Open Letter to Sebastopol City Council
To Support Leaf Blower Ban
From Shepherd Bliss, 829-8185, P.O. Box 474, Sebastopol, CA. 95473.
For over 15 years now I have lived on my organic farm in the serene Sebastopol countryside. Last month I purchased a condo within the city limits with the intention of eventually moving there. My plan has been to rent it out for six months or so. I accepted the rental application of two women from Mendocino village to move in November 1. They wanted to live in a larger town, thus being less isolated and remote.
After their first day of leaf-blower assault, they decided to move back to the more peaceful Mendocino, complaining of too much noise pollution. They lost a month’s rent and left me without tenants. So I am delighted that the Sebastopol City council is considering a leaf blower ban. It has health, environmental, and commercial merit. If it does not pass such a ban, I doubt that I will be able to move into my condo, since leaf blowers also terrorize me.
Numerous peace-loving cities have such a ban, including my birth-town of Santa Monica, Tiburon and Mill Valley in nearby Marin, Berkeley, Palo Alto, Foster City, Los Altos, Menlo Park, Sunnyvale, and at least a dozen other cities in California, as well as many elsewhere in the United States, both small and large.
My research in the l980s on the negative health impacts of excessive industrial noise convinced me of the multiple dangers of such sound, before leaf blowers were so prominent and menacing. Many studies prove the harmful effects of noise. I published some of my research in various health publications and a best-selling book I edited for Penguin in l985 titled “The New Holistic Health Handbook.”
“Our society is driving itself crazy with noise,” declared Dr. Walter Carlin, Director of the Speech and Hearing Institute back in the l980s; since then noise pollution has gotten much worse. It “not only causes the loss of hearing, but triggers other physical ailments, stress in marriage, lack of sleep, and falling productivity,” according to Dr. Carlin. My own father was hard of hearing from his service during World War II next to anti-aircraft weapons. Many musicians in loud rock bands are also hard of hearing.
Research documents that excessive noise can negatively influence the nervous system, the endocrine system, the stomach and the emotions. Noise adversely affects the heart and blood vessels, contributing to high pressure and increases in cholesterol level. In other words, noise can be deadly. Dr. Carlin reminds us that “sound was used for centuries as a method of torture. Place a bell over a person’s head and ring it, and eventually the person will go crazy.” Leaf blowers drive me crazy, breaking my concentration, capacity to think, and serenity.
Some people erroneously believe that noise such as that created by leaf blowers does not impact them personally, because they merely adapt. They do so at a substantial cost, re-wiring their nervous systems to adjust to the assault. Loud sounds such as leaf-blowers emit are particularly bad for certain groups of people, such as pregnant women. The leaf blower ban proposal provides us the opportunity to further research the negative health implications of the growing noises in urban environments. As with restrictions on smoking and drinking in certain places, such a ban would be beneficial to public health.
On the other hand, for those who are hard of hearing, one of its blessings is that your nervous system does not have to adapt and thus suffer the harmful consequences.
Sound trauma is a form of post-traumatic stress that military veterans, such as myself, and others experience. Leaf blowers can be one of the worst triggers of post-traumatic stress. Their sounds can evoke memories of military training and even combat. Triggering a vet can be harmful to that person, as well as potentially to others.
Fortunately, there are old-fashioned alternatives to leaf blowers—like rakes and brooms. They do not contribute to the over-use of fossil fuels and the creation of greenhouse gases, thus worsening chaotic climate change. In fact, such muscle alternatives can be health inducing.
Other alternatives to loud leaf blowers might be newer ones with mufflers or vacuuming leaves. On the other hand, leaves left alone become mulch that can feed lawns and plants, creating soil. Last week I was given over a dozen big bags of leaves, which I promptly deposited on the berms around my boysenberries. My farm is willing to accept donations from others seeking a final resting place for their leaves, which will break down to become the soil that nourishes tasty berries.
When Sebastopol does finally pass such a ban--this year or in the future--I would implore it to put teeth into the ban and make stiff fines that are strictly enforced. As the California Department of Health’s Model Community Noise Control ordinance declared in the mid-1980s, “Certain sound levels and vibrations are detrimental to the public health, welfare, safety and quality of life.”
I implore each of our five City Council members to promptly support a ban on leaf blowers and make it a unanimous decision that enhances our peace of mind here in lovely Sebastopol by protecting our citizens from their negative impacts.