innovate and instead of meeting the challenge by going electric (quieter and cleaner), they are playing the victim. Its not people who are concerned with noise and the most toxic fossil fuel engine pollution that need to get a life; its the defenders of 20th century technology who are unwilling to join the 21st century.
@Nathan: a public health issue? don’t you need to show some sort of evidence?
I’m guessing those young lungs are breathing in much more from the exhaust of autos and buses, than they ever will from the 2-stroke engine you think is such a hazard.
As far as I know, the bans would also impact electric blowers as well. ( also, all these electric devices, cars included, where do you think the majority of the electric power comes from? 30+% from coal, 30+%natural gas) Are those good for those young lungs? and bodies?
In the scope of life’s problems, a two stroke leaf blower just doesn’t rate. It is a nuisance that you should be able to put up with, without embellishing its impact on society.
Here’s some of the evidence.
1. A Report to the California Legislature on the Potential Health and Environmental Impacts of Leaf Blowers, California Environmental Protection Agency Air Resources Board Mobile Source Control Division, February 2000 (http://www.nonoise.org/ resource/leafblowers/carbleafblower2000.pdf)
2. Air Pollution-Particulate Matter Brochure, California Air Resources Board (http:// http://www.arb.ca.gov/html/brochure/pm10.htm)
3. Association of fine particulate matter from different sources with daily mortality in six U.S. cities, F Laden, L M Neas, D W Dockery, and J Schwartz, Environ Health Perspect. 2000 October; 108(10): 941–947 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ PMC1240126/)
4. CARB Air Pollution-Particulate Matter Brochure.pdf (http://www.arb.ca.gov/html/ brochure/pm10.htm)
5. CARB Final Leaf Blower Report.pdf, (http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/leafblow/ leafblow.htm
6. “Diseases directly transmitted by rodents”, Center for Disease Control http://
http://www.cdc.gov/rodents/diseases/direct.html): (a) Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome — Rodent(s) involved: Deer mouse, Cotton rat, Rice rat, White-footed mouse. Where the disease occurs: Throughout most of North and South America. How the disease spreads: Breathing in dust that is contaminated with rodent urine or droppings; b) Lymphocytic Chorio-meningitis (LCM). Rodent(s) involved: House mouse. Where the disease occurs: Worldwide. How the disease spreads: Breathing in dust that is contaminated with rodent urine or droppings.
7. “How bad for the environment are gas-powered leaf blowers?”, Washington Post, 16 Sept 2013.
8. “Landscape Leaf Blower Facts” http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/ Landscape/Leaf_Blower_Facts.aspx
Health Risks
“Leaf blowers create unnecessary noise and air pollution, endangering you, and the community. Mount Sinai School of Medicine’s Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit says gas-powered leaf blowers pose multiple health threats. They include spreading airborne particles, which can provoke asthma and other respiratory diseases, and potential pollutants like ozone, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons. Hearing damage from the engine noise and eye injuries from pebbles and twigs propelled by blowers are also cited.
“Bad Air
With a muzzle velocity of 150 miles per hour, gas blowers blow herbicides, pesticides, and fecal contaminants up from the ground into the air, especially troubling asthmatics and allergy sufferers, and increasing the threat to everyone. “A gasoline-powered leaf blower generates as much tailpipe emissions in one hour as an automobile does over 100 miles. The difference is that a car emits all that pollution over a big stretch of road, while a leaf blower deposits it all in one back or front yard. A two-stroke commercial blower generates 277 lb.. of volatile organic compounds, 825 lbs. of carbon monoxide and 3.3 lb.. of particulate per year.”
9. Leaf Blower Pollution Hazards in Orange County. (http://www.ocgrandjury.org/pdfs/
leafblow.pdf)
10.Leaf Blower’s Emissions Dirtier than High-Performance Pick-Up Truck’s, Says
Edmunds’ InsideLine.com, December 6, 2011 (http://www.edmunds.com/about/press/ leaf-blowers-emissions-dirtier-than-high-performance-pick-up-trucks-says-edmunds- insidelinecom.html
11.Long-Term Exposure to Air Pollution and Incidence of Cardiovascular Events in Women, Kristin A. Miller, et al., New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 356, pp. 447-458 (Feb. 1, 2007) (http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa054409)
12.Medical Grounds for a Restriction on Internal Combustion Power Tools and Leaf Blowers, Mt. Sinai Children’s Environmental Health Center, Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit, Mt. Sinai Hospital, April 22, 2010 (http://www.lincolntown.org/ documentcenter/view/733)
13.Particulate air pollution as a predictor of mortality in a prospective study of U.S. adults, Pope, C.A., Thun, M.J. Namboodiri, M. M., Dockery, D.W., Evans, J.S., Speizer, F. E., and Heath, C.W. (1995) , Am J. Respir. Crit. Care Med, 151: 669-674.
