(Image: Seattle.gov)
Seattle may finally get its ban on gasoline-powered leaf blowers. Friday morning, the Seattle City Council’s Sustainability and Renters’ Rights Committee will consider a resolution that will call on the the city to phase out the noisy tools by 2025 and for the machines to be banned in the city by 2027.
Brought forward by by Councilmember Alex Pedersen, the resolution cites worker health and noise as the main drivers for the effort that would begin preparing the city for legislation to enable the restrictions.
“Transitioning away from gas-powered leaf blowers will be a multi-year process, and a resolution — as opposed to an ordinance — is an effective tool to initiate the process,” a council spokesperson tells CHS.
The resolution restarts a process that has been kicked around City Hall over the past decade and started anew in last year’s budget process that included a line item targeting the machinery asking city departments to “develop a plan to phase out the use of all gas-powered leaf blowers in Seattle within two years.”
The new resolution goes beyond that with a three and five-year timeline for eliminating gas-powered blowers used to sweep away dirt and leaves from sidewalks first from use on city property and, later, from anywhere in the city.
While city analysis shows the gasoline-fueled blowers are not a significant source of emissions, its research raises concerns about the health of the people who must use them at work and the noise the machines create. It also cites a 2018 committee report to the Council of the District of Columbia stating “that over 170 jurisdictions in 31 states have enacted some type of restriction on the use of gas leaf blowers.”
“Most of the jurisdictions that have completely banned the use of gas leaf blowers have relatively dry conditions during the fall when leaf litter is prevalent that allows for the more successful use of the less powerful electric blowers as compared to Seattle’s wet weather during this same time,” a council report on the proposal reads.
The gas blowers will likely be replaced by electric blowers, of course. But the council’s analysis says that electric blowers also make a lot of noise — but it’s different. Gas blowers roar at a different, lower frequency. “Lower frequency sound travels through building walls and longer distances, causing gas blowers to be perceived by the human ear as noisier and more disturbing than electric blowers.
The report says the ban could end up costing more than just replacing those gas blowers at City Hall especially if the city “develops a buyback program or other financial incentives to expedite the transition to electric leaf blowers.”
The city currently owns 418 gas blowers and 70 electric models.
This is an example of solving a “problem” in the wrong way. Electric is _not_ better than gasoline powered in this case. The electric blowers are louder (requiring better hearing protection for the workers) and, take longer to clear the same debris since they’re less powerful than gasoline blowers, especially on wet leaves.
In California they’ve banned the sale of gasoline leaf blowers and the contractors just go to Nevada to buy them. The electric ones are worthless according to them, and so it’s worth the expense and time to drive to another state to acquire them.
How about just banning the use of any leaf blowers or power washers on the weekends or limiting their use to certain hours on weekends? Let the gardeners get their work done with the best tools for the job, and keep residences livable on the weekends.
“city analysis shows the gasoline-fueled blowers are not a significant source of emissions”
I don’t understand how that’s possible with the amount of pollution that leaf blowers produce:
“A 2011 study by Edmunds found that a two-stroke gasoline-powered leaf blower spewed out more pollution than a 6,200-pound Ford F-150 SVT Raptor pickup truck. Jason Kavanagh, the engineering editor at Edmunds at the time, noted that ‘hydrocarbon emissions from a half-hour of yard work with the two-stroke leaf blower are about the same as a 3,900-mile drive from Texas to Alaska in a Raptor.'” -NYTimes https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/25/opinion/leaf-blowers-california-emissions.html
Anyway, I hope we ban them and soon.
The Council’s job is pretend to do something and our job is pretend something got done.
woohoo!
I definitely support this. I used to live in a building that the gardner used a gas leaf blower and several units would be affected by the exhaust making it impossible to stay inside even with all the windows closed. The electric units at least don’t spew carbon monoxide but I actually support brooms.
Leaf blowers are just a big gas powered fan with a constricted exhaust, right? Some manufacturers make them with better efficiency than others, right? It’s not like there’s something inherent to blowing leaves that causes abhorrent emissions, right? I mean, 2 cycle engines suck at emissions, but nobody is griping about Mosquito Fleet mopeds, are they?
This whole thing just seems super reactionary. Been hearing Capitol Hill angst about leaf blowers since the early 2000s, and it’s always been more about hearing them before the hangover wears off than it has been about actual energy efficiency.
It sure would be nice if we could focus our energy on solutions that aren’t reactive.
Electric models are getting better all the time. A gas powered leaf blower is INCREDIBLY noisy: 80 to 90 decibels. Electric models are a bit quieter with a decibel range between 65 and 70. A few new models of electric leaf blowers come in at 59 decibels. Think about this: somehow, incredibly, mankind managed to survive without leaf blowers for hundreds of thousands of years. How was this possible!? Is it conceivable that we could transition to electric leaf blowers? BTW, gas powered yard equipment have no emissions controls. A 2011 study showed that a leaf blower emits nearly 300 times the amount of air pollutants as a pickup truck. Similarly, a 2001 study showed that one hour using a gas-powered lawn mower is equivalent to driving a car 100 miles.
I support city council on a ban of gas powered leaf blowers. Now if they could do something about the junkies who assault my employees…
I despise leaf blowers, but I would rather see us implement impact fees for the noise and air pollution rather than an outright ban. Let the users decide for themselves if it’s worth the extra $20/hr, $50/hr or whatever the correct price is.