Safer, Cleaner, Quieter Leaf Blowers: Why and How?
everybody to this panel discussion on the topic of leaf blowers. I'm Eva Thaddeus, the chair of the Croton Conservation Advisory Council, and my co facilitator is Nora Nicholson, who's the director of operations for the village. The CAC is a village committee and has been tasked by the board of trustees with gathering information and making a recommendation to the trustees about whether and or how to further regulate gas powered leaf blowers in the village of Croton. Currently, use of this equipment is permitted six months a year, April, May, and September through December. During the other six months, its use is generally not permitted. Although owners of properties larger than 40,000 square feet are eligible to apply for a temporary permit of exemption. The Conservation Advisory Council made a recommendation in 2021 for a complete ban on gas powered leaf blowers within the village. After consideration, the Board of Trustees at that time decided to pass a partial ban instead. Since 2022, when this partial ban was implemented in Croton, a number of our neighboring municipalities have passed more stringent regulations than our own. In recent months, the topic has been brought to the fore again in Croton with advocates arguing both for and against strengthening of the regulations. The main arguments that have been brought in favor of passing the, excuse me, of banning the gas powered leaf blowers further or completely are their noise pollution, particulate pollution, carbon and ozone increasing pollution, production of carcinogens, and damage to the ecosystem and soil. Arguments against regulation have included the slower pace and less powerful cleanup with battery powered equipment, concerns about additional expense, skepticism about the feasibility of enforcement, and concerns about the safety of lithium ion batteries.
Welcome, Doctor. Brown. We are lucky tonight to be joined by five very different panelists. Charlotte Benz from the village of Irvington will speak first about her village's current regulations. Miss Benz has to get off by 7PM, so we'll take questions for her right after she speaks. After that, the remaining four panelists will speak one after another without interruption. They are doctor Amy Brown, a pediatric pulmonologist, lieutenant Dan from the Larchmont Police Department, James Bryson from the Hudson National Golf Club, and Dave Baker from Planet Wild, which is an all electric design and landscaping company. We will take questions for all four of these panelists at the end. If you have a question, please chat it... Chat... Plea... Please tap... Type it into please type it into the chat at any time. Please remember that the purpose of the chat is not to express your own views, but to ask questions. And please keep your questions both short and respectful so that we are able to use them. My co facilitator, Nicholson, will be monitoring the chat and preparing to direct questions to the appropriate panelists. We do have a lot of people here tonight, so I don't know if we will be able to get to everybody's question, but we will do the best that we can.
With that, we're going to move forward and I'm going to welcome our first panelist. Welcome Charlotte Bins. Thank you for joining us. Miss Bins is the director of sustainability for the village of Irvington, which in 2023 implemented a complete year round ban on gas powered leaf blowers with exceptions, I believe. You'll correct me if I'm wrong. No exceptions. Not for the municipality. No. Nothing. Okay. With no exceptions. She's here to tell us how the years... The three years since then have gone.
Great. Yeah. Hi. So, the movement to, control the... Or limit or ban the use of gas powered leaf blowers in Irvington started before my time, before I moved here. So I I came in halfway through a long advocacy campaign. I think 2008 was the first time it showed up in our climate reports. There were big love them and leave them campaigns in 2010. 2020 was when we adopted the law with allowing for three year delay, and the logic was that within three years, all of your equipment... Landscaper equipment becomes obsolete, and you have to update it anyway. So that would give the landscapers an an opportunity to have no extra financial burden and... While they swapped out and updated their equipment. However, our experience was that nobody really did it until the ban actually went into effect in 2023. So we do not advocate for... Well, I don't, from what I've witnessed, a three year delay because I remember the mayor saying at the time that when there was pushback from the landscapers that, you know, it was... They were saying the same exact things three years later, and it it was never gonna happen unless they stuck stuck to their guns and and followed through with the ban. We did start with our own municipal operations. Leading by example is a powerful way to go. I think it was 90% of our equipment was electric before we instituted the ban. We had some... Maintained some gas equipment for emergencies, but I'm not aware of them being used. And just go through. I actually have a case study, which I can send around. We have no exceptions. Even our golf club and large properties, big big developments are all included in the total ban. We
