YOUR TURN: Leaf blowers spoil quiet time on Cape
I look forward to my daily walk in Centerville. I treasure the solitude and quiet as I stroll along. Too often, though, the whine of leaf blowers intrudes and spoils my quiet time.
Even as January approached, it happened again. The stench from burning gas was overwhelming. I get no benefit from that unwelcome intrusion, yet I must pay the cost. Not fair.
The urge to clean up fallen leaves must come from our worship of wide, green lawns in the English country manor style. Lightening bugs deposit their eggs on fallen leaves, and gathering those leaves may be part of the reason we rarely see their blinking on summer nights. But dark summer nights and the intrusion on my quiet walk are not the main problems that leaf blowers create. They are among the worst polluters known to humankind.
Gas-powered leaf blowers are often two-cycle engines that incompletely combust their fuel. The exhaust, which stinks up the air downwind, also adds carbon dioxide to our air, in quantities that exceed using an automobile for the same length of time.
Nearly 100 communities in California, our nation’s capital, and Concord, in the Boston suburbs, have all banned or limited gas-powered leaf blower use. Sometimes the community’s motivation is asthma-triggering dust blown up by the leaf blowers. Sometimes, it is the loud whining noise.
Barnstable has a noise ordinance, but reporting violations is nearly impossible. In the case of Cape Cod, where the consequences of climate change will be awful, we should ban them for the air pollution they create.
There are good alternatives to stinky gas guzzlers. Rakes make no noise, create no dust, and burn no fossil fuel. They do burn human calories, and for most of us, that is a plus. Electric leaf blowers also stir up dust, but make less noise and no pollution (except what was burned to create the electricity). How one might gather fallen leaves after gas-powered blowers are banned is not my topic today, but there are choices.
How is it fair that my grandkids should suffer the loss of beaches and extreme weather so that today someone, who may be dead and gone by that time, can have a leaf-free lawn? It is like using the public swimming pool as a toilet. Not fair.
A wise person said we have not inherited the earth from our parents, but have borrowed it from our children. In that vein, I urge the Town Council to end the use of gas-powered leaf blowers. It will help all of us and our grandkids’ future.
Steve Waller lives in Centerville.
This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Leaf blowers spoil quiet time on Cape Cod
