Blower-Ban Considered in N.C. Town

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Landscape contractors here might have to find a new way this fall to pick up leaves, according to The Raleigh News & Observer. That’s because a town councilman wants to ban leaf blowers.

The News & Observer reports the following:

Just as autumn begins to thin the canopy here, and landscape contractors begin to think about clearing fallen leaves from lawns, along comes Councilman Cam Hill.  After suggesting a ban on all leaf blowers three years ago during an offbeat campaign for mayor, the native Chapel Hillian says he has a serious proposal for his council colleagues to consider Monday night.

"This is an issue for me," Hill says.

It's not just the noise – which some describe as the sound of a whiny dentist's drill gone berserk. In the Triangle, which ranks among the 25 places in the nation with the worst ozone pollution, the air is not of high quality.

Some research shows that gas-powered blowers can produce as much carbon dioxide in an hour as the average car would in more than 350 miles.

"They create air pollution," Hill says. "All they do is move particulate matter around."

Leaf blowers have inspired loud protests in the nearly two decades that they have been around. Sometimes these outbursts are confined to the quiet of one's home, particularly if a neighbor starts blowing early in the morning or well past dusk.

In Los Angeles County and at least 69 other places across the country, according to Hill's count, the protesters have crowded town and city halls, hoping to get a little peace and quiet. Such proposals, though, have kicked up a good bit of dust.

Many professional landscape contractors and gardeners complained that such rules would be a real blow to their livelihood, and they threatened insurrections. In some cases, such bans were repealed.

In Chapel Hill, though, politically active environmentalists are encouraging Hill. They see such a move as part of a global responsibility.

"I was reading a news article this afternoon about more of the arctic glaciers slipping into the ocean," says Dan Coleman, one of those environmentalists. "Banning leaf blowers in Chapel Hill may seem like kind of a small step, but if it's multiplied by thousands of initiatives of people around the globe, then we might get some progress."

Electric blowers, Coleman says, can also be polluters if the power source is a coal-burning plant. But there are renewable energy sources, he says, that make him somewhat hopeful about the electric blower option.

"The best solution," Coleman says, "is the rake."