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March 6, 2010

Contra Costa anti-leaf blower group taking their message to the movies

Quiet Orinda, a well-organized group that is trying to get their city to ban leaf blowers, has created a short documentary that it will air at the California Independent Film Festival in Orinda in April.

The documentary has residents describing the reasons they moved to Orinda--its quiet, its beauty--and how they find it so disturbing when landscapers bring in blasting, shrieking leaf blowers to clean yards up.

You can view a trailer of the documentary at the Quiet Orinda website.

"Quiet Orinda was formed in 2009 by a group of Orinda residents concerned about the problems of air and noise pollution caused by the widespread use of leaf blowers in our city. Our aim is to educate the citizens of Orinda about healthier alternatives to leaf blowers, and to promote legislation to encourage these alternatives. We invite you to join with us today; please click on the “Register” button on our home page."

The Quiet Orinda folks are also gathering signatures and provide a link to a new report by Clean Air California that describes the air and noise pollution consequences of having three million leaf blowers in the state: "The majority are gasoline-powered leaf blowers. If growth trends continue, soon there will be more than 6 million leaf blowers in California, at which time, air pollution, water pollution, blown dust, and noise, will be twice as bad as today."

Readers of this blog indicate that they are not thrilled by the noise these machines make around Walnut Creek. But a 1990 Walnut Creek ordinance allows leaf blowers to operate within city limits during certain times and under certain conditions. The ordinance covering leaf blowers is in Municipal Code, under Title 4 (Public Welfare, Morals and Conduct), Chapter 6 (Nuisances), Article 2.


Under "Prohibited Noises Enumerated," and Maintenance Equipment it states: "The use and operation of any noise-creating commercial or residential landscaping or home maintenance equipment or tools including, but not limited to, hammers, blowers, trimmers, mowers, chainsaws, power fans or any engine, the operation of which causes noise due to the explosion of operating gases or fluids, other than between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. on weekdays and 9:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. on weekends and holidays. (§1, Ord. 1753, eff. November 8, 1990)."

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Why not use a broom? A rake? Burn your own fuel, it would do you good. Leaf blowers are a symbol of outdated conspicuous consumption and mindless unnecessary pollution. And annoying.

Anonymous said...

The group is horrible. Orinda might as well be East Berkley. If you dont like leaf blowers, then come over and rake my property.

Anonymous said...

If you're not up to raking your own leaves, I have a 12 year old son who could use the money. He saves 1/3 of what he earns from pet sitting and yard work for college, donates 1/3 to the charity of his choice, and spends the rest at movies or other local businesses. ...Or you could pay somebody a lot more money to use a leaf blower and send the cash to another country.

Leaf blowers hurt your health, are bad for the environment, and take opportunities away from our kids.

Anonymous said...

I will use my leaf blower whenever I damn well please. Orinda ordinance be damned.

Anonymous said...

I'm all for banning leaf blowers! They're incredibly noisy and polluting.

I personally can't see sitting through a MOVIE about them, though.

Gilbert Doubet said...

The yourrossmoor chatboard (Rossmoor's community wide chatboard) which can be read by anyone anywhere, has picked up this idea.

The messages can be read in chronological order from here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yourrossmoor/message/11691

Read them in the order of ascending message number (click on "next" message - in upper right corner) instead of following the topic thread, since several postings have different topic titles.

Anonymous said...

this makes me so sick. you want to see real pollution? try living next to the oil refineries in martinez.

Anonymous said...

xD