Harvard Crmson - November 07, 2006
By VIRGINIA A. FISHER
Cambridge residents at last night’s City Council meeting had one word for leaf blowers: leave.
Three speakers at the session complained about the nettlesome noise, environmental damage, and potential health consequences caused by the blowers. And at the meeting, City Manager Robert W. Healy announced the creation of a task force to investigate the possibility of a city-wide ban.
But Healy’s announcement doesn’t mean the controversy is likely to blow over.
The task force includes four Cambridge residents as well as representatives from an equipment manufacturer, a landscaping firm, relevant city departments, and a member from MIT. But that did not fully satisfy advocates of an all-out ban.
“All those who advocate for the use of leaf blowers...are hoping to benefit by making others suffer,” resident Megan Brook said during a during public comment period. She expressed concern that the manufacturer and landscaping representatives would misguide the task force because of conflicts of interest.
Responding to these criticisms, the council requested that the city manager appoint a health expert to the task force.
Cambridge wouldn’t be the first city to eliminate the leaf-clearing power-tools. Carmel, Calif., abolished the blowers in 1975—saying they constituted “a public nuisance”—and Beverly Hills followed suit the next year, according to the Noise Pollution Clearinghouse, an advocacy group based in Montpelier, Vt. About 20 cities in the Golden State have enacted bans, according to the clearinghouse.
Japanese engineers invented the blowers in the early 1970s, and the tools gained popularity over the next two decades—with annual U.S. sales nearing 2 million by the late 1990s, according to a report by a California state agency.
That agency, the Air Resources Board, added in a 1999 report that health effects—which stem from carbon monoxide exhaust, particulate matter, and carinogenic compounds in gasoline—were particularly damaging for workers who use the devices.
Sue Butler, a board member of the advocacy group Green Decade Cambridge, also urged councillors to consider the ecological impact of blowers. She advocated leaf-raking instead.
“If you can do something burning your own calories rather than electricity or gasoline, it will be better for the environment and better for you,” Butler said.
No one at the meeting rose in defense of the blowers. But the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, an Alexandria, Va.-based trade association, says that blowers present an “extremely efficient” way to save time and labor.
Gardeners, curb your engines
Although spring doesn't officially start for a few days, Cambridge gardeners and landscapers might want to think of yesterday as their outdoors kick-off date. The city's leaf-blower ordinance went into effect on the first of the month, imposing strict restrictions on use of the equipment, and setting emission and noise standards for the devices. Leaf blowers can be used from March 15 to June 15, but homeowners will have to observe the citywide ban from mid-June to Sept. 15. Commercial operators and large property owners can seek an exemption from the city, but their leaf blowers may not exceed 65 decibels.
Further details are at: cambridgema.gov/leafblowers.
Cambridge passes partial leaf blower ban
Chronicle Staff - Dec 12, 2007
By Matt Dunning/
CAMBRIDGE - Cambridge officials finally agreed on a law that partially bans leaf blowers in the city, but at least one landscaper said the new law would just make it more expensive to get rid of foliage.
“It’s going to cost people a lot more money who have a large amount of leaves on their property,” said Pamela Hart, a landscaper who’s been in the business for 30 years. “I’m not sure [the laws] have been well thought-through.”
Earlier this week, city councilors approved an ordinance banning gas-powered leaf blowers for five months out of the year by commercial and residential users.
According to the ordinance, residents are permitted to use leaf blowers from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, from March 16 to June 14, and from Sept. 16 to Dec. 31. Commercial users — defined as any entity with five or more employees — are also permitted to use leaf blowers during those times, but must submit an operations plan to the City Manager’s office for approval beforehand.
The ban does not apply to municipal grounds crews, who are permitted to use leaf blowers year-round.
While some city officials worried that was once a simple idea had become a quagmire of exceptions and provisions, making the ban "unenforceable,” several landscapers in Cambridge said they thought, however valid their intent, that the city had gone too far in trying to protect residents’ “quality of life.”
“There’s an old saying that says hard cases make hard laws,” Hart, the landscaper, said. “It’s too bad we can’t just use our common sense, because there’s no question in my mind that a great many have used blowers when they were not necessary.”