The lure along Delray Beach’s barrier island is the serenity of living next to the water, whether it be the Intracoastal or the Atlantic Ocean. Yet, too often, that peace is interrupted by the roar of the gas-powered leaf blower.
For Hal Cohen, president of the Delray Beach Property Owners’ Association, leaf blowers remain a top complaint of residents.
“They’re ubiquitous,” he said. “There’s not a day that goes by that you don’t hear them in every neighborhood on the barrier island.”
The noise may have seemed louder in the past five years as more Florida residents have switched to remote working, spurred by the pandemic. Those loud engines in the background can disrupt on-line company meetings.
Yet, just as Delray Beach Mayor Tom Carney said he would look into curtailing the use of gas-powered leaf blowers, the Florida Legislature put a stop to any dreams of sweet silence. Delray Beach and other municipalities that have already banned leaf blowers are now considering using the noise ordinance to address not just leaf blowers but mowers and edgers as well.
Can noise ordinances be used for noisy lawn equipment in Florida?
“Most lawn equipment exceeds our noise ordinance,” said Carney, who has asked the city attorney if the noise ordinance can apply to lawn equipment. Delray Beach recently bought five sound meters for approximately $7,000 each and would like to expand their use.
“You can buy a muffler for a leaf blower,” Carney said. “We are not restricting the use of leaf blowers, but we are causing them to comply with our noise ordinance.”
The leaf blower provision was tucked into a comprehensive farm bill (SB 180) but Gov. Ron DeSantis gave it a shoutout when signing it in Sebring in March. “If you want to use different stuff, fine, it’s a free country. But I like gas-powered better,” DeSantis said. “I just think it’s more reliable. If that’s what you believe, then you should be able to continue to do that.”
Florida’s landscape aesthetic is courtesy of high-powered lawn equipment
The provision was supported by the Florida Nursery, Growers and Landscape Association. CEO Tal Coley, who wrote an opinion piece for The Palm Beach Post in February on the issue, said all those manicured lawns, golf courses, and swales that define Florida don’t happen by accident.
“Dependable lawn care equipment is necessary to deliver these high-quality results,” Coley said.
Coley said a patchwork of rules and various bans made it harder for companies to operate efficiently.
“The decision to use gas-powered or electric equipment should rest with the landscape professional and the customer, not be dictated by local mandates,” Coley said. “When governments restrict energy options, they limit flexibility and impose costs that many businesses cannot easily absorb.”
The new law means that cities, towns and villages that have banned or regulated the use of leaf blowers now have to rescind those ordinances. Key Biscayne, Miami Beach, Palm Beach, Pinecrest and Naples all passed laws to ban or restrict the use of leaf blowers.
Key Biscayne Village Manager Steve Williamson said the municipality is also considering using the noise ordinance in light of the Tallahassee takedown.
“There is a reason why Key Biscayne residents voted this in. No. 1, they’re environmentally concerned and No. 2 is the sound. They want to live a peaceful life.”
When it comes to modern landscaping, the gas-powered leaf blower is king, with its alpha predator model coming with a backpack-style motor. Yet, it certainly is no rake — the garden tool detested for decades by teenagers told to collect leaves in piles and dispose of them. No, the leaf blower displaces leaves and anything else it can gather into nearby properties, streets and waterways.
Lawn equipment is a major polluter, study found
It may be king, but the leaf blower is also the unfiltered cigarette of lawn equipment.
Carbon dioxide emissions from Florida’s gas-powered lawn equipment reached a staggering 2.6 million tons in 2020— a figure surpassed only by California — according to data from the Public Interest Network. Locally, the impact is just as severe; Miami-Dade County’s garden machinery produced nearly 199,000 tons of CO2 that year, matching the yearly exhaust of 44,000 automobiles.
Beyond the environmental footprint, the immediate health risks are profound. A single commercial leaf blower can discharge 30 million micrograms of fine particulates every hour, releasing pollutants so microscopic they can pass through the lungs and into the bloodstream of landscaping crews, who are frequently members of the immigrant community.
The reason the number is so high is that 2-stroke engines are notoriously inefficient; they fail to burn about 25-30% of their fuel, instead spitting it out as an aerosol of gasoline and oil.
Billy Blackman, who owns Able Tree Service in Boynton Beach, invested in converting nearly all of his equipment to battery power.
“My last customer in Ocean Ridge, she was like, ‘You guys are so quiet with all your equipment and you don’t make a lot of noise and that was a blessing,” Blackman said.
He does have a small battery-powered leaf blower, but he turns to the big noisy gas-powered gun at the end of the job. It’s just too darn convenient, he said.
“At the end of the job, we just want to go home,” he said. “We can just start that blower and blow the whole property off in like 15 minutes.”
John Pacenti is the Government Impact Reporter for The USA TODAY NETWORK-FLORIDA. You can get all of Florida’s best content directly in your inbox each weekday day by signing up for the free newsletter, Florida TODAY at https://palmbeachpost.com/newsletters.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: In the noise war over leaf blowers, Florida cities refuse to go quietly
Reporting by John Pacenti, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
