Sacramento City Council to consider banning leaf blowers on bad air days
The Sacramento City Council will Tuesday consider banning the use of leaf blowers on days when air quality in the city is poor.
The ordinance would ban both electric and gas-powered leaf blowers on days when the Air Quality Index exceeds 100. In Sacramento, that happens on average about 34 days per year, according to a city staff report.
Poor air quality exceeding 300 AQI descended upon the Sacramento region for several weeks in August and September due to a series of wildfires across Northern California. Wildfire smoke could cause both short-term and long-term damaging health effects.
The idea of the ordinance would be to prevent air quality from becoming even worse on days where it’s already considered “unsafe for sensitive groups.”
In addition to the noise nuisance, blowers release carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide and hydrocarbons into the air, the report said. They also release fugitive dust emissions, which can irritate people with asthma and other upper-respiratory conditions.
The council’s Law and Legislation Committee discussed the idea in February after it was proposed by Councilman Jeff Harris. No representatives from landscaping or lawn care companies showed up to that meeting, but they could take issue with the ban.
Landscape businesses say that using alternative equipment, such as rakes, would take more time to complete work and could result in increased cost to consumers, the report said.
If the council adopts the ban, people who violate it could receive penalties between $250 and $25,000 for each day the violation continues, the report said. The ban would go into effect in 30 days, unless the city delays that date in order to do more public outreach, said Kelli Trapani, a city spokeswoman.
Some Bay Area cities, such as Berkeley and Mill Valley, have banned gas-powered leaf blowers.
The meeting will take place at 2 p.m. Tuesday. It will be livestreamed on the city’s website.
