Tag Archives: leaf blowers

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Legislators didn’t allow local bans of gas-powered leaf blowers. Va. localities are doing it anyway.

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Members of Quiet Clean NOVA demonstrate the noise level of gas-powered leaf blowers on the grounds of the Capitol. Photo: Quiet Clean NOVA.

Three years in a row of losing in the legislature might persuade some people to give up trying to get what they want. For members of the group Quiet Clean Virginia, their losing record simply challenged them to seek another path to victory. 

Quiet Clean Virginia and its affiliate groups in Northern Virginia advocate for local bans on gas-powered leaf blowers, machines that are either essential to modern suburban living or the scourge of it, depending on your point of view. 

Their pollution-spewing, two-stroke engines are linked to asthma, heart attacks and even global warming, and their headache-inducing roar is the bane of the work-from-home set, parents of napping children and night-shift workers who must sleep during the day. 

But on the plus side, they are really good at blowing detritus off people’s lawns. 

These days electric leaf blowers can also move leaves around, with no pollution and less noise. So advocates believe the gas version should no longer have a place in dense, urban environments where clean air and tranquility are already scarce. 

Prohibitions have been in place elsewhere in the country for years, including in the District of Columbia since 2022, and in Maryland jurisdictions including Montgomery County since 2025. 

Many residents of Northern Virginia would like their region to be next. A survey conducted by Arlington County showed almost three-quarters of residents support a total ban.

The problem is that even Democrats in the General Assembly have balked at giving local jurisdictions the express authority to regulate or ban gas-powered leaf blowers.   

In a Dillon-Rule state like Virginia, localities have only the powers expressly delegated to them by the state. And the General Assembly has never said anything about what local governments can do about lawn care equipment. 

Bills to grant localities this power have failed repeatedly in the House and Senate, and the votes weren’t even close. According to Quiet Clean board member Margaret McKelvey, lawn-care companies and leaf blower manufacturers lobbied hard against the measure, asserting it would cause economic ruin. 

Still, the failure of the initiative wasn’t the end of the story. 

Legislation would have been nice, but was it actually necessary? The Virginia Code gives localities the power to adopt “such measures as it deems expedient” to secure the “health, safety and general welfare” of their residents, including through enforcement of noise ordinances. That seems like enough authority.

Indeed, Alexandria attorney Jamie Conrad, a supporter of the legislation, told me in a phone call that several legislators he spoke with felt localities already have sufficient authority to enact a ban under the police powers delegated to them in the Virginia Code, and this was why they voted against the bill. 

Proceeding cautiously, the City of Alexandria asked their  then-local delegate (and former vice mayor), Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, to request an opinion on the topic from then-Attorney General Jason Miyares.  

On August 12, 2024, Miyares replied with a letter confirming the city’s authority to ban gas leaf blowers simply by amending its noise ordinance. 

Miyares, a Republican, acknowledged that the General Assembly had voted down legislation giving local governments express authority to regulate leaf blowers, but cited case law in rejecting any inference of legislative intent from those outcomes as speculative. Alexandria, he concluded, was clearly within its rights to ban the equipment.

Alexandria used that green light to amend its noise ordinance in May of 2025 and begin an 18-month phaseout of gas leaf blowers. A full prohibition is set to take effect on November 17, 2026.

Miyares’ opinion had leaned heavily on the authority in Alexandria’s city charter, though the power of counties to enforce noise ordinances under the Virginia Code is similar. Nonetheless, Arlington chose to move more slowly, holding extensive outreach sessions and soliciting feedback. 

The county collected more than 3,500 written comments, the great majority of which favored a ban. Reading through the comments linked from the survey, noise is clearly the driving factor behind support for the ban, with pollution and health impacts as secondary concerns. 

Most opponents cite the financial impact to homeowners and lawn care companies from having to buy new equipment. Complaints about government overreach make up a small (but often colorful!) part of the negative feedback.  

Not surprisingly, Arlington’s survey also showed most lawncare companies oppose a ban, saying it would impose an economic hardship. More surprisingly, though, nearly one-third of companies said they were “very comfortable” with a total ban, suggesting that the electrification of leaf blowers is already underway. 

With that support, last month the Arlington County board amended its noise ordinance to ban gas-powered leaf blowers effective January 1, 2029. The 30-month lag time is intended as a transition period giving owners of gas equipment time to change their equipment as it wears out, a frequent suggestion in the comments. The county transitioned all of its own landscaping equipment to electric in 2025.  

McKelvey says other jurisdictions have been watching, but so far none have followed Alexandria and Arlington.

The path to do so is straightforward; most localities already have noise ordinances, and many already apply time restrictions and decibel limits to the use of loud machines. Fairfax County, for example, already bans the use of all lawn equipment between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. 

Lawn care isn’t alone; other loud activities also have time restrictions. Even dog parks have to close at night, and indeed the quiet hours for dogs are longer than those for lawn equipment. (Clearly, the dogs didn’t hire the right lobbyists.)

Still, localities will have no interest in banning gas leaf blowers as long as their residents don’t demand it. The idea likely won’t even be discussed in rural counties, unless as an occasion to ridicule Democrats. With technology on the side of batteries, the market will eliminate the two-stroke engine long before most governments do. 

That’s cold comfort to the exhausted parent whose colicky baby has just been jolted awake. When that happens, even an avowed libertarian may waver on the sanctity of lawn equipment choice. Politics crumble when the baby is screaming.  

As for whether Alexandria and Arlington have set off on a slippery slope to banning everything having to do with fossil fuels, McKelvey thinks not. For one thing, the price differential between gas-powered lawn mowers and electric is too great to make a similar restriction reasonable; for another, as I can attest, gas leaf blowers are just uniquely irritating. 

