Dear City Council members,
Back in the 1990s, I was involved with a movement to ban gas-powered leaf blowers due to several serious environmental and health impacts resulting from their use. Los Altos has had such a ban since the 90s. And all we have in Menlo Park is restrictions on time and days, which are never enforced.
Even the state government has finally recognized these blowers are a hazard.
The two-stroke motor doesn’t burn clean—it spews gas particulates into the air, along with particles of debris blown up into the air we breathe, including pesticides, molds, fertilizers, decomposing matter, etc.
And what makes this all the worse is the fact that maintenance gardeners fire up their loud, polluting leaf-blowers six days a week, hour after hour, all over our otherwise clean and quiet suburb.
In fact, for most people, the noise is the main issue. And more and more of us are working at home during the day. When you have a parade of mow-and-blow teams in your neighborhood, you may be assaulted by the signature whining blast of blower after blower for hours on end. Not conducive to work, or to having peace and quiet in your own home.
While I’m 100% in favor of gas stoves, which are clean-burning, extremely useful, efficient, and the gold standard for cooking, gas blowers clock in at the opposite end of the spectrum—the negatives far outweigh the positives.
In fact, most of what the gardeners do with the blowers could be done almost as quickly with a rake.
If they want to use blowers, electric ones have been available for decades.
I urge you, Council members, to vote to accept the Environmental Quality Commission’s recommendation to consider a ban on gas-powered leaf-blowers. Better late than never.
Sincerely,
Cherie Zaslawsky
