Myths You'll Hear

Where you'll hear it: OPEI white papers, manufacturer-funded studies, landscaping trade groups testifying at hearings.

Reality: Modern commercial battery blowers from EGO, Stihl, Greenworks Commercial, Husqvarna, and Makita match or exceed the air volume (CFM) and air speed (MPH) of the gas blowers they replace. The 600+ CFM commercial backpack class — the workhorse of fall cleanup — is fully covered by current battery models.

The 6 Westchester towns that have already passed full year-round bans didn't see service collapse. Crews kept showing up. Lawns kept getting cleaned. If electric couldn't do the job, you'd see one of these towns reverse course. None has.

Where you'll hear it: Crew owners who have only used one battery on one machine.

Reality: Professional electric crews don't run a single battery — they run packs. Standard practice is two to three swappable batteries per blower with a truck-mounted or trailer-mounted charger that turns over packs throughout the day. Backpack systems on commercial-grade equipment run roughly four to six hours of actual blower-on time per pack.

A crew with a properly spec'd battery system has more usable runtime than a gas crew, because they aren't stopping to refuel, mix two-stroke oil, or unjam carburetors.

Where you'll hear it: Most often as a reason to delay — "let's revisit in five years."

Reality: Commercial battery landscape equipment has been on the market for more than a decade. California's CARB regulation (AB 1346) phased gas small-off-road-engine sales out starting in 2024. Hundreds of US municipalities — including Washington DC, Burlington VT, Brookline MA, and a growing list of Westchester towns — operate under full bans today. The same manufacturers that make gas blowers have built out commercial battery lines because that's where the market is going.

"Not ready yet" is what the industry says in every jurisdiction. It's been "not ready yet" for fifteen years.

Where you'll hear it: A regional spin on Myth 3.

Reality: Lithium-ion battery performance does drop modestly in cold temperatures, which is why commercial crews keep packs in heated trucks and rotate them. It's the same workflow that landscaping crews already use for cordless drills, chainsaws, and hedge trimmers — none of which are controversial.

The Westchester towns running ban-compliant fall cleanups with electric equipment are in the same climate as Croton. Brookline, MA. Burlington, VT. The cold-weather objection survives only as long as nobody checks who's already doing this.

Where you'll hear it: The headline claim in nearly every industry letter campaign.

Reality: It hasn't happened anywhere. Not in DC, not in California, not in any of the 6 Westchester towns with full bans. Landscaping companies in those jurisdictions are still operating, still hiring, and many have grown. The work doesn't disappear when the equipment changes — lawns still need mowing, leaves still need clearing.

Industry groups have predicted business collapse before every ban. Then the ban passes, and a year later they predict it for the next town. The pattern is the prediction; the collapse never arrives.

Where you'll hear it: Trade-group testimony pointing to upfront sticker prices.

Reality: The upfront cost of a commercial battery blower plus a battery pack is now comparable to a commercial gas blower. The total cost of ownership over five years is meaningfully lower, because electric equipment eliminates fuel, two-stroke oil, spark plugs, air filters, carburetor cleanings, and engine rebuilds. Run the math yourself with the cost calculator.

New York's pending Electric Landscaping Equipment Rebate Program (S5853A / A2657A) — which passed both chambers in April 2026 and is awaiting Governor Hochul's signature — would provide point-of-sale rebates that close any remaining gap. California's existing CORE program (the model) has issued tens of millions of dollars in rebates for exactly this transition.

Where you'll hear it: Companion to Myth 6.

Reality: In every ban jurisdiction studied, residential landscaping prices have tracked normal market trends, not the imagined ban-driven spike. Fuel savings on the operator side offset the equipment transition. Some companies have used the switch as a marketing differentiator and charged a small premium for "all-electric" service — but that's a market choice, not a forced cost.

Where you'll hear it: Increasingly the favored industry talking point because it sounds like an equity argument.