I asked Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Fairfax, the House patron of the leaf blower ban legislation, whether he would put the bill in again next year, now that the localities that wanted it had gone ahead with their bans. 

He told me he hadn’t decided, but added, “I’m glad to see Arlington taking this step, and I hope it sets an example for other localities that want it.”

This article was originally published in the Virginia Mercury on August 24, 2026.

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Fed up with leaf blowers? You’ve got company – and now, reason for hope

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Members of Quiet Clean NOVA demonstrate the noise level of gas-powered leaf blowers on the grounds of the Capitol on January 11. Photo: Quiet Clean NOVA.

Fifteen years ago, when my husband and I expanded our snug 1970s-era house, we added a screened-in porch where I hung a hammock swing. In good weather I carry my computer and coffee out to work from what I call my “summer office.”

Except on Wednesdays. On Wednesdays my neighbor’s landscaping crew descends, and then begins the racket from the lawn mowers, trimmers and, most annoyingly, leaf blowers — which somehow manages to last for hours. 

Less predictable is the neighbor on the other side of us, who seems to be addicted to his two-stroke gas-powered leaf blower. He’s outside with it several times a week in all seasons, in spite of not having a lawn. The noise is insufferable, and even if I could tune it out, the pollution produced by the apparently-not-very-well-maintained engine forces us indoors with windows shut tight. Not satisfied with his own efforts, last spring he hired a crew of day-laborers with gas-powered leaf blowers to spend most of the workday making sure not a leaf remained anywhere on the property, including (I kid you not) in the woods behind his house.

I love all my neighbors, but if I could vote these machines off the planet, I would. Gas-powered leaf blowers are far and away the worst instrument of neighborly ear torture known to suburban life, and that includes pickleball.

I’m not alone in making this assessment. Local governments across the country have banished them, citing air pollution, worker health risks, harm to wildlife and contributions to global warming, as well as noise. Two years ago in Virginia, an all-volunteer advocacy group called Quiet Clean NOVApromoted a bill in the Virginia legislature that would have given localities the power to regulate or prohibit gas-powered leaf blowers. Other lawn equipment and electric leaf blowers, being much less obnoxious, were not targeted. Even drawn so narrowly, the bill died in a House subcommittee on a 5-4 vote along party lines.

This year, Quiet Clean NOVA worked with Del. Rip Sullivan, D-Fairfax, and Sen. Saddam Salim, D-Fairfax, on a similar bill introduced in both the Virginia House and Senate. On January 11, volunteers from the group descended on Richmond with gas leaf blowers to do elected leaders the dubious favor of clearing detritus from the sidewalks around the Capitol, at full volume.

The thing about leaf blowers is that owning one is not exactly part of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. When I was a child – lo these many years ago – leaves were removed from grass with a rake, and that didn’t seem to interfere with anyone’s quest for self-actualization. 

Then, in the late 1970s, California became the first state to embrace leaf blowers. It has now become the first state to ban the gas-powered version, though without an apology to the rest of us for unleashing the scourge in the first place. 

To be honest, I love power tools as much as the next homeowner. I’ve learned that a relaxed approach to leaves is better for wildlife and soil health, but a few times per year I bring out my electric leaf blower, connect it to an extension cord, and blow the accumulated leaves and debris off our roof. I do the same for our gravel driveway in the fall. The electric blower is about as loud as a vacuum cleaner, produces no fumes, and has never needed repair in the 20 years I’ve owned it. Should I ever need a new one, they sell for under a hundred bucks. 

It would be a bit much to expect landscaping crews to run around tethered to extension cords, but that is where advances in battery technology come in. Battery-powered leaf blowers cost about as much as gas-powered blowers, but they are cleaner, quieter, easier to maintain and more reliable. Not to mention, the sound doesn’t penetrate walls and drive the neighbors batty. The catch is that a battery may need recharging before a big job is complete (or for my neighbor, before every leaf is out of the woods). A landscaping crew would need to carry spare batteries, which adds to the cost. 

Opponents of legislation letting localities regulate gas blowers will argue that it isn’t fair to landscapers to make them invest in new equipment before the old equipment has reached the end of its useful life. A locality would have to weigh that consideration against the more diffuse, but much greater, costs to society imposed by the current use of gas blowers.  

But that’s an argument about whether and how to regulate. That discussion should be had at the level of government that operates closest to neighborhoods and people, at city councils and boards of supervisors. Quiet Clean NOVA’s bill gives those localities the ability to regulate but does not require them to.

In Virginia’s General Assembly, though, even a modest bill may get caught up in the political moment. Few Virginia Republicans represent densely-populated districts where noise and pollution are serious issues. Most are blessed to represent quieter rural areas. It’s easy for some of them to frame any local regulation as an infringement on personal liberty. Still, I question whether any of these gentlefolk, when settling in for a pleasant spell on the porch, greet the sudden roaring of a leaf blower by exclaiming, “Ah! The sound of freedom!” I think they say the same unprintable things I do.  

But I get the slippery slope argument. If you let communities decide for themselves whether to regulate things that harm people’s health and the environment, next thing you know they might start trying to control how people live their lives in private, possibly even banning things like drag queen story hours and library books about Black people.

Oh, wait. We’re there already, aren’t we?

So maybe let’s just look at this legislation as simply what it is: a way to give our local elected officials the right to hear the voices of their distressed constituents, crying out for a little peace and quiet.

A version of this article appeared in the Virginia Mercury on January 10, 2023.