City of Bainbridge Island Considering Banning use of Gas-Powered Outdoor Tools; Part of Meeting City’s Emissions Goals
By Molly Hetherwick of the Bainbridge Island Review
Bainbridge Island leaders may soon prohibit the use of gas-powered outdoor tools, following the city’s own transition to electric tools over the last several years.
If the City Council approves the ordinance, companies and residents who use gas landscaping implements—such as leaf blowers, hedge trimmers, lawn edgers, non-riding lawnmowers and weed whackers—may be required to switch to electric versions in the next two years.
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To aid the transition, the city may open a tool library with electric equipment.
A gas-tool ban would be a straightforward way to make progress toward the city’s emissions reduction target, said City Manager Blair King.
“What we’re talking about is fairly consistent with other actions the city has taken” to reduce its climate impact, said King, referencing city vehicle electrification, its heat pump subsidy program and its push for home-compostable takeout utensils and containers.
Landscaping equipment electrification has gathered steam throughout the nation over the last decade. The tools’ relatively high emissions — one hour using a gas leaf blower is equivalent to driving a car 1,100 miles — and their increasingly available electric alternatives have put the equipment front and center for many cities.
If a ban is approved, Bainbridge’s policy would join similar actions in dozens of municipalities and about half of U.S. states, but no two civic actions on the topic are completely alike.
California has already banned the sale of new small, gas-powered off-road engines, including landscaping tools, but still allows their use. The Washington state legislature is considering a statewide ban. Meanwhile, Texas, Ohio and Florida have done the opposite, and prohibited cities from enacting such bans.
“We often hear about how these policies are coming out of California, and people say, ‘California is drier, it doesn’t have the leaves and the wet that we have,’” Councilmember Kirsten Hytopolous said. “But Burlington, Vermont has done this; Montclair, New Jersey; Baltimore — and they have the same amount of rain as Seattle.”
The city’s Race Equity and Climate Change advisory committees each gave input on a draft of the law. Both expressed concern that a blanket ban on the tools would be “too aggressive” and could negatively impact commercial landscaping businesses, which are oftentimes operated by minority owners, REAC members said.
The groups recommended a phased-in approach, in which the city issued bans tool-by-tool — starting with leaf blowers.
King noted that the city would allow up to two years before the law would go into effect to give it time to notify the community and allow a grace period for tool users to change out the equipment.
In the meantime, city management analyst Adam Nebenzahl offered a few mitigations that the city could provide parallel to the law: for one, an equipment lending program, not unlike Seattle’s tool libraries or the event supplies closet run by Sustainable Bainbridge. Residents could borrow an electric landscaping tool for up to $20 per week, or subscribe to an annual membership.
The city could also offer citizens a rebate program to offset new equipment purchases, using a voucher system for each tool dropped off at Bainbridge Disposal or Ace Hardware, Nebenzahl added.
All seven council leaders agreed that banning leaf blowers is a “no-brainer,” per Councilmember Brenda Fantroy-Johnson, but digressed about the best course of action following a ban.
Councilmembers Hytopolous, Fantroy-Johnson, Joe Deets and Leslie Schneider all expressed enthusiasm for a city-sponsored tool library, which could serve as both a cost-saving measure for residents and a chance to try out the new equipment and learn about its benefits, Deets and Hytopolous said.
Schneider pointed out that the voucher program could also be an educational tool, if the city moves it forward quickly enough. Residents would be encouraged to take advantage of the opportunity to trade in their tools before the enforcement period begins, she said.
Like Deets, Mayor Ashley Mathews and Councilmember Clarence Moriwaki were also supportive of banning leaf blowers and flagged cost as a prohibitive roadblock to public uptake, but they saw the lending library as a partial solution.
Mathews supported the phased-in tool approach but was hesitant to condemn larger gas-powered equipment: farms and other agricultural enterprises are dependent on the use of tractors, she pointed out, and legislating out their use could be cumbersome for their operations.
Not to mention the potentially cumbersome cost of stocking a city tool library with a fleet of electric lawn care items, Moriwaki said.
If a voucher system or a tool library is the carrot, then enforcement is the stick — but that part still requires some work, King said. The council must decide whether admonishment for use of a gas-powered tool would fall on the property owner or the tool user. Either way, that requires catching someone in the act of using one.
“It’s very difficult to enforce this ordinance, and the community has to be leaning into this ordinance to make it successful,” King said. “It’s not a matter of someone calling up and saying, ‘My neighbor is using a backpack blower,’ the enforcement official has to actually see someone using the backpack blower.”
Hytopolous, Fantroy-Johnson, Deets and deputy mayor Jon Quitslund were in favor of the responsibility of compliance falling on the property owner, but Quitslund did not see the need for a law at all.
“We’ve set a very good example, regulating our own activities and consequences. When it comes to other people and organizations around the island — the parks, school district, the Land Trust, Bloedel Reserve, Islandwood — they should be making their own policies,” Quitslund said. “They can follow our good example, or they can do some things but not others; whatever they feel is best for themselves, their environment and their community. Voluntary compliance is preferable to rules-based compliance.”
Some organizations have begun doing just that. The BI Metro Parks and Recreation District has started using electric tools for landscaping, but has only made a partial transition, due to some logistical challenges.
This story originally appeared in The Bainbridge Review https://www.bainbridgereview.com/ and is used by permission. Molly Hetherwick is reporter with The Review. Photo of chainsaw operator courtesy of The Review.
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