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MU’s usage of gas-powered leaf blowers: an update

On June 20, 2024, Bill S217 Sca (1R) was introduced in the New Jersey Senate and referred to the Senate Environment and Energy Committee. Proposed by Bob Smith, Senator of District 17 covering Middlesex County and Chair of the Senate Environmental Committee, the bill would prohibit the use and sale of two- or four-stroke engine gasoline-powered leaf blowers for use or operation in New Jersey.
If passed, any person, or business, who would violate the bill’s provisions would be subject to fines of between $500 and $1,000. The bill would also provide Corporation Business Tax (CBT) credit for the purchase of electric leaf blowers that would replace gas-powered leaf blowers.

According to US News & World Report, more than 100 cities, including Montclair and Maplewood, across the U.S. have banned or restricted gas-powered leaf blowers, which have been called a major source of pollution.

Leaf blowers create decibel levels over 80, and according to the National Council on Aging, anything above 70 is considered harmful to humans. They also create low-frequency noise that travels for blocks and penetrates walls and buildings, causing increased stress levels according to Quiet Clean PDX, an organization working to ban gas-powered leaf blowers. Additionally, continuous noise exposure is detrimental to health and can cause hypertension, high cholesterol, and increased risk of atrial fibrillation, which causes irregular heartbeat and can lead to blood clots and stroke. They are also disruptive to sleep patterns, harming the immune system and stimulating poor food and drink habits.

According to Patrick Leahy, President of Monmouth University, “Our team in facilities use a mixture of gas-powered and battery-powered leaf blowers as part of the extensive inventory of equipment used for campus maintenance, which includes lawn mowers, chainsaws, snow plows, and other equipment.” Leahy additionally noted that the University employs seven newer battery-powered leaf blowers that are used to maintain smaller areas. He added, “They are also using battery-powered chain saws, trimmers, and string trimmers.”

Daniela Hernandez, senior accounting major, said, “Last year I lived in the Garden Apartments, and I guess my schedule aligned with the landscapers. Whenever I’d go to class, I’d cut through the path between the Great Hall and the soccer field. Every day, the debris would get blown into my face and affect my breathing.”

Catherine Duckett, Ph.D., Associate Dean of the School of Science, said, “Monmouth does its landscaping during business hours. Other institutions have a crew that comes in at six o’clock and is done by the time classes are done. If [Monmouth] wants to keep their two-stroke leaf blowers, they should be smart about it. The amount of carbon pollution that a two-stroke leaf blower reduces is like driving your car from here to Chicago. It’s a lot of pollution. For an educational institution, it’s considered irresponsible.”

Duckett continued, “[Gas-powered leaf blowers] kick up dust and mold, which is bad for breathing. They destroy insect habitats, which is really bad for the balance of nature because most songbirds have to feed insects to rear their young.” She added that the “Insect Apocalypse” is partly due to landscaping practices such as leaf blowing and the movement away from native plants. “This is causing songbird decline, which has a concomitant risk to human public health because, with the increase in temperatures, there are going to be more mosquito-borne diseases.”

As of Dec. 3, 2024, approximately 88% (7,638 square miles) of New Jersey has drought conditions. Duckett explained that the drought is influenced by both natural variation and climate change. She warned that landscaping practices exacerbate the situation by stirring up dust and debris, further impacting the environment.

“Leaf blowers are also an environmental injustice issue,” she said. “Most of the landscapers, at least in this local area, are Hispanic or people of color. They’re people who don’t usually have health insurance, and they’re being exposed to respiratory risk from these leaf blowers.” She suggested that the school should provide N95 masks for their landscapers to protect them from respiratory diseases and dementia.

Lisa Iannucci, Specialist Librarian, said, “I’m in the library, and you can smell the toxic fumes that drift through the air. When they’re blowing by the tennis courts, I can smell it. They’re doing the leaves all the time in front of the dorms. We’ve complained about it, and they claim that they don’t do it before eight o’clock. It’s so loud that I can hear it from my office, and I am, like, 100 yards away from it.”

