Issue date: April 08, 1998
By JULIE RAWE
With the Menlo Park City Council scheduled to take a final vote on a proposal to ban gas-powered leaf blowers next Tuesday, the Bay Area Gardeners' Association has announced that Echo Inc. will sell 215 new quieter gas-powered blowers at reduced cost to the group's 215 members, said Ramon Quezadas, president of the association.
The group members plan to exchange their current blowers for the new models in front of the Menlo Park Civic Center at noon on Wednesday, April 8, Mr. Quezadas said. "The old ones are going to be trashed," he said.
Echo has agreed to sell association members the new blower, touted to reduce noise output by 50 percent over the current model, for $299, or two-thirds of its usual market price, said Mr. Quezadas, a Redwood City gardener and regional distributor for Echo.
Although the Illinois-based leaf blower manufacturer has advertised the new blower as generating 65 dBA at full throttle when measured from a distance of 50 feet, an article in the April 1997 issue of Consumer Reports said the quieter machine didn't meet its noise claims, "though it was slightly less noisy at 50 feet (69.5 dBA) than other backpack models we've tested."
A staff report issued to the City Council last December noted that improvements in technology have also improved the blower's irritating pitch.
In a surprise demonstration, Mr. Quezadas cranked one of the new models up to full throttle some 40 feet from an ongoing council meeting on Feb. 17. Council members did not notice the low hum of the modified blower until a member of the gardeners' association asked them to look out the window.
The gardeners have organized a series of protests against the council's 3-2 vote in favor of the ban on Feb. 10 and have asked for a compromise in the form of increased regulations, such as not setting the engines at full throttle or using more than one blower per yard.
The group has instituted leaf-blower guidelines based on restrictions developed by the gardeners' association in San Mateo and later adopted by that city, said Joe Sheetz, spokesman for the Bay Area association.
Mayor Chuck Kinney said that the proposed restrictions would be difficult to enforce. "I still think the two-cyle engine is the problem," he said.
The council is scheduled to take a final vote on the ban Tuesday, April 14, at 7:30 p.m. in the Civic Center's recreation building, 701 Alma St.
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