Leaf Blowers - Part 2

What to do, if anything, about leaf blowers in town is back on Tuesday night.  It was a hot topic back in June on the Voice and was one of Ricardo Ortiz' best zingers during the election.  The council took it off-line back in August to study it and have come up with the following results.  They current proposal is to divide the city into sections and limit each section to a different day of the week per this map.

The study notes

This approach does not distinguish gasoline from electric, nor does it completely prohibit the use of gasoline blowers.  The thinking was that although electric blowers do not add carbon monoxide to the environment they stir up as much dust and allergens and are almost as noisy as gasoline powered blowers.   Given the concerns and cost implications of the switching to electric blowers for the professional gardeners the consensus of the committee was to minimize the hours of the week that residents are exposed to any type of mechanical leaf blower.

Of course, the challenge is "which problem are we trying to solve?" since some want to stop carbon emissions, some want to reduce the ambient dust from any type of blower and some worry only about the noise.  The gardeners have to worry about scheduling not just B'game customers, but the surrounding towns' customers in the same day, along with rain, sick days, holidays and, of course, the cost of going to electric.  Furthermore, they worry that battery-powered blowers won't last for a full day of work so that would require homeowners to add front and back electrical outlets that are estimated to average about $1500 per home.

I happened to be in a San Diego neighborhood back in September and the gardeners were using battery-powered blowers.  I have to admit they were very quiet and appeared to be as efficient.  We will see what comes out of the study session on Jan 3rd, but several well-informed wags in town think the different-day-per-section of town idea is crazy and unenforceable.

Comments

[Timothy Hooker]

Think you missed the boat. It isn't the allergens and the gas fumes of the two-cycle motors; it is the sending the poison insecticides airborne into the neighborhood and the 100 decibel noise level that has destroyed the tranquility of Burlingame neighborhoods.

The municipal code states a 65 decibel limit. Reality....they are all over that level and there is zero enforcement. The first indication that a leaf-blower is too loud is when the gardener is wearing headphones to protect against ear drum damage.

[Myb]

There are also plug-ins. They're just as quiet!

[holyroller @hotwire.com]

I agree with Mr. Hooker.
The laws are there, and have been for VERY LONG TIME.
No need for a study group.
Just enforce the ordinance that has been on the "books" for years.
This is a perfect exaple of "to much goverment."

[jennifer]

Burlingame is pretty breezy in most parts; even without blowers, there is a fair amount of dust spread about. I think the issue that mostly bothers people, is noise. This is a noisy city, like most others. There is noise from all kinds of sources -- what is irritating to some people, may be 'white' noise to others. I have a particular dislike of modified muffler noise and motorcyles, surely these emit more than the allowable decibel levels-- yet others may find loud car noises exhilarating.

I think the bigger issue is simply, how can any of this be enforced? It is hard, if not impossible, to consistently enforce many of our ordinances- enforcement mainly comes when complaints are called in. Yet since the police and our ordinance officer are stretched too far and broadly to address most issues while they are happening, this becomes an impossible task. I see things only getting worse in this regard; I'm not sure what the answer is...
At some point, the industry standards may change, but that will likely be very gradual.

[Pam]

You still need somewhere to plug in the plug-in blowers. Very few people have outdoor outlets in the right places to make this easy to do so it becomes a major home project to get there.

[Joe]

Here is the Daily Journal's take on the discussion:

http://www.smdailyjournal.com/article_preview.php?id=226011&title=Burlingame altering its leaf blower regulations

[Mike]

So if you remove half the residential days that gardeners can visit homes, won't you need 2x the number of residential gardeners? Maybe more if they choose to rake vs. blow (takes more time)? Guess math and common sense were never local politicians' forte.