Leahy said, “Our incredibly hardworking, dedicated Facilities Team works several shifts to ensure the campus is safe, clear, and beautiful for our students. There are three main shifts: 6 a.m.–2 p.m., 7 a.m.–3 p.m., and 8 a.m.–4 p.m. Team members are also called to respond as needed for weather emergencies, very often late at night and on the weekends.”

Iannucci continued, “The administration can get out ahead of this because clearly, if you look at national trends, these types of phase-outs and bans are taking place more and more. There is clear scientific evidence that leaf blowers are detrimental to people’s health on many levels. They are environmentally damaging, and they also harm wildlife.”

She added, “It sounds to me like they probably would want to keep the blowers to then use the electric blowers. That’s been a solution in a bunch of different localities, and what they have done is get subsidies for businesses to replace gasoline-powered ones with the electric ones. It’s not the perfect solution, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

As far as the next steps, the bill still has some ways to go before its passage into legislation. John Morano, environmental author and professor of journalism, said, “Honestly, I think the jury is still out on the successful results of these bills. They have been passed in over 100 cities in states like Maryland, California, Oregon, Vermont, Florida and Illinois. That would seem to indicate that something’s working.”

Jacques Peters, Rechnitz Family/UCI Endowed Chair in Marine and Environmental Law and Policy Department in Marine and Environmental Law and Policy Department of Political Science and Sociology, said, “Phase outs have a dedicated time horizon to accomplish a policy goal, and is an admission that the government needs to allow people to adjust to meet that goal. Here, the bill provides two years for citizens and businesses to move to electric leaf blowers. However… the landscape industry plans to challenge the ban in court, which would probably delay policy enforcement. It seems it passed the Senate Environment and Energy Committee and is now with the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee.”

Morano added, “If landscapers are running their diesel trucks just to power battery chargers for their leaf blowers, and if the methods used to manufacture these batteries aren’t clean, well, in that sense, the success of the bill could be limited. However, if it’s done responsibly, strategically, then we can wind up with an environment that’s quieter, less polluted and ultimately healthier. That would seem to be a success. I’d like to see us try for that.”

Some other examples of successful phase-outs in recent years include plastic straws and plastic bags, indicating that these environmental initiatives can occur. Duckett said, “I was part of the Long Branch Environmental Commission while we were passing a local plastic bag ban, and we were working with people in the Environmental Commission who worked for 20 years to get a plastic bag ban. I’ve seen [the effects] with my own eyes. How many plastic bags do you see in trees now? A lot fewer than you used to. That probably means fewer microplastics in the environment, which are a known risk for human health. This took a lot of local environmental commissions and municipalities passing bag bans to convince the legislator that this was something that people really wanted. The same is gonna be with leaf blowers—the people have to stand up and speak.”

If new regulatory requirements do pass in New Jersey, Leahy noted that Monmouth would, of course, comply with them. Leahy said, “Indeed, we look forward to advances in technology that would allow for the practical and widespread use of battery-powered leaf blowers. We have a large area to cover, and the current technology in battery-powered blowers can’t handle the job. We will continue to monitor progress in this area and revisit their use throughout campus in the years to come, regardless of the status of the bill.”

Duckett advised that the University uses rakes, despite the unlikely scenario. “If they are going to be using gas-powered leaf blowers,” she said, “they should do so when students and faculty are scarcely inevident, like between 6 and 8:30 am, the landscapers should be issued respirators, and there should be posted times that they won’t be used so that people who are asthmatic can avoid a section of campus that’s being leaf blown.”

Zafira Demiri, graduate assistant for Climate Change Learning Collaborative, agreed with Duckett and said, “The two most green alternatives would be a good old-fashioned rake or letting the leaves be. If we were to let the leaves sit until spring, that carbon could be reabsorbed into the soil, and it would greatly promote ecosystem health.”

Duckett additionally said that petitions are an effective means of drawing attention to an important issue. She elaborated, “If someone gets a letter-writing campaign and gets a petition going and there are 500 signatures from Monmouth University, that’s pressure. Especially if the addresses are from all over New Jersey. That’s pressure. That would actually be the best way to make a change here on campus, to get the law changed.”

Concerning the future, Leahy concluded, “We are always looking for additional ways to maintain the campus in the most sustainable way possible.”