NewCanaanite.com recently received the following letter. Send letters to editor@newcanaanite.com to have them published here.
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The full Town Council meets Wednesday night, Town Hall at 7 p.m., to discuss the proposed leaf blower ordinance—again. Action to bring a meaningful solution to noise and air pollution has been under discussion since 2021. Supporters have presented factual evidence and made impassioned pleas to town government to enact meaningful change. Opponents, meanwhile, continue to rely on worn-out claims about why nothing should change. Their arguments have been proven wrong time and again.
Community support at this hearing is vital to encourage our Town Council to enact a strong leaf blower ordinance, which protects our health and our peaceful use of our homes. The Town Council needs to understand that New Canaan voters want action to restrict the harmful noise and toxic fumes from gas leaf blowers.
Please show your support. Come in person (preferred) or join on Zoom: Town Council Zoom Link Meeting ID: 842 1004 6647 Passcode: 532384
Can’t make the meeting? Please show support by emailing the Town Council at tcdistribution@newcanaanct.gov.
Thanks for your help,
Lars Andersson
Let’s be honest: a three-month ban on gas leaf blowers is about optics, not health. Of the 169 towns in Connecticut, only a tiny handful have enacted such restrictions and for good reason.
If these tools truly represented a “toxic health crisis,” why would they be safe to use for nine months of the year, but “harmful” only during the summer? It’s a symbolic gesture that doesn’t change our air quality, but it will certainly increase costs for New Canaan residents and small businesses.
The Town Council should reject this inconsistent and performative overregulation. We should focus on enforcing our existing noise laws rather than joining a 5% minority of towns in a policy that fails the test of both logic and common sense.
Richard, you keep up the same old tune, but it makes no sense and never has. We have had this conversation before.
1) At least 33 towns in our area have restricted gas leaf blowers. Pound Ridge has restricted them from May thru mid-October. Bedford has banned them year round except for 6 weeks in fall. Most of our Fairfield County neighbors have too. These communities have the same climate and the same lawns as we have.
2) This ordinance applies to summer only because it’s a compromise. It protects families and children when they are on vacation and likely to be outside, and when leaf blowers are not needed. It allows them in the fall when children are in school and there is more work to be done. This is what a compromise means.
3) Electric leaf blowers are much cheaper to use and significantly more profitable for commercial use over their life. Lars Andersson documents this below. What evidence do you have for your claim? If you have any, show it.
Gas leaf blowers are a serious threat to the health of our families and children. This is scientifically proven, unlike your claims. Do you have a better suggestion to protect them? If not, please stop repeating the same baseless and offensive nonsense.
John
1. Your claim regarding our “neighbors” is statistically misleading. Only 4 out of 23 Fairfield County towns (17%) and a mere 5 out of 169 Connecticut municipalities (3%) have instituted such restrictions. Trends in New York State should not dictate local Connecticut policy.
2. The assumption that summer is the peak period for children’s exposure is flawed. Many families travel or relocate to second homes during the summer months; conversely, youth outdoor activity and organized sports peak significantly during the autumn, when these machines operate without restriction.
3. My position has never been to dispute the known health effects of gas-powered blowers. Rather, I am questioning the efficacy of a limited, three-month ban. There is no evidence provided to suggest that a 90-day hiatus offers a meaningful long-term health benefit if the same emissions and noise levels are simply concentrated into the remaining nine months of the year.
If you are looking for compromise that benefits all, I would suggest a year round Sunday ban.
Not to drag this out, but:
1) Greenwich, Stamford, Norwalk and Westport have enacted leaf blower restrictions. These are our Fairfield County neighbors and an appropriate benchmark for New Canaan. Most upper Fairfield towns (eg Easton, Redding, Monroe etc) have much lower populations and density.
2) Some New Canaan families have second homes to escape to, but most do not. The good fortune of a minority does not outweigh the health and well-being of the rest of us.
3) The ordinance will lead to a large, absolute reduction in annual output of pollution and noise. People will not use gas blowers more in other seasons because they cannot use them in summer, so there is no concentration in the other nine months.
4) A Sunday-only ban would protect us for less than 40 days a year (since nobody uses blowers in winter) vs a whole summer under the ordinance. The town has chosen a more effective compromise.
Thank you, Lars, for keeping gas leaf blowers front and center.
Thank you, Town Council, for addressing this important issue. I hope you’ll help guide New Canaan into an era where we can all enjoy our outdoor spaces in peace.
We do not need Lars Andersson nor the TC to tell us how to spend our money. Free market economics will make decisions obvious for taxpayers. If the case for battery operated equipment was obvious, all taxpayers and vendors would use such devices in their yards.
To Mr. Young. You are absolutely correct. Thank you for stating the
obvious.
Adam Smith never addressed externalities. The free market is not free if it takes away others’ rights to quiet enjoyment and clean air.
As an environmentalist, I support non-polluting equipment and drive a Silverado EV. But I don’t support legislation forcing me to do so. Let the market economics make it such that everyone prefers a batter blower over a gas blower. My 15-year old gas blower still works fine and spending $1500 for a battery blower does not make economical sense. And if the town does not agree with that, then subsidize the purchase.
Richard,
What do you propose and how would you address the hundreds of people who have spoken out, seeking relief from the noise and pollution.
