We, the citizens of the City of Calistoga, are concerned about excessive noise and pollution.  We petition the City Council to take a leadership role and adopt an ordinance to phase out gasoline engine leaf blowers.  As an alternative, electric or battery operated leaf blowers may be operated within prescribed hours.

This is about the two-stroke gasoline engines that power most leaf blowers. A recent EPA reports states: "Gasoline-powered lawn and garden equipment is a source of high levels of localized emissions that includes hazardous air pollutants, criteria pollutants, and carbon dioxide." Two-stroke engines are much less efficient in combustion than four-stroke engines (which are standard in cars); they burn a mix of oil and gasoline; and they emit a lot of this combustion mixture directly into the air, unburned.

According to an Edmunds.com report, running a gas-powered two-stroke leaf blower for 30 minutes creates pollutants equivalent to driving a Ford F-150 pickup truck for more than 3800 miles.

In addition, the extremely high-velocity (200 mph+) winds out of a leaf blower kick up toxic clouds that contain gasoline, dust, pesticides, mold, fecal matter, and pollen into a dust that hurts the blower-operators most of all but affects the whole neighborhood.

Finally, gasoline powered Leaf Blowers  generate noise levels of 95-115 decibels at close range and exceed the EPA’s recommended maximum noise level of 80 decibels, even at 50 feet. Calistoga residents are exposed to the sometimes relentless sounds of neighbors’ leaf blowers, which carry long distances because of the machines’ narrow-frequency bandwidth, disturbing multiple neighbors at the same time. People who are at home during the day, the elderly, the sick, the young, are all disturbed, sometimes for hours on end.

Please sign the petition at: I am a resident and supporter