To the Editor:
Responding to the recent article on the Chilmark Select Board considering a ban on new pickleball courts: Sure, the sound of the paddle striking the ball makes a popping noise. The sound travels a bit.
But it wouldn’t surprise me if many of the people objecting to the noises coming from the pickleball courts are some of the same people who hire landscape companies who use ridiculous gas-powered lawnmowers, hedge trimmers, and especially blowers. Those machines are not only far louder than pickleball, but they are hugely polluting as well.
I have switched my working tools to battery-powered ones. The noise from them is but a fraction of what is emitted from the gas-powered equipment. I’ve had my mower for six years — not a speck of trouble, and it cuts easily and efficiently. The blower is certainly as powerful as the gas machines. Similarly with the hedge trimmer. No fumes, no pollution.
Is the Chilmark Select Board (and the boards of the other towns) willing to outlaw gas-powered equipment, or is that too controversial?
Steve Auerbach
Oak Bluffs
