Regulating blowers

EDITOR: As a professional landscape manager, I know the value of leaf blowers. At the same time, I'm highly irritated by the way most gardeners use them.

Typically blowers are operated at full throttle or are incessantly revved up and down.

It is the loud revving that makes blowers so maddening. The other issue of blowers is the clouds of dust they create which cause allergic reactions and disperse filth far and wide.

A compromise solution to these problems is for gardeners to use the blower in a different way. I make a practice of operating mine at very low power levels and avoid abrupt volume changes by adjusting the throttle gently and infrequently. Not only does this practice mitigate the irritating noise, but it reduces or eliminates the dust clouds.

Using a blower this way will reduce the types of chores it can do, but it still leaves the blower a very useful tool. For the sake of peace and quiet the trade-offs are worthwhile.

Ordinances are not the solution to the blower problem because enforcement is impractical if not impossible. Property owners need to instruct their gardeners to change the way they use the blower. If their job is at stake, the gardeners will comply or be replaced by others who will comply.

CHRIS PEDERSEN

Sonoma