The battle-line has been drawn. In a move that will be a focal point of coming history texts—assuming historians survive the coming troubles—Larchmont has banned gas-powered leaf-blowers.
Our nation’s premiere leafy suburbs may soon be torn apart by leaves.
Trees are America’s original disposable-culture residents. They throw away close to half their body mass every fall—dropping their discarded food-source to the ground like the Drapers of Chilmark[1] in that Mad Men picnic scene. Their litter[2] is fine and good in a forest with its millennia-honed recycling systems, but it is an outright hazard to our functional modern understory.
In recent years, Metro North has spent millions of dollars cleaning the rails on the three commuter branches that service the county. Leaves on tracks are liquified by the steel wheels of multi-ton train cars and the resulting oily slime causes a condition known as slippery rail that—especially with today’s disc brakes—is the locomotive equivalent of black ice.
And, were it not for municipal vigilance, slippery road would be an expression on every driver’s lips. Each town is obliged to invest millions in leaf-vacuuming trucks and sweepers (easily a couple hundred thousand dollars each) to prevent streets from becoming leaf-slick, squirrel-, dog-, deer- and pedestrian-crushing death rinks.
And for individual homeowners and landlords[3], the infrastructure-, health- and aesthetic-damaging sequelae are significant, too.
Roofs—especially on Bauhaus, mid-century, and prairie-school modern homes, to say nothing of typically flat-roofed educational, municipal, and commercial buildings—can trap mats of leaves that accumulate and hold moisture which, in the rapidly on-rushing winter, will freeze and thaw, contract and expand, breaking through timbers, asphalt shingles, stucco—even metal sheeting, rolled rubber, brick, and concrete.
Tree waste also wreaks havoc on gutters, downpipes, drains and culverts. Flooded basements, yards, and driveways cost property-owners millions of dollars every year.
Gutter cleaning should take place at least twice a season. Our friend G, owner of a classic 1950s Tudor, advises against those “leaf guards” you see advertised online to eliminate the task. It is, he says, a specious trade-off. The smaller the mesh, the more water (especially in heavy rains) runs right over the gutter, and the larger the mesh, the more leaf-bits, sticks, maple whirligigs[4], etc., will still find their way through, or lodge in the screening material itself. So while you may forestall a few gutter cleanings in the short-term, you will—in less than two years—find yourself having to de-install the guards, clean out the detritus and then (unless a lesson has been learned) re-install the guards. And all this takes much longer than just running a broom, blower, or hose along the gutter as you were formally accustomed. Or, hiring a professional service to handle it.
Which brings us back to the Larchmont ban on gas-powered blowers and the window-rattling storm now brewing.
Leaf blowers are easily—especially right now as the trees begin their profligate annual litter party—the most divisive topic in community listening and discussion forums. Virtual board meetings routinely overflow their hour-long slots and fill Facebook streams with their bitter effluent.
There are three themes put forward by anti-blower partisans.
I. Noise: Though arguably not as high-minded or consequential as the two that follow, noise is the topic that has most brought the current discussion to a boil. Local noise ordinances are in special focus now that the region’s chief economic engines—commuters—are no longer in Manhattan during groundskeeping hours. It is said the best way to explain the politics behind any issue is to follow the money and it is clear the money is now videoconferencing from its spare bedroom and does not enjoy having to put itself on mute when multiple two- and four-cycle engines are running in the neighbor’s yard. Excessive noise also harms songbirds, rabbits and squirrels—especially those whose mating calls are drowned out, or fail to hear a predator, genrerally a cat, sneaking up behind them.
II. Environment: Northern Westchester is blue enough that climate change—and the value of a healthy ecology—is not much debated, but some feel voices on this issue are more sentimental and opportunistic than pragmatic or immediate. At a recently recorded videoconference in one of our municipalities, a resident took advantage of his three minutes to suggest we all—the pro-electric, the pro-gas, the pro-rake—come together and look upstream to the real problem, Norway maples. His neighbors have let some grow to maturity and the virulent doppelgangers drop so many leaves that the walkway of his nineteenth-century farmhouse is dangerously slick with leaves. But invasive species (excepting Eastern hemisphere Homo sapiens, of course) aside, no question that small gas engines pollute the air badly. As local grassroots[5] organization Love ‘em and Leave ‘em validly contends, leaving leaves in place—on your garden, even in your yard—leaves the world a better place, and one more conducive to butterflies.