Thanks – Lars
Lars,
Simple. I would suggest a year-round Sunday ban. This gives residents a guaranteed day of quiet every week and is a far more practical solution for the community than the seasonal ban currently being discussed. A meaningful gesture as opposed to a symbolic one.
Robert,
Operating costs for a 3 man crew, running Gas Vs. Battery over 5 years, shows battery powered equipment coming out ahead with a cost savings of $10,000
After switching to Battery operated blowers then you should ask your landscaper for a rebate
Thanks – Lars
No one cares (except a few people who need more to do in their lives).
How nice it would be to be able to sit outdoors on a summer evening and not be assaulted by the obnoxious sound of gas fired leaf blowers!
As testimony to the subcommittee stated, more batteries are needed and the batteries start to lose their total charge and they take longer to complete their tasks. As such, they are not time saving or cost saving – the tech is not there yet.
Has the TC subcommittee committee spoken with the numerous local landscape companies that serve our community and who are the only ones being impacted by this policy? No. They should have. Town, is not required to change to electric and neither are homeowners who have gas equipment. Fact: Some local landscapers (like Gravereaux) have testified and stated that their costs for electric are higher – additional chargers are needed. One resident I personally spoke with told me her landscaper, who is mainly based in Greenwich, has raised their fees on clients even in New Canaan because of the gas blower mandates already in Greenwich. That landscaper also often needs to plug into the owners’ electric to charge their equipment on site. This will impact our residents that use landscapers with higher costs. Stating the someone should “subsidize” the costs for landscapers is code for “raise our local property taxes,” so everyone pays more.
The state backed off of a statewide ban for these reasons among others.
The only “neighboring” towns in CT with electric blower mandates are much larger and have more dense areas than New Canaan does – only Greenwich, Stamford, Norwalk, and Westport have such a policy.
The ghost writing letter campaign by a handful of residents – the same handful of proponents who have written letters and comments weekly in our local news outlets on this topic – has pushed perception over reality on this policy. An idea that is likely an unpopular policy among the general population of residents if they actually took the time to read the actual draft policy being considered.
The drafted policy lacks common sense and soundness and completely ignored the impacts on residents’ pocket books. When the “compromise” draft policy, as this has been described, does not adequately meet the stated goals, we have missed the mark.
Kids are at town camps during the summer, but the town will still be using their gas equipment and so will any residents that own gas equipment. It does not address noisy lawn mowers or other landscaper equipment either. So that image of a blissful and silent coffee in your backyard during certain hours on weekends when noisy or polluting equipment is not being used is just fantasy. BTW, landscapers generally don’t work after 4pm, so enjoying your “summer evenings” in your backyard – especially when it is light out well after 7 pm – is likely not impacted in any way because of this policy.
If New Canaan wanted to address the noise issue in the 1 acre or 1/3 acre or less part of town, which represents > 10% of the town’s total area, that could have made sense. But this policy is being pushed on every area of town and the issues and cost impacts are not the same. Those additional costs will be saddled much more by residents in the remaining 90% area of the town that are not as impacted by noise or pollution. Using weaker electric equipment in those larger lots may actually prolong the noise, not decrease it as well.
In addition, the tight window of allowable use of electric blowers on weekends is also completely unrealistic when Mon-Fri weather patterns may push catchup work to weekends. The landscapers will still use other equipment outside those hours too! Once again, raising costs and impacting productivity and profitability of local businesses, who are often immigrant entrepreneurs. Those are the voices that have not been considered in this policy making. It’s usually the state that is pushing top down anti-business policies again and again, but this time, we are doing it locally with ineffective mandates that solve nothing but do have fully foreseeable consequences. That’s a shame.
All politics is local. Maybe it’s time for residents to start paying more attention to what is happening and how the local electeds are voting on such policies. As I often say, elections do have consequences.
Seems grossly inconsistent when the effort is focused on one particular machine that produces the same amount of noise and pollution as other acceptable machines such as lawn mowers, chainsaws, snow blowers, generators, backhoes, etc. Which leads me to believe the goal is not quality of life but more imposition of a particular viewpoint from a well organized vocal minority.
Ben, gas leaf blowers are far noisier and more polluting than other lawn equipment, generators, backhoes etc. Chainsaws are noisy but necessary — unlike gas leaf blowers in summer. Here are the facts about the health impact of gas leaf blowers, from Mt Sinai research. Are you and Maria really happy about exposing your families to this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWm7U4ux7Rs
Thank you John. Chainsaws are basically the same 2-stroke engines as in a leaf blower. Generators, and backhoes are far more powerful and noisy. Who says chainsaws are necessary? Is all tree work necessary? I prune my trees based upon my opinion about the growth and/or shade of my trees on my lawn. Others may disagree. The point is the focus on leaf blowers is highly subjective and otherwise ineffective for the purposes stated by the proponents of this law.
Agree with Ben. Chainsaws fall in the same category as blowers. Mowers are similar with bigger engines and are noisier. The focus is only on blowers for some reason and then too only for 3+ months. While it’s a good start, it’s hardly progress.
And then there’s the 4th of July. It’s probably worse than a whole month of blower usage.
That said, I still support the exceptions for hard surfaces and storm damage.