Most Smithies have seen the army of facilities staff working hard with leaf blowers to clear our streets, sidewalks, paths and lawns of the seemingly endless fall leaves. If you happen to be in a dorm room facing one of these lawns, you’ve probably heard and smelled the smog of leaf blowers too. This is undoubtedly irritating, but other than requiring us to shut the window or walk around an area, it seems that Smithies are unbothered.
The same cannot be said for other members of the campus community. Leaf blowers emit hazardous particles, and when operated without a mask, as we have seen occurring on the Smith campus, they can pose significant health risks for maintenance workers. Leaf blowers have been correlated with serious lung illnesses and cancer caused by the emissions of benzene, butadiene, formaldehyde and fine particulates. Leaf blowers also can cause hearing loss, due to their low-frequency noise that can effectively penetrate walls to reach everyone within 50 feet of the leaf blower.
Keeping leaves on the ground is also hugely beneficial for the ecosystem. Numerous bugs, including Smith’s vibrant firefly population, lay their eggs on the underside of fall leaves and are severely impacted by the aggressive leaf blowing. Dead leaves also act as a protective layer for plant roots, guarding them from extreme temperatures. This will only become more important as climate change leads to more chaotic weather, such as the severe frost we experienced last winter and the unexpected heat wave last spring that brought the temperature up to 90 degrees before the leaves budded. If we keep our leaves on the ground, the plants on campus will be sheltered from these extreme weather events.
Additionally, in the spring and fall, dead leaves are important resources for food, shelter and nesting material for invertebrates ranging from box turtles to salamanders. The fallen leaves help amphibians retain skin moisture levels and protects them from the cold, which is crucial for the many amphibian species in decline across the U.S. and in western Massachusetts. The unused leaves will decompose through winter and spring and act as natural fertilizer.
Beyond that, a single gas-powered leaf blower emits excessive amounts of pollutants. More than 30% of the fuel consumption of gas-powered blowers is fully unused and released into the air as an aerosol. Even with the fuel they do use, they consume a staggering amount of this. A 2011 study showed that a leaf blower emits nearly 300 times the amount of air pollutants as a pickup truck. The study’s editor noted that the “hydrocarbon emissions from a half-hour of yard work with the two-stroke leaf blower are about the same as a 3,900-mile drive from Texas to Alaska in a [Ford] Raptor.”
This isn’t to say that the presence of leaf blowers is only destructive. It is important to remove the buildup of dead leaves from the roads and pathways around campus to ensure accessibility and safety. And when used on roads, the harm to bugs and plants is minimized. But once the leaf blowers come off the roads and onto the lawns and meadows, the benefits disappear and the harms increase. Although it may be too late this year, let’s ask Smith to put the leaf blowers down, at least for the lawns. If we love the New England fall leaves on the trees, why can’t we love them on the ground?