Reality: This argument is almost always advanced by industry lobbyists, not by the workers themselves. The people most harmed by gas-powered leaf blowers are the workers running them — disproportionately immigrant, often without OSHA-grade hearing or respiratory protection, exposed to 100+ dB noise and direct two-stroke exhaust at face level for hours a day. NIOSH has documented landscaping crews as one of the highest-risk occupational groups for noise-induced hearing loss.

A ban improves working conditions. Transition periods (one to two years is standard) and rebate programs are specifically designed to cushion small operators during the switch. When you hear this argument from someone who is not themselves a landscaping worker, ask who's funding the message.

Where you'll hear it: Often paired with Myth 5.

Reality: Electric crews need workers just as much as gas crews do. The labor is the same: mowing, edging, blowing, hauling. If anything, the lighter weight and lower noise of battery equipment makes the work less physically punishing and easier to staff.

The actual occupational risk to landscaping workers is the gas equipment itself — the noise exposure, the carcinogen-laden two-stroke exhaust, the back strain from heavy backpack engines. The "save the jobs" framing has it backwards.

Where you'll hear it: Polished industry-funded lifecycle "studies" that compare a brand-new battery pack to a single hour of gas use.

Reality: Lifecycle analyses that account for the full useful life of the equipment — using EPA, Argonne National Laboratory, and CARB methodologies — show that commercial gas blowers are dramatically worse than electric across every emission category. The reason is the two-stroke engine.

Two-stroke engines burn a mixture of oil and gasoline and vent exhaust without a catalytic converter. Up to a third of the fuel passes through unburned, released as an aerosol of benzene, formaldehyde, 1,3-butadiene, and fine particulate matter. CARB calculated that one hour of commercial gas leaf blower operation emits as much smog-forming pollution as driving a Toyota Camry approximately 1,100 miles.

A single season of commercial gas blower use produces more lifecycle emissions than the manufacturing footprint of the battery packs that would replace it.

Where you'll hear it: A favorite of online debate, less often at hearings.

Reality: Even on a hypothetical 100% coal-fired grid — which no US grid is — electric equipment beats two-stroke gas on every emission metric, because power plants have emission controls and two-stroke engines do not. New York's grid is more than half zero-carbon today (NYISO data), and that share grows annually.

The other half of the answer is location. Power plant emissions go up a stack and disperse. Gas blower emissions go directly into the operator's lungs and the windows of the homes next door. Even if the totals were equal — and they aren't — the local exposure profile is fundamentally different.

Where you'll hear it: As a closer when other arguments fail.

Reality: Commercial battery packs are recycled at high rates through manufacturer take-back programs and Call2Recycle drop-off points. The federal Universal Waste Rule classifies lithium-ion batteries as recyclable; commercial-grade packs in particular have strong economic incentives for recovery (lithium, cobalt, nickel).

Compare that to two-stroke fuel: 100% combusted into the air, with no recovery possible.

Where you'll hear it: From the same officials who enforce noise ordinances against barking dogs and amplified music every weekend.

Reality: A full year-round ban is the easiest noise-equipment regulation to enforce, because gas blowers are identifiable by sound alone. There's no time-window dispute, no seasonal calendar, no equipment-classification gray area. If the code officer hears a gas blower, it's a violation.

Westchester ban towns confirm this in practice. Most use a complaint-driven model with first-offense warnings, escalating to fines. Compliance settles in within the first season.

Where you'll hear it: Often as a budget objection.

Reality: The opposite happens. Towns report a complaint spike during the first transition season, followed by a steep drop-off as compliance becomes the norm. The towns that didn't pass full bans — that tried to live with seasonal or hours-restricted partial measures — are the ones whose code officers are still drowning in disputes about which hour, which day, and which type of blower.

A clear rule generates fewer complaints over time, not more.

Where you'll hear it: Often offered as a "compromise" — sometimes by industry, sometimes by board members trying to avoid a vote.

