Both Chilmark and Tisbury voted this week to phase out gas-powered leaf blowers, becoming the fourth and fifth towns to do so on the Island.
In Tisbury on Tuesday night, town meeting voters approved its article, banning gas-powered blowers in three years and limiting their use until then.
In Chilmark, a similar ban passed unanimously, but not before a series of amendments were made on the town meeting floor — some failing and some passing. Unlike the other four Island towns, Chilmark residents decided to impose restrictions only for contractors, while homeowners will be able to continue caring for their lawn however they see fit — gas-powered or otherwise, and without time restrictions.
The Tuesday night vote in Tisbury culminates an Island-wide effort to transition away from the use of fossil fuels and to limit the noise of gas blowers, which some have complained is constant in the more developed areas of the Island.
Aquinnah, the only town not to enact a ban, does not have the article on its town meeting warrant this spring, though town officials have said that they are open to the possibility later.
Zada Clarke, director of advocacy and community organizing at the Vineyard Conservation Society who helped get the articles on local warrants, said that VCS is grateful to the residents who worked on the bylaw.
“We are excited that the community is taking this step, and recognize that the bylaw is still heavily weighted in favor of leaf blowers, giving (at the least) six days and the majority of daylight hours to their use,” Clarke said. “But the change helps with our needed energy transition, and creates some meaningful time for community members who enjoy the quiet taken away by the prior lack of limits to leaf-blower use.”
Clarke said the effort isn’t over: “We look forward to working with towns to educate our community and exploring resources to support the transition to electric for both landscapers and homeowners.”
On the town meeting floor in Tisbury on Tuesday, it was much the same as in Oak Bluffs, Edgartown, and West Tisbury, where voters complained about noise and environmental degradation.
Alicia Lesnikowska supported the bylaw, arguing that people are too reliant on blowers. “Rake your leaves! That’s what I’ve been doing for 50 years,” she said, receiving the loudest applause during the article’s discussion.
But there were some nuances voted through in Tisbury. Voters rejected an amendment by Akeyah Lucas that would have placed restrictions only on commercial enterprises. Lucas said that she understood restricting commercial use, but questioned what homeowners would do with their gas-powered blowers come 2028. “Will homeowners have to trash their current, completely usable gas-combustion blowers?” she asked.
Town Department of Public Works Director Kirk Metell spoke against the proposal, with doubts over electric blowers’ cost and effectiveness. “We purchased electric blowers a few years back,” he said of his department. “Each leaf blower is about $400 … Each battery is about $200. The batteries last about a half-hour.”
“This does not work for my department, and does not work for me as a person who only has Sundays to work around my house,” he said of the bylaw.
Town workers are exempt from the bylaw’s hourly and seasonal restrictions in the event of severe weather or an accident.
Before the full ban in 2028, in Tisbury, the bylaw limits use of gas-powered leaf blowers from 8 am to 5 pm from Monday to Friday and from 10 am to 5 pm on Saturday. It also restricts them to March 15 through the end of May, and Oct. 15 through Jan. 15. Residents also approved an amendment to ban the use of gas-powered blowers on Sundays and federal holidays before the full ban takes effect in 2028.
Tisbury’s bylaw differs from those in other towns in that it does not restrict use of electric leaf blowers during certain times of day and year. Voters also defeated a motion to table the article completely.
In Chilmark on Monday night, it was a more intense discussion, with voters ultimately putting forward six amendments, although only three passed.
Zach Coutinho, a landscaper, introduced an amendment Monday night to limit the restrictions on homeowners. Coutinho said most of the issues with leaf blowers the community faces are due to contractor use. Noise and environmental damage were mostly contributed by groups like himself, he clarified. “Maybe we should regulate us, and not the people of Chilmark,” Coutinho said to the packed room of locals, earning him scattered applause.
Ann DeWitt, owner of a gas-powered blower, said she’d rather blow leaves herself than pay someone “over a thousand dollars” to do so. To her, the right to operate this machinery is nonnegotiable.
“You’re gonna tell me that you could start fining me for taking care of my own property?” she asked the town officials.
The amendment Coutinho proposed passed 114 to 49.
An added amendment ensuring that caretakers and those receiving financial compensation for landscape or garden maintenance be exempt from gas-powered blower use also passed, as did a restriction for electric blowers in some winter months.
But an amendment to allow large, wheel-powered gas blowers to be used by contractors failed, leaving some landscapers to bid goodbye to the expensive equipment and look to comparable electric models.
A complete ban seems very unecessary, though I can see a large problem with them. That being the manor in which they are used (running at full throttle for extended periods when full throttle should now be necessary. Applying sensibility to the use of leafblower would resolve the issues.
Write the law.
Hallelujah for an end to leaf blowers! Leaf blowers are noise-polluting — and worse, they blow vermin feces into the air, which exacerbates tic-borne disease transmission.
Somehow I think that “sensibility” may have been left in the dust already. Today, for instance, across the street from my house two people used commercial leaf blowers for more than six hours, which sound permeated my windows and doors and left me unable to work at my desk (I transcribe) as I couldn’t hear the recordings. I thought of going over with a rake over my shoulder and just staring at them, but my partner opined that would probably be too subtle. Every single little leaf particle has been manicured from the lawn, I am happy to say, unlike our own lawn, still teeming with various insects and bees(!) living in the mounds of unraked leaves and feasting on the dandelions. I’m sure I’m considered a scourge on the street, but I didn’t move to the Vineyard to live in the suburbs.
What Sarah said—
George Orwell is bemused.
Another point in favor of a ban is the welfare of landscape workers who should not be subjected to hazardous exhaust when emission-free (electric) leaf blowers are available and affordable. (Gas lawn mowers are less dirty as their engines are 4-stroke. Also. switching to electric mowers is very costly for landscape businesses.)
What?
I can’t hear you.
The leaf blowers.
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