A teacher at a school in a prosperous part of Washington D.C., writing from his official school email account and saying that he was a mentor for the school’s future-entrepreneurs program, wrote with two concerns about the District’s impending phase-out of gas-powered leafblowers.
One, which he said was shared by his students, was that the provision would be “anti-immigrant” (since so many workers on D.C.-area lawn crews appear to be of that background). The other was that his students were considering acts of “civil disobedience,” by refusing to abide by the ban, when it goes into effect next year after a three-year phase-in period.
Below is a response to him, from James Fallows, author of the Atlantic article that the teacher was responding to.
Dear [XX}:
First, and overall, we are of course glad that you are encouraging your students to look into this issue.
We hope that you'll encourage them to look further. We -- and in this case I mean myself and other parts of the citizen coalition that encouraged ANCs across the District to support this transition, and for the City Council to pass it unanimously -- think that if your students look more deeply, they may have a different idea about the issues.
Probably the most important resource for them would be the full transcript of testimony to the DC City Council, which you can find here: http://www.quietcleandc.com/testimony . It led the Council to a unanimous vote of support. If you look at other parts of that site, you will see links and data about all the points raised here.
Here are the issues that I hope you, as a teacher, would encourage your students to consider. They start with the most important.
Health. The transition from two-stroke gas-powered engines is overwhelmingly a health issue, and the people whose health is most at risk are the lawn crews using this antiquated machinery. There are three important areas in which this kind of machinery exposes lawn crews to risks that modern machinery would spare them from:
1) Noise. As you'll see if you look through this note and related data at our site, hearing loss is a rapidly accelerating public-health risk, and the people most exposed to it are the (low-paid, often immigrant) crews working the machines. Please have your students reflect on this note, from one of the nation's leading audiologists:
But what about the ‘leaf blowers’ health. The closer to the sound source, the more decibels affecting the user the more the damage.
The leaf blower [crew member] gets about 100 decibels of constant noise. The home owner gets 70 of intermittent noise, a multiple less. What does this mean in damage? Without being too technical, the damage to the inner ear is dependent on decibels. For every 3 decibel increase in sound, the ear gets twice as much potential damage. So when you increase the decibels, say from 70 to 85, you stress the inner ear not just about 20% but by a factor of 31 times! When you go from 70 to 100 which is what the leaf-blower is getting, the ‘sound damage’ to the ear is 1000 times greater to the poor leaf blower’s ear.
Nobody advocates for him. ..
There is abundant evidence showing a different quality of noise from battery-powered motors, compared with two-stroke engines. Noise is a transient nuisance for neighbors. It is a severe health risk for lawn crews.
I hope that, on reflection, your students will not want to be saying, in effect: It's fine for these low-wage workers to lose their hearing, as long as we can have less expensive lawn service. Most of your students, I am betting, will have the benefit of health-insurance coverage. Not as many of the lawn workers will. The damage of long-term use of this primitive machinery falls overwhelmingly on those crews. Is this an "anti-immigrant" measure? On the contrary: Resisting circumstances that primarily damage immigrant workers was a principal reason for this bill.
2) PM 2.5 pollutants. Increasing evidence links fine-particulate PM 2.5 pollutants to a variety of chronic diseases, including recently vulnerability to Covid. ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7345938/ ) The winds produced by leafblowers, and the exhaust from them, are extremely high in PM 2.5 particulate pollutants. The people most affected are, again, the lawn crews. Some crews wear N95 masks when blowing lawns. In my experience, fewer than 10% do. I am sure that, on reflection, your students would not want to be saying: OK, it’s fine to keep exposing the workers to this risk, even though there is a feasible alternative, because it will be cheaper.
““I am sure that, on reflection, your students would not want to be saying: OK, it’s fine to keep exposing the workers to this risk, even though there is a feasible alternative, because it will be cheaper.””
3) Carcinogenic emissions. Two-stroke gas engines, which inefficiently burn a mixture of gas and oil, are distinctive in the high benzene concentration in their fumes. (See this EPA technical paper: https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/tiff2png.exe/P100GDP7.PNG?-r+75+-g+7+D%3A%5CZYFILES%5CINDEX%20DATA%5C00THRU05%5CTIFF%5C00001983%5CP100GDP7.TIF ) Benzene is a known carcinogenic agent. Again, it is the usually low-wage work crews who are surrounded by these emissions for hours per day. Ten years from now, when they are feeling the effects, will they be covered by generous health insurance programs? My guess is no. But you can ask your students to look into the issue.