14.Particulate Matter Emissions Factors and Emissions Inventory from Leaf Blowers in Use in the San Joaquin Valley: Final Report. Prepared for San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District Dennis R. Fritz, et al., College of Engineering, Center for Environmental Research and Technology, University of California, Riverside, January 27, 2006 (http://www.valleyair.org/newsed/leafblowers/ leafblower.pdf)
15.Selected Key Studies on Particulate Matter and Health: 1997 – 2001, American Lung Association (http://www.newtonma.gov/civicax/filebank/documents/22830)
16.The Effect of Fine and Coarse Particulate Air Pollution on Mortality: A National Analysis, Antonella Zanobetti and Joel Schwartz, Environ Health Perspect. 2009 June; 117(6): 898–903 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2702403/)
17.VOC Emissions from Gas Powered Leaf Blowers in Chicago Metropolitan Region , Riyaz Shipchandler, P.E, Waste Management & Research Center January 25, 2008
(http://www.cleanaircounts.org/documents/Leaf%20Blowing%20Emissions
%20Modeling%20Report.pdf)
18.Zero Air Pollution: Blower-Free Zone (Los Angeles) (http://www.zapla.org) November
4, 2013
19.“Rat-Borne Diseases”, Orkin, http://www.orkin.com/rodents/rats/rat-borne-diseases.
Some species of rats such as the cotton rat or rice rat are known carriers of hantavirus. Victims may be debilitated and can experience difficulty breathing. Hantavirus is transmitted to humans when they inhale airborne particles from rodent droppings, urine or carcasses that have been disturbed.”
It reflects very poorly on the City Council that this debate has been going on for years, despite plenty of opportunity for a compromise solution.
Thank you Mike Striar – very well said. Yes they have had Plenty of time to compromise but they dont want to. They just want to “BAN”.
@A: many of your links don’t work. Nothing scientific about anything you have that links 2 stroke leaf blower to any health issue.
There’s plenty. All you have to do is Google it. Do you know how to do this?
@A. Pardon the pun, there is a lot of smoke in those references. But please, show me the specific reference which identifies the 2 stroke blower as the cause of health problems. Not some grand jury comment, and not some fluff piece, but an actual scientific study, with controls, and with results of a causal relationship, because that is being claimed in this thread.
The intended purpose of leaf blowers is in the name.
Landscapers (and others) widely misuse leaf blowers as “debris blowers” — sand, dust, pollen, grass clippings, and anything else. That debris ends up either being blown into the street, or into neighbors’ yards (and onto neighbor’s sidewalks, coating their houses, cars and other possessions). I haven’t studied the law but I’d guess that both are illegal, but landscapers have always gotten away with it.
Since the mis-use of leaf blowers has become so blatant and widespread, it’s the responsible reaction to regulate. If a seasonal ban goes through, landscapers have no one to blame but themselves.
It’s not leaf blowers per se; it’s two-stroke engines. If you’re going to defend these, then you’ll probably also defend 2nd hand cigarette smoke.
https://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfp/publications/00012/3-Dost-PowersawEmissions.pdf
http://lincolntown.org/DocumentCenter/View/6597
Dr. Fleisher,
I suggest you look at: http://www.greenwichcalm.org/apps/blog/entries/show/6583443-health-hazards-of-leaf-blowers.
If you are then not satisfied, I respectfully suggest you, yourself, design, propose and obtain funding for, and conduct an objective, peer-reviewed, exposure and health-effects controlled-experiemental and meta-data statistical analysis study, perhaps funded by and in collaboration with EPA and OSHA, of this problem. I suggest considering contacting Wig Zamore at MIT for technical guidance, if this is not your area of expertise.
@Nathan: I am not supporting anything, I’m asking for the evidence. You suggested this is harming children. I would like to see the evidence to back your claim. I am unaware of it. This latest link is about possible harm to workers using 2 stroke engines, all day- not equivalent, to a child walking on his/her way to school, with an incredibly short encounter.
@A. the same applies, your link is not scientific evidence. Saying Dr. Boyd, an oncologist, is worried about cancer and the possible interaction of 2 stroke engines, is not the same as proving anything. We constantly overestimate the knowledge and certainty of experts in a field, without sufficient evidence to back it up.
