CT towns eye stricter regulations on gas lawn equipment

Oct 11, 2023

Francis Scapeccia uses a leaf blower to clear the leaves in his yard on Westville Avenue Extension in Danbury Thursday afternoon, Oct. 20, 2016. At least three Connecticut towns have considered gas-powered blowers, citing noise concerns.

They’re loud, they run on gasoline and on many leaf-covered days in autumn, they’re ubiquitous.

In Connecticut, the calls to reign in gas-powered leaf blowers and other small engines are growing louder, and in some cases drowning out opposition from the industry.

While efforts to restrict the use of gas-guzzling lawn equipment largely fell flat at the State Capitol this year, at least three municipalities in Fairfield County have begun weighing their own regulations in recent months.

Westport became the first town to take steps to restrict the use of gas-engine leaf blowers, with the Representative Town Meeting voting in January to limit hours when residents can use blowers during the summer and fall. That ordinance will take effect beginning on Monday.

Both Stamford and Norwalk have weighed similar restrictions, though leaders in those cities have yet to make any final decisions.

Environmental advocates have long championed greater regulation on gas-powered lawn and garden equipment, arguing that they are an important yet often overlooked source of greenhouse gas emissions and other hazardous pollutants. Still, much of the inertia behind local ordinances tends to come from a singular issue: leaf blowers, and the noise they emit.

"I’m not aware of us having been approached for advice, for support, for this kind of local measure," said Nathan Frohling, the director of external affairs for the Nature Conservancy in Connecticut, which has advocated on behalf of efforts to reduce carbon emissions in line with the state's climate goals.

"It may also be, in our case, that many folks still think of us primarily for saving land, for saving biological diversity, which we’re still very much involved in all that, but now climate is as big or a bigger a priority than anything else," Frohling added.

Local volunteers for Connecticut's chapter of the Sierra Club, meanwhile, have been involved in grassroots efforts in West Hartford to reduce the use of small gas engines, according to chapter director Samantha Dynowski. In 2021, the city was the first in the state to purchase an all-electric field mower for use by the Public Works Department.

"They’re environmental impact is pretty high," Dynowski said. "They’re emitters, and their emissions are disproportionate to their small size."

Beginning next year, California will become the first state in the nation to ban the sale of new small gas-powered engines such as those used in leaf blowers and lawn mowers, as part of a wider effort to slash carbon emissions. In February, Connecticut lawmakers on the state's Environment Committee sought to mimic that approach with a proposal to implement the California regulations by 2033.

The bill would have also required stores to offer rebates to customers who purchased electric equipment instead of gas — with the cost of those rebates reimbursed with $10 million in state funding.

The Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, which represents manufacturers of leaf blowers, lawn mowers, tree trimmers and other lawn equipment, opposed the effort to restrict the sale of those products, writing in testimony to lawmakers that doing so could violate federal law giving the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency the sole regulatory power over the industry.

In addition, OPEI's Vice President for Standards and Regulatory Affairs, Greg Knott, argued that those federal regulations have been broadly effective in getting the industry to ramp up production of electric, battery-powered equipment.

Ultimately, lawmakers stripped the provision dealing with the small gas engines from the bill before a critical vote to advance the larger measure, which addressed carbon emissions across a swath of industries. That legislation, Senate Bill 1145, still suffered a defeat earlier this month when lawmakers on the budget-writing Appropriations Committee opted to pass over the measure.

At the local level, a coalition of professional landscapers and lawn care hobbyists have voiced opposition to new restrictions on gas-powered equipment, often pointing to the cost and limited battery life of electric models.

"The main problem is that with the battery-powered blowers, the batteries last for about two hours. You have to buy like 8-10 batteries just to work for seven hours a day," Kevin Catalano, a landscaper and designer, told policy-makers in Stamford during a meeting to discuss the issue in January.

Even after scoring a victory at the state level, the industry behind the manufacture and sale of lawn equipment has voiced concerns about regulations at the local level.

"OPEI's position is the same for these municipal bans," a spokeswoman, Debbi Mayster, said in an email this week.

Lacking momentum for statewide regulation, some advocates such as Stanley Heller, an administrator of the nonprofit Promoting Enduring Peace, said he has begun pushing officials to use electric equipment in public spaces such as parks, roadsides and on college campuses.

An even better option for the environment, Heller said, would be to let fields and other public spaces to lay fallow, allowing native plants to grow and absorb carbon from the atmosphere. Beyond the debates over a few municipal ordinances, however, Heller said that momentum for a change is broadly lacking.

"I can't say we’ve had a huge amount of success on either level," he said.