The Environmental Battle Writ Small: Leaf-Blower Wars

As a noise-sensitive work-from-home guy, I initially found myself in the unaccustomed role of ardent environmentalist on the matter. I hoped my city council, like at least 100 such bodies in the U.S., according to the National Audubon Society, would limit or ban the noisy machines. But I’ve learned that eco-regulation isn’t simple. The leaf-blower wars, like regulation generally, involve interest groups and economic winners and losers, as well as plenty of eco-hysteria.

True, this issue mainly affects the affluent. The roster of municipalities that have passed or proposed bans on gas-powered leaf blowers reflects that: Scarsdale, N.Y., Santa Monica, Calif., and Aspen, Colo.

So why is it so hard to get rid of them? Just as

Al Gore

and

John Kerry

take carbon-emitting jets to rail against fossil fuels, there is no getting around the fact that many homeowners like their lawns to look green and tidy much of the year. My older neighbors aren’t about to pick up a rake, and my affluent younger ones with 1- or 2-acre lots pay landscape crews to do the job.

In other words, consumer preference matters when it comes to leaf blowers, just as it does for gasoline-powered pickup trucks or food flown in from the Southern hemisphere to please our palates during winter. There was a time, before the advent of the blowers in the 1970s, when we all got out our rakes, drafted our children and gathered the leaves ourselves. No longer. I can even remember when we burned the leaves—a practice long since banned.

As a result, economic interests come into play. A group called the New York State Turf and Landscape Association has pushed back against a proposed blower ban in Scarsdale as “unfair and unrealistic.” A national group, the Professional Landcare Network, says blowers are “essential for green industry professionals” to clean up all kinds of debris.

That national group gets to the heart of the matter in a statement noting that “the blowers save enormous amounts of time. . . . It takes at least five times as long to clean a typical landscape with a broom than it does with a power leaf blower.”

Time, of course, is money. So unless those favoring clear lawns are willing to pay five times as much, landscaping services will be under pressure to keep blowing. This is a microcosm of affluent countries’ being called upon to avert eco-problems by paying big bucks to poor nations. I haven’t asked the landscape crews in my neighborhood if they are in the country legally, but one can’t help but wonder. These often are minimum-wage or off-the-books jobs. In March a federal court approved a judgment ordering a Pennsylvania landscaping company to pay $150,000 in back wages and penalties, following a Labor Department investigation.

As with many environmental matters, we want clean and green but avert our eyes when the bill comes due. Technology may help, ushering in less noisy electric leaf blowers. My local city council has voted to ban only the loud ones, but that will impose new costs on landscaping firms. A change in consumer preference would help, of course. Mowing leaves into one’s lawn provides healthy compost. Or, as in water-short California, we might reduce the size of lawns altogether. More likely, we will continue to enforce blower bans selectively and ineffectively.

For my own part, my family got out the rakes this year. My grandchildren had a grand time jumping in the leaf piles.

Mr. Husock is a senior fellow in domestic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and author of “The Poor Side of Town and Why We Need It.”