have three parties responsible. So if there is a fine issued, a citation, it goes to the operator, the employer of the landscaping company, and the owner of the property. Now if that's actually happening, on the ground, it's harder to say. I think probably not. I think it's mostly the operator and the employer and not the homeowners that have been issued citations from what I witnessed, but that's a little unclear. One thing that we set up, the Irvington Green team, that I would recommend is... So it's... In our case, it's the police enforcing, not code enforcement officer. I do think it's good having, you know, the police car roll up, and and it just sort of creates a certain gravitas that people are... Take more seriously. But at the same time, it means that residents are less likely to call because they don't wanna call the police on their neighbors and friends. So we set up a separate channel for reporting on the irvingtongreen,.org website where we've encouraged people to report both to the police and to my channel. My channel has a lot more data collection so we can find out who is the company, any documentation, if it's happening regularly at the same time, the same place, all the details so that you can see, you know, every Friday, guaranteed at this property is going to be an offender, and the police can just anticipate that and go and and enforce effectively and save time. And then we were able to compare and contrast, and there's a lot of good data from that. So from that from that data, we have... And also from police reports, we have
charts, which I could share, that show we went from 67 complaints in 2024 to... Down to 22 complaints in 2025. And the summons has actually increased,
whatever reason, from three to six. So it it has really... The whole thing has moved along substantially in that time. I mean, I haven't heard one gas powered blower yet this season, which is definitely not true in previous years. So the the landscapers have adapted, and I think I think the biggest concern was that prices would increase. And and I know of one development where the price did increase. I don't think it was a huge amount, but I didn't hear about it actually happening in any significant way elsewhere. I've been working with an electric landscaper forever, and he has his techniques that is totally effective. I have two acres, lots of trees, very, very woody, leafy lot, and he's never had a problem with all... His whole electric equipment. So I think a certain amount of the concern is exaggerated. So what other tidbits can I share with you here? We did a ton of education. We had door hangers on every, property in the village, bilingual. In Irvington, the landscapers have to register to get a permit, and so I have all of their contact information. So I have been sending them information all along. You know, there was a flyer that Healthy Yards came up with that that outlined what every municipality in Westchester's rules were, which is a super handy thing for landscapers who are having to navigate and remember, well, in this village, I can only do it at this time of the year. In this village, it's a ban, and this village is not. So it's a nightmare for them. So little things like this that help them, we're trying to, you know, be as, helpful as possible. And, whenever there were any... There's a new incentive rebate that's in the pike for, electric upgrades. So, you know, just trying to make it as easy and friendly as possible.
What else? Encouraging love them and leave them. Yeah. I think those are all the main points that I wanna hit, so I'm happy to answer questions. Thank you. And I will just say, last year, so many people were so happy about it that there was a spontaneous decision to come and give testimony to the board of trustees just about how happy they were. Like, lots of people saying, I can work from home now. I... You know, it's not a problem getting the baby to sleep. Like, all these happy residents who are just... I mean, I sent... I still know. I get people sending me videos of, like, look what my garden is like now, and look what it was like two years ago. And, you know, just they couldn't they couldn't go outside before, and and now they're so happy they live here.
Thank you, Charlotte. I'm gonna jump into the q and a. Did Irvington experience any interruption of services due to this policy going into effect year round?
that you're aware of. Can you tell us a little bit about, you know, what you would say about the issue of lithium ion batteries and their charging and storage?
Yeah. I mean, it's never been an issue here. That's for sure. I think that... I'm not an expert on this, but my impression is that it's less and less of a concern. I don't... I mean, I don't think it's a huge concern myself.
Do you have an idea of what percent of your homeowners are managing their own lawns versus hiring landscapers?
Can you explain a little bit more about your landscape or registration and how that was accomplished?
Yeah. That's... Goes back way before my time and is... You know, precedes all of this. I think it was just to make sure there was some control over, who was who was in the village.
And that... That's managed by your... The village office, the Village administrator.
Village administrator. Okay. Thank you. It's just something like a $50 fee, and every year we send out a letter, and and I tack onto that letter with all the latest and greatest with regards to the... With regards to healthy landscaping.
Does Irvington do loose leaf collection Mhmm. And use commercial vacuum trucks to collect leaves?
Do you have any idea of the cost estimates? Someone's asking how much more it's costing if you have two acres of property using electric versus gas. It never cost me anymore. Is your school district, in compliance with this law?
They are their own jurisdiction and not a 100%. They know that that the municipality has a ban, and it would be kind of antisocial not to follow that, but they don't always. They have, you know, more... Some more extreme situations where they still use gas.
And then, you know, kind of... We're gonna talk a little bit more about lithium ion batteries with the lieutenant, but, someone else asked about, you know, whether or not you did consult with the fire department or professional firefighters on this issue.
That would have happened before my time, which is, you know, when three years prior, so six years ago when they first had the round of conversations and they met the board of trustees and the mayor at the time sat and met with the landscapers and with the fire department and everything. They had long extensive workshop meetings with everyone.