Reality: Partial restrictions preserve gas demand, which is why industry groups support them when a full ban is on the table. They also fail on their own terms:

Enforcement is harder, not easier. Officers have to know the time, the season, and the equipment type for every complaint.

The harm concentrates. Crews run gas blowers harder during the "allowed" hours, so the noise and exhaust dose stays roughly the same.

Compliance drops. Crews working across multiple towns can't track which town allows what on which day.

Towns like Sleepy Hollow that started with seasonal restrictions are revisiting expansion to full bans precisely because the partial measure didn't deliver.

Where you'll hear it: Letters to the editor, angry public-comment speakers.

Reality: Local regulation of noise, nuisance, and equipment that harms public health is a century-old core function of municipal government. Towns regulate fireworks, amplified sound, construction hours, idling trucks, and burning leaves on the same legal basis. Gas-powered leaf blower restrictions sit squarely within home-rule authority, and hundreds of US towns have passed them without successful legal challenge.

If your town can pass a noise ordinance against barking dogs, it can pass one against gas blowers.

Where you'll hear it: A class-framing inversion of Myth 8.

Reality: The biggest beneficiaries of a ban are the people exposed to gas blowers most often: the workers operating them, the elderly residents who can't escape the noise, asthmatic children, and people working from home in dense neighborhoods. NIOSH-grade occupational noise data, AGZA worker-health surveys, and EPA particulate-exposure modeling all converge on the same conclusion — the harm falls hardest on people with the least ability to opt out.

Wealthy homeowners can install soundproof windows. Renters and outdoor workers cannot.

Where you'll hear it: Sympathetic-sounding board members.

Reality: New York has had a sale-ban bill (A2114) and a seasonal use-ban bill (S424) sitting in committee for years with no scheduled floor vote. Even if both passed tomorrow, a state sale ban does not restrict use of existing equipment — landscapers could keep running their current gas blowers indefinitely. The pending rebate program (S5853A / A2657A) doesn't restrict anything; it only funds replacement.

Local use bans are the only mechanism that addresses current harm to current residents. Every Westchester town with a full ban acted without waiting for the state, and none has had its ordinance preempted.

Where you'll hear it: A local variant of Myth 18.

Reality: There is no county-wide gas blower ban bill currently on the table at Westchester County, no scheduled vote, and no clear path forward. The county legislature has not signaled imminent action. Meanwhile, the 6 Westchester towns that decided not to wait now share working enforcement, real data, and quieter neighborhoods.

Where you'll hear it: A favored stalling tactic when the substantive arguments have run out.

Reality: The studies exist. CARB has published detailed emissions modeling. NIOSH has published worker noise-exposure data. Edison Electric Institute and AGZA have published commercial-equipment performance comparisons. Dozens of municipal post-ban reviews are publicly available. The peer-reviewed literature on two-stroke engine emissions goes back decades.

What "more study" usually means is: study until the political will fades. Croton has more than enough data to act.

Where you'll hear it: When the conversation isn't going well for the gas side.

Reality: Gas-powered leaf blowers are uniquely bad on three dimensions simultaneously:

Sustained 100+ dB noise for extended periods — louder than a chainsaw, well above the threshold for hearing damage.

Two-stroke uncontrolled emissions — no catalytic converter, roughly a third of fuel released as an unburned aerosol of carcinogens.

Resuspension of ground-level particulate — pesticide residues, animal waste, mold spores, and heavy metals blown back into the air.

No other common piece of consumer equipment combines all three. Cars have catalytic converters and run intermittently in traffic. Mowers don't kick up the same particulate plume. Construction is regulated by hour and by permit. Leaf blowers run for hours, in residential neighborhoods, with no exhaust controls and no permitting process.

That's why leaf blowers are the natural starting point. Many ban towns subsequently expand to other gas landscape equipment — but that's a sequence, not an argument against acting on blowers first.