III. Public safety: Though not as likely as its cousin the snow-blower to cause dismemberment, the modern leaf-blower poses significant dangers to operators and bystanders. Sometimes known in these parts as Ted Cruzes, they blow fast and hard enough that sticks, sand, and gravel can injure an uprotected eye, and can even cause tetanus-risking puncture wounds. Operators, deafened by the device strapped to their back, have also been hit by vehicles as they step backwards into roadways, or inadvertently provoke violence with neighbors. But the most common health concern these days is the risk blowers pose to asthmatics. It turns out the devices are not only good at launching leaves and sticks into the air, but all manner of dirt, dust, pollen, animal feces, and other particulates that would otherwise have remained on the ground, awaiting the next rain, will become aerosolized under the blast of their 200 mile-per-hour jets.
On the other side of these three logical fronts are arrayed the owners, sponsors, and operators of gas-powered blowers, armed with the simple, ineluctable economics of opportunity and cost.
For both the economy-minded homeowner and the landscape company proprietor, the math is clear. A gas-powered blower is the fastest and cheapest way to move tree litter from one place to another. Corded models are arguably as cheap, but having to run electric cords around a property is unwieldy, especially for a multi-person crew. And battery-powered models, while they have come along way, are still expensive for purchase and cannot compete for longevity.
And, do we—or do we not—wish to keep our walks, gutters, yards, pools, roofs, and roads clear and safe?
As with many public debates, one sometimes worries these—while very real, very immediate, and very emotional to complainants and defendants alike—are false fronts. They are fires that rage and cause alarm, but are they distracting from an underlying situation, an issue that looms and thrives and gathers itself in the dark, ticking away behind the screen of their smoke and flames, making ready to plunge the entire region into dark apocalypse?
Could it be that money lines the trail to this lurking evil? Could it be that Larchmont, where 70% of households earn more than $100,000 a year[6], and whose top 5% wealthiest households rake in $1.2 million a year, is up to something that favors wealthy landowners and disadvantages the not so well-heeled?
Is it possible homeowners and landlords making a million dollars a year can afford a bit of peace and quiet (and high-minded environmental action) that a landscape company proprietor (perhaps commuting from Yonkers or Putnam) cannot so easily manage?
And, likewise, is there anything sinister in Irvington’s code, which states property owners may deploy “No more than a total of two handheld or backpack leaf blowers at a time, unless property is greater than one-half acre. If greater than one-half acre, no quantity limit”?
Is this considerate to the owners of smaller lots, and to earners of smaller incomes? Is this considerate to the small-business landscaper? Is this high-minded investment? Will—as households and groundskeepers make the necessary investment in new technologies—the economics give birth to the Elon Musk of yard tools? Will we soon emerge into a world populated by whisper-quiet blowers that filter asthma-provoking particulates from the atmosphere? And will they be operated by robots? Lawns, after all, are already being mowed by them.
Although the technology is nearly at our doorstep, we cannot imagine robots will be considered here in Westchester. For generations, our county’s gentry has been stalwart in its support of hired help. Butlers have become outré but yard crews, cleaners, pool people and—in a seeming return to the fifties—grocery deliverers are proudly supported, are an integral part of the local contract. A common hope is that our wealthier residents will simply agree to pay more to their grounds-keeping contractors thus enabling trickle-down benefit, hiring five or six rake-wielding workers in addition to the one who used to get the job done with a single blower.
At any rate, we are watching the down-county drama with great interest. At the time of this writing, we are unaware of any local municipality in which leaf-blower banning or curtailment is not being considered.
We at The 914 will continue to monitor the situation, and to investigate both its causes and ramifications.
And will let you know what we rake up.
[1] A neighborhood of Briarcliff Manor
[2] We are not editorializing, this is a scientific term.
[3] The world’s second oldest profession. Third, G tells us, is village idiot.
[4] samaras
[5] They likely prefer treeroots as a term.
[6] And well more than half of these earn more than $200k/year. Scarsdale has the highest percent of 6-figure earners in the county at 84%. The average for the U.S. is 25%.