Do you have a sense of... Did Irvington ever have vacuum trucks, or, you know, did it... Did the bagging of leaves come with the with the all year ban? Or
They may have had vacuum trucks again before my time. The the the switch to bags is not related to the ban.
K. And then someone just asked for clarification. So there is an exemption for schools?
No. It's not an exemption. It is literally a separate jurisdiction. We have no jurisdiction over the school. Our laws do not apply to the school. It's New York State public school. New York State law. Separate.
Are... And and you said this at the top, but are... Do you have any exemptions for larger properties, certain users? None. Not even the golf club. That is all the questions we have. Oh, let me see. I've got one more. So you indicated that your landscaping didn't go up in cost. Did you use gas landscapers at any point? And if not, how do you know that your prices didn't go up? I did when, yes, when I moved here in 2019,
inherited the landscaping company that came with this property, and they used gas. And I tried to get them to use electric, and they did. And then they would go back, and they kept going back and forth until I had to let them go. But there was never any difference in price. Then I found an all electric service way before we issued the ban here.
Can you just elaborate a little bit on why the school hasn't complied? Is it a cost issue? Is it main... Maintenance issue?
I don't entirely know. They don't really love to talk to us about it. But I think it's... They already have this very big expensive equipment for large fields and hills that are, you know, at a diagonal and, you know, upgrading that equipment is much... Is more substantial for all those many, many acres. But but they really are all electric. They... They've used electric everywhere they can now.
I don't know. The property is between Irvington and Dobbs Ferry, and, I don't know. I don't know how they do it.
And then in your role, is there is there a paid sustainability coordinator? Are you paid or you volunteer?
I'm paid. You're paid. Okay. I'm part time. I'm a consultant, and I'm paid by the hour.
I'm gonna go back because Chuck's question is more for Eva. So I'm gonna skip that one for now. We'll come back to it. Do you allow landscapers to use generators to charge batteries?
It is not in the law that they cannot. Obviously, it's not in the spirit of things. I mean, in my house, they just plug in to my property. Yeah. We don't we don't love that, but there is a little bit of that happening.
I'm just trying to clarify. One clarification is that, you know, why did Irvington implement this all year ban?
Because so many residents were so exhausted by, I would say, primarily the noise, but also environmentally, soil depletion and erosion, the particulates, health issues, but I think the noise is the overwhelming driver.
All gas powered. I think it did... One of the moments with our mayor during the pandemic was that he had not been really supportive of the whole thing until he had long conversations with everyone. And then there was some point during the pandemic when he witnessed the gas powered leaf blowers blowing, like, one leaf, you know, up and down the drive for half an hour or something and thought, you know what? This is absurd. And and, actually, it's charming now you see people with rakes on some of these bigger properties, like, you know, like, from our childhood. And and it's fine. They were... It's been fine.
Are all gas power... Is all gas powered equipment banned or just gas leaf blowers? Gas leaf blowers and sprayers
that got thrown in last minute. The one thing that is still noisy is the ride on machines, but they're not listed in the law.
What types of sprayers are banned? Just says gas powered.
Do you have a sense of any real estate value increase or decrease based on this law?
And then just, you know, kind of as our final question, can you just share with our, our attendees kind of what your background is and your qualifications are in this area?
Yeah. I'm a community organizer, and, I mean, I do everything from the greenhouse gas emissions inventory, climate action plan to, climate awareness, education, and events, the adaptation plan as well as the, resilience measures, building up neighborhood networks, emergency preparedness, winning grants for flood mitigation efforts, you know, green infrastructure, culvert expansions, climate related tasks.
Great. I think we're... Our time is up with Charlotte, but, you know, I just wanna extend our thanks to you. I know you need to drop off the call, but just wanna extend our, thanks in our rapid fire q and a. Yeah. Really appreciate it. If folks wanna get in touch with, your organization or learn more about, it in Irvington, what's your website?
Alright. Thanks, everyone. Thank you so much. K. Bye. Good night. Our next speaker is doctor Amy Brown. Doctor Brown is a pediatric pulmonologist and specialist in children's environmental health. She works at the Maria Farrar Children's Hospital and the New York State Centers for Children's Environmental Health, and she's here to share with us her view of how leaf blowers connect and fit into the big picture of children's health.
