Photo credit: Nik from Pexels
by Daniel Fink, MD, Chair, The Quiet Coalition
A letter to the editor in a recent edition of the Vineyard Gazette on Martha’s Vineyard includes a compelling description of the annoyance caused by noisy gas-powered leaf blowers and the hazards they pose for people and the environment. Martha’s Vineyard resident Jane Bradbury wrote the letter advocating for residents in the five Vineyard towns to attend town meetings and support leaf blower bans. In doing so, she notes that California, the island of Nantucket, Washington, D.C. and about 200 other cities and towns across the United States already have leaf blower bans. She also extols the New England democratic institution of town meetings.
My only quibbles with what Bradbury wrote is that she uses the obsolete definition of noise, defined only as unwanted sound. Noise is really unwanted and/or harmful sound. She also says that gas-powered leaf blowers emit 65-decibel sounds. That’s far too low for the sounds gas-powered leaf blowers actually emit: 95 dBA* at the operator’s ear and 65-80 dBA at 50 feet.
I hope these towns pass regulations governing gas-powered leaf blower use. A quieter Martha’s Vineyard with less noise and air pollution from two-stroke gasoline engines, as part of a quieter and cleaner world, will be a better and healthier place for all.
*A-weighting adjusts unweighted sound measurements to approximate the frequencies heard in human speech.