A. I appreciate the suggestion for me to undertake a study, but, it is neither my focus, nor my interest. I know there are many other issues facing us, that would come before my level of concern for the safety of the population when faced with the intermittent use of gas powered leaf blowers.
As an aside, I wonder why so much emphasis is place on the leaf blower, but not the lawn mower. It is used for longer periods of time, is a greater pollutant, noise levels are similar, and creates dust into the air as well.
Unless you have pediatric medical credentials that outweigh theirs, I think I’ll go with the Mt. Sinai Hospital Pediatric Environmental Unit’s conclusions. Also, of course, none of us with professional research training, valid credentials and experience take any scientific findings as absolute ‘evidence’. (I have a Ph.D. and 55 years of professional research experience.) Personally, I don’t accept that any risk, even if not ‘proven’ (a term which means nothing in science), to any child’s health is worth saving a landscaper a bit of physical effort. I have children, and I watch young, vulnerable children walking to and from school every school day through the clouds of exhaust and filth the landscapers blast up from the plantings, sidewalks and gutters with their leaf blowers, typically with big smiles on their faces, likely from enjoying the sense of power they get from the noise and the force of the 150 to 200mph-plus winds. Nathan is right, and I won’t respond to any more comments in this discussion. It’s pointless.
I’m not expert, but I can’t understand why common sense regulations can’t be enacted. A seasonal ban makes sense to me. Limited use to certain hours makes sense to me.
Right now I wake up routinely to the loud hum of leafblowers. At 7 am or so. Why is that necessary?
If someone was loudly shouting outside my window at that hour for 30 minutes, I’d be upset. Why is this any different?
Why is it necessary to have leafblowers in the middle of summer? The middle of winter?
I wouldn’t be opposed to a complete ban, but I’m biased to some extent because my yard is small and I don’t own a landscaping company,( unlike some of the typical opponents to these regulations (not on this thread necessary). But absent that, common sense regulations that are a compromise between a complete ban and a carte blanche for the landscaping companies works for me.
But the idea that I’m a busy body because I care about an issue that directly effects my quality of life seems pretty half baked to me. Why am I not allowed to care? So I need to keep my windows closed all summer because 7 am works for the landscaper? Huh?
@Fig: Are you sure the noise you are hearing for 30 minutes are actually leaf blowers?
Often times the sound people think are blowers (especially for such a sustained amount of time) are actually lawn mowers. In fact, it’s plausible to imagine a scenario where leaf blowers are banned and folks will be surprised that a lot of the noise that’s been bothering them remains.
I have small lawn as well, and don’t employ a leaf blower or a landscaper. But my problem with the proposed ban is that while it’s intended to address a problem that occurs in residential neighborhoods, there are many large and small commercial parcels and parcels operated by non-profits such as colleges which would also not be able to use leaf blowers, even though their sound doesn’t bother anybody. Hiring people to rake commercial parcels or college campuses such as Mount Ida will be expensive, assuming you can hire workers to do these jobs. The same will be true for our municipal and school properties. Those are expenses that will impact all of us.
I live in a dense Newton Centre neighborhood. Yes there are landscapers who are running a leaf blower the ENTIRE TIME they are at someone’s house. Sometimes it is more than one. These are the ones that blow dirt and grass and leaf bits into the street and onto other neighbors lawns. Then there are the landscapers like the ones across the street from me that the leaf blower is on for less than 2 minutes (yes I timed it). They blew grass clippings from the sidewalks and front path and driveway into the front hedge, using the blower at a low speed and they were done. This was on a property that is twice as large as any other property in our neighborhood. If only all landscapers would do this we wouldn’t be having this discussion about leaf blower bans.
@Greg: “there are many large and small commercial parcels and parcels operated by non-profits such as colleges which would also not be able to use leaf blowers, even though their sound doesn’t bother anybody.”
Equity Office Building – the Old Jordan Marsh Warehouse employs landscapers. I took pictures of 5 landscapers blowing wet leaves at 7:30 one tmorning. Yes – 5 of them. The property has residential abutters on both sides. For years we had complaints from neighbors who eventually moved because they consistently violated the noise ordinance and there was no enforcement.
Lasell College – has been much better in recent times – but in the past, they would consistently run their leafblowers for long periods of time. Lasell is surrounded by residential abutters.
Boston College is surrounded by residential abutters.
The golf courses are surrounded by residential abutters – though I will say that I am very impressed with Brae Burn Country Club’s management plan to limit the noise and impact on residential abutters.
