Fort Worth Gas-Powered Leaf Blower Ban

Yesterday a small army of what may have been illegals from south of the border descended on my zone to attack the fallen leaves. With gas-powered leaf blowers. The noise is deafening, like a dozen Harley's without mufflers.

It seemed like hours were spent slowly blowing the leaves that surrounded the area around the pool up against a fence right below me. And then on top of the constant blower noise the men operating the blowers would yell at each other. In Spanish. Loud. So they could be heard over the blowers.

I thought to myself I can not be alone in thinking the use of gas-powered leaf blowers should be banned, just on the noise issue alone. Add to that the fact that you can smell the blowers exhaust fumes.

What is wrong with using rakes? These guys are so slow at blowing the leaves it would seem raking would be way faster. They end up using rakes in the end, anyway, once the leaves are blown into a huge pile, then rakes are used to get the leaves into garbage cans.

So, I looked into the issue of leaf blowers and learned I am not alone in thinking they should be banned. In fact, gas-powered leaf blowers have been banned in much of the country.

One guy had this to say on his blog......

"Whoever invented the leaf blower should be shot. See here. These contraptions are noisy, dirty, and environmentally destructive. First, they throw dust, dirt, and organic matter into the air, making it difficult for people (especially those with respiratory problems) to breathe. Second, they use gasoline, which pollutes the air. Third, they're infernally noisy. Whatever happened to sweeping or raking? Brooms and rakes are quiet; they don't throw dust into the air; and they don't destroy the ozone layer. They're also less dangerous. Would you want to walk around wearing a container of gasoline on your back? What moron would do such a thing? Nothing symbolizes our wasteful, arrogant, obese age more than the leaf blower. The sooner it is outlawed, the better."

Los Angeles has banned gas-powered leaf blowers. There is a website devoted to enforcing the LA ban. The website's URL is zapla.org. "zapla" comes from Zero Air Pollution Los Angeles. I found the following blurb from the Zapla website amusing...

"Los Angeles Residents, if your neighbors can’t or won’t control their gardeners after your polite requests, REPORT a blower in progress to 877-275-5273 and select number 1, Non-Emergency Crimes."

So, while it pleases me to learn I am not alone in my aversion to noisy leaf blowers, I know there is not a bat's chance in hell they will be banned in what one of Fort Worth's best known citizen activists, Don Young, refers to as Dirty Ol' Town.

So far today, no noise.