Here is the kind of question my own public-high school teacher raised with me, long ago when I was growing up in California: In those days, there was a movement to boycott California-grown grapes, because of carcinogenic pesticides and other chemicals used in the fields. My high school teacher asked me and my classmates to consider: Is it worth having the least-expensive, and shiniest, grapes, if that means that the field workers producing them put their health in jeopardy? There is a similar question for your students now: Is the long-term welfare of the lawn crews worth jeopardizing, just to get the least-expensive lawn-care contract? Decades later, I remember the high school teacher who suggested I consider things that way. By analogy, in years to come your students may remember the way you frame their thinking on this issue now.
Emissions. As the California Air Resources Board has reported, two-stroke engines are so much less efficient, and so much more polluting, than alternatives (heavier, expensive four-stroke engines like those used in cars; even diesel engines; and of course electric power) that they have been outlawed in most other uses. The National Park Service bans them in most lakes and rivers. Motorbike makers have phased them out. The city governments of many Asian and Latin American countries have banned them. They persist mainly in lawn equipment.
Years ago an auto-research firm calculated that, in terms of ozone-related and other emissions, using a gas-powered blower for 30 minutes was like driving a pickup truck for several thousand miles. The California Air Resources Board calculated several years ago that--because lawn equipment was so dirty, and cars were becoming so much cleaner--gas-powered lawn equipment would soon produce more ozone and other emissions than all the cars in California combined. You will find the documentation for this on our site. You can ask your students if this is the side of history they want to be on.
Obsolescence, versus progress. If your students are assuming that battery-powered equipment is by definition not up to the job, we urge them to take a closer look -- for instance, on what is now offered at Lowe's and Home Depot. Here are some other resources:
- From Montgomery County http://www.quietcleandc.com/qcdc-in-the-news/2021/4/30/from-coast-to-coast-the-change-is-coming
- From Arizona State University, which has made the change http://www.quietcleandc.com/qcdc-in-the-news/2021/4/21/big-news-from-arizona-state-university
- From a tech-advice site http://www.quietcleandc.com/qcdc-in-the-news/2021/2/19/what-is-the-best-battery-powered-blower …
You might also ask your students to consider the Ford Motor Company's recent demo of a battery-powered F-150 pickup truck. If Ford (and GM, and other makers) believe they can switch their entire automotive fleet from today's comparatively-very-efficient four-stroke engines to battery power, is it reasonable and future-oriented to think that leaf blowers must be the only long-term use of old, dangerous technology? (Again, your students are going to live with the decades-long effects of these decisions.)
“ “If Ford (and GM, and other makers) believe they can switch their entire automotive fleet to battery power, is it reasonable and future-oriented to think that leaf blowers must be the only long-term use of old, dangerous technology?””
You might also suggest that your students look into the many communities, organizations, and institutions that have announced a similar switch since the time of the DC decision.
Enforcement. In a several-year program of building support, several dozen ANCs across the District endorsed this measure. The Council's "Committee of the Whole" passed it unanimously, after hearing testimony. The full Council passed it unanimously on a "First Reading." And then again, unanimously, on a second reading. The US Congressional committee overseeing the District did not oppose it. And it provided for a three-year phase-in period. Everything about the law was designed for a long, foreseeable roll-out period.
Any citizen has the choice to obey any law -- or not, and accept the consequences. Your students make that choice with every part of the District's set of laws--tax laws, liquor laws, driving laws, everything. If they think that it's an important point of principle to keep exposing low-wage workers to dangerous equipment, for which there are practical alternatives -- then that is their choice. (I believe that the law specifies a $500 fine, starting next year.)
Thanks for asking, and my main hope is that you will have your students consider information like what I am suggesting. Including, very specifically, who pays the price for use of this antiquated and dirty machinery (the lawn crews), and what long-term trends your students would like to support.
““We hope your students will consider this information—including, very specifically, who pays the price for use of this antiquated and dirty machinery (the lawn crews), and what long-term trends your students would like to support.””