The Village of Wilmette is considering changes to its current leaf-blower ordinances.
There are at least five excellent reasons to retain, enhance and expand upon the current ban on gas-powered leaf blowers:
- Noise abatement,
- Pollution reduction,
- Enforcement revenue,
- Legal defensibility, and
- Community support.
1. Noise abatement
Even the quietest gas-powered leaf-blowers are 10 times louder (65-70 decibels or dBA) than outdoor noise levels considered safe by the World Health Organization (55 dBA). To make matters worse, according to the leaf-blower manufacturers' own lobbying organization, the average gas-powered leafblower is exponentially louder than the quietest blowers, creating up to 90-110 dBA - note that decibel levels are measured on a logarithmic scale. Given the population of families in Wilmette, many young children are napping during prime hours when landscapers typically use leaf-blowers. Even the quietest gas-powered leaf blowers are 100 times louder than outdoor noise levels considered to promote healthy sleep (45 dBA).
2. Pollution reduction
According to the American Lung Association, the typical gas-powered leaf blower emits as much smog as 17 cars. Leaf blower motors are inordinately large emitters of CO, NOx, HC, and PM according to a recent study conducted for the California Air Resources Board. The two-stroke engine fuel used in most leaf blowers is a gasoline-oil mixture, and thus especially toxic. Particles from combustion are virtually all smaller than PM2.5. Leaf-blowers furthermore create unique hazards by unnecessarily stirring up a noxious brew of dangerous particulate matter, including lead, mercury, arsenic, molds, pollens, pesticides and animal fecal matter.
3. Enforcement revenue
It is a specious argument that it costs too much to enforce a leaf-blower ban. If Wilmette's current enforcement efforts are costing more than the revenue brought to the city by fines, then the Village should increase the fines and/or decrease the cost of enforcement by making infractions easier to report and enforce. For example, to improve enforcement of its (more comprehensive) leafblower ban, the Santa Monica, California city council is considering expanding fines beyond landscapers to the property owners that hire them. Santa Monica has also taken several steps to improve enforcement, including an online reporting website and a warning system for first-time infractions. Palo Alto, California also made some adjustments back in 2007 or 2008 in order to make their enforcement more cost-effective. Wilmette could also tax and/or require registration of gas leaf-blowers to cover enforcement cost.
4. Legal Defensibility
Given the specific noise and pollution issues attributable to gas-powered leafblowers, and the relative ease of employing alternatives to leaf-blowers (e.g. raking), it would seem that gas-powered leafblowers represent a highly defensible stand-alone target for a ban. Dozens of towns have successfully implemented leaf-blower bans and limits: Evanston (IL), Rye (NY), Yonkers (NY), Pasadena (CA), Woodside (CA), Santa Monica (CA), Palo Alto (CA), Menlo Park (CA), Portland (OR), Los Angeles (CA) to name a few. To our knowledge, none of these ordinances has faced a serious or successful legal challenge. The only recent threatened challenge of which we are aware (in Palo Alto) never materialized, and was not related to the actual ordinance. If there is something specific and peculiar about Wilmette's ban that would make it difficult to defend, then there appears to be dozens of other municipalities that offer a potential model for something more defensible. If some trustees are concerned that it is difficult to maintain a residential ban on leaf-blowers, while allowing leaf-blowers in more commercial settings, they should review Palo Alto's implementation of the ban. Palo Alto's distinction between residential and commercial zones seems straightforward, reasonable, and easy to interpret.
5. Community Support
There is broad support for a ban in Wilmette. If properly surveyed, a majority of residents would most likely support an even stricter and more comprehensive than what we have today.
Trustee Cam Krueger recently emailed a survey to his mailing list of residents. I hope Mr. Krueger's recent survey generates unbiased results, and I applaud him for trying to gauge Village opinion. But given that Mr. Krueger strongly asserted certain highly questionable assumptions in his introductory letter to his survey, we are wary of the results he may obtain.
In fact, Mr. Krueger's recent email to residents states highly questionable assumptions about the current leafblower ban as fact. Mr. Krueger states that leaf-blower bans such as the existing ordinance are not legally defensible, that we must target all outdoor power equipment if we ban gas-powered leaf-blowers, that we can not allow for specific exceptions, and that it is too costly to enforce a ban. Each of these assertions is simply false. There has not been a successful recent challenge to any of the dozens of existing municipal leaf-blower bans. Gas-powered leaf-blowers can be uniquely targeted because of their high combination of noise pollution (averaging an incredible 90-110 decibels) and air pollution (as much smog as 17 cars + unique capability to stir up dangerous particulate matter). Municipalities like Palo Alto can and do allow for different regulations in residential versus commercial zones. And there are many opportunities to improve enforcement to make it more cost-effective and revenue-generating. Mr. Krueger's note is particularly disappointing given he campaigned on the premise that he would evaluate environmental issues based on cost-benefit analysis and facts.
Please write the Village trustees and Village President (Chris Canning) to tell them your opinion on this issue.
Chris Canning: canningc@wilmette.com
Mike Basil: mwbasil@wilmette.com
Cameron Krueger : kruegerc@wilmette.com
Ted McKenna: mckennat@wilmette.com
Karen Spillers: spillersk@wilmette.com
Al Swanson: swansona@wilmette.com
Mari Terman: mariterman@comcast.net