I don’t disagree that there are some properties where the noise from the leafblowers might not directly impact residents, but there are plenty of others where the use of the leafblowers continues to impact residents.
@Councilor Sangiolo: Yep. You know better than most, why this is such a difficult problem to resolve. But do we really need to ban leaf blowers along, say Wells Ave or all of Needham Street or on the Mount Ida campus because the Equity Office Building or parts of Boston College have abutters?
As you’ll recall, we were all surprised to learn at one of your committee meetings that the city leaf blow trash and debris a couple times each week from our village centers. No one knew and there were no known complaints. If a leaf blower blows in an area where no one is bothered by it, do we really need to ban it and force those uses to adopt a much more costly option?
Unlike Dan Rea, I don’t think opponents here are busy bodies. They have legitimate concerns and complaints. But there are genuine consequences if we ban and genuine consequences if we don’t.
That’s why I support trying the Newton Leaves proposed measures first. And if that doesn’t prove sufficient then look at a ban.
Like Dulles and Alice brought up, leaf blowers are not only used to blow leaves. They are used for dirt and debris, as well, all summer long.
I am a big runner and I bring this up only because I have trained for and run 11 Boston Marathons, so when you are out there for 3-4 hours at a time, you get to observe a lot.
I constantly have to move from the sidewalk because leaf blower guys will be standing on the sidewalk in front of a house, blowing the dirt and debris onto the road or from the sidewalk in front of their customer’s house to the part of the sidewalk that is in front of the neighbor’s house. They are not doing clean-up, they are just moving the dirt away from their customer to another place.
My favorite observation is watching the leaf blower guys blow the debris under a fence separating the customer’s home from another home, I see this all the time!
My most wasteful observation is running west on Comm Ave, watching one landscaper company blow all the dirt and debris from their customer’s property (A) on to the neighbor’s driveway and sidewalk (B), and then running east and seeing a different landscaping company blowing the dirt that is now on B’s property over to A’s sidewalk and driveway. I see this happen all the time and at first found it amusing, but it really is not funny.
To me, a seasonal ban makes sense. I also don’t like hearing them so early in the morning (and yes, they are leafblowers, I have seen them)
I do hire a landscaper, but I have one who rakes.
It seems like there should be a way to compromise on this issue, especially if leaf blowers are used for leaves and not for blowing dirt around, that doesn’t veen get cleaned up, it just gets rearranged.
@Greg: I don’t necessarily disagree that there may be circumstances that warrant the use of leafblowers in the summer and that is why the draft has a clause providing the Mayor with the authority to grant an exemption. Personally, I prefer a registration requirement for all landscapers who do work in the City which requires the submission of a management plan that includes use of only leaflowers that meet the 65 decibel limit, no more than 1 leafblower per 10,000 sq. ft, and adherence to a seasonal ban on gas-powered leafblowers (summer and winter). But that’s just me. Oh and a phase-in period of no more than 1 year to swap out old equipment and obtain new equipment that meets the 65 decibel limit.
Like Rachel, I have also witnessed landscapers who blow dirt and debris into the street. About 1 month ago, I stopped my van at Comm Ave and Exeter Street while someone was blowing dirt and debris into the street. Unlike Rachel – I have never run a Boston Marathon (though that is on my bucket list) Way to go Rachel!!!
Amy, why the limit on noise but not air pollution?
https://psmag.com/even-small-increases-in-air-pollution-can-put-children-at-higher-risk-for-mental-illness-c190af51e1e3#.elo522wgj
@Nathan: I don’t think we’ve ever tried to limit or measure air pollution emissions. Interesting….
In September, Sonoma landscaper George Thomson said this to the City Council:
“I’m George Thompson, I have had Shambhala Gardening Company which I started in Mill Valley when I was 28 years old. I’m 59 now, and in those 30 years I’ve never used a leaf blower, 98% of the time. I have had some persnickety clients that want a leaf blower used.
So I’m kind of here to say it’s possible to run a gardening company without a leaf blower, because I’ve done it… I choose not to use them. And I’ve heard some discussion that you need them. I remember when I was a kid, in Ohio, my dad used to make me rake the leaves, we didn’t have a leaf blower, and the leaves got raked…
I worked for Smith & Hawken gardening company for 15 years, I was their gardener, they prohibited it, they didn’t want me to use leaf blowers. I took care of their nursery in Mill Valley, and their corporate headquarters. I’ve also taken care of six Whole Foods, including parking lots…
If any of you have questions about what it’s like to run a gardening company without a blower, I’m available to answer those questions.” https://www.facebook.com/noblownoma/?fref=nf