Welcome. Thank you for joining us. Thank you so much, and thank you for having me. I'm also an Irvington resident. So I found the beginning presentation, very informative. You know, I've been involved with, peripherally, some of the efforts, and I can tell you as an Irvington resident, it has made such a difference. Just on a personal note, my own landscaping bill has not gone up at all. I enjoy... I work from home often when I'm not seeing patients, and I enjoy much more peace and quiet, a significant amount than prior. And, just overall, the drift, the smell, all the things that I'm gonna talk about, are significantly improved. So, again, I'm here. My specialty is pediatric pulmonology. I'm a children's lung specialist. I care for children, with a variety of different lung diseases and in particularly asthma. In New York State, we have a tremendous asthma burden. We know that about one in twelve, and in certain areas, it's up to one in six, but one in twelve children have asthma. And, again, without going into too much detail about the exact specifics of asthma, I wanna characterize it as an airway disease that is sensitive to the environment, a variety of triggers, but the environment being one of them. And so when we think about children, I'll go back to this, especially sensitive population because we have to think about the disruptions that not only happen to the trajectory of all children, the growth of their lungs, and their overall development, but really are, in particular, our most vulnerable. I also... I'm not gonna specifically talk about pregnant women today, but another vulnerable population that I just wanna highlight is pregnant women and developing fetus because, in particular, they are very vulnerable to a lot of the pollutants that I'll, talk about.
So, again, as a pulmonologist, I take care of a lot of environmentally triggered diseases. And so over time, I've worked with partners across New York State. We work with eight other academic centers across the state in the NICE CHECK program, which is the New York State Children's Environmental Health Centers. That's how you got in touch with me through my, collaborator, doctor Sarah Evans at Mount Sinai. And we've given lots of talks at various board presentations, and I'd be happy to share any of that information. And so, really, what I wanna talk about is three things. I wanna talk about the output, the things that I'm concerned about from the environment from gas powered leaf blowers. I wanna talk about the exhaust. It's a chemical soup. I'm gonna go over a lot of those and what we know about the health effects. I wanna talk about the noise, and I'm gonna talk about some of the dust. And I'm gonna put this in the context, again, as a pediatrician of really children. But think about children as our future population because the exposures and the things that I'm gonna talk about that can impact children are really what impacts the next generation. And so when I think of that, we're thinking about a prevention strategy. As we think about a lot of things in environmental health, as we think about the climate crisis, a lot of times there are things that we feel helpless. There's might not be as much that we think we can do. And when I think about these type of bands with gas powered leaf blowers, this is something as a community, as a hyper local strategy that you can do to create cleaner, healthier air for children. And so the first thing... So let's just talk about the emissions. And, again, I'm gonna break this down into three categories.
So the first thing is the exhaust. The exhaust that comes out from gas powered leaf blowers is really, again, as I mentioned, a chemical soup. So things to think about are carbon monoxide, again, in very small concentrations, but we know that even just carbon monoxide that comes from secondhand smoke, that's found in the environment can have very adverse health effects. Anything from, being a carcinogen to being an irritant to affecting lung growth. Other fine particulates. So I don't wanna get too in the weeds with all, all the emissions, but something called particulate matter comes in all different sizes. I'm sure you've heard of particulate matter before. And sometimes you hear about particulate matter with a subscript at 2.5. That's some of the smallest particulates that are out there. They can be larger, part PM 10, PM five, but PM 2.5 is particularly, worrisome. And I say that because our lungs have a mechanism of, filtering out things from the environment that we don't want to get deep into our lungs. But p m two point five, in particular, can get deep into our lungs and easily get into the bloodstream. Once it gets easily into the bloodstream, our body... Our immune defenses initially will react. But with higher levels in the environment, there's a lot that our bodies are processing just because of our baseline environment. But with higher levels, that can cross into the blood brain barrier. It can evade immune responses, and it can have adverse effects affecting every single organ in the body in different ways. And so as we think about, the carbon monoxide, the particulate matter, also, we have to think about, various, like formaldehyde or VOC chemicals. All of these things are coming off of gas powered leaf blowers.
Now it depends how close in proximity. Again, I'm talking about children in the vicinity, who live in... Maybe in a home where these are running, not in particular the health of workers, which is of extremely high concern. But as we think about all of these exposures, carcinogens, airway irritants, VOCs, It's very hard with gas powered leaf blowers. There aren't many studies that are done that are linking gas powered leaf blowers because there are so many... It's a combination of so many different chemicals. So a lot of what I'm telling you is extrapolating from what we know from various other sources. And so that's one of the things, especially when we think about this preventative space, is just because I don't have a great study to say x does y to the human body for developing children with gas powered leaf blowers. I have a multitude of studies that talk about what these chemicals do and how dangerous they are for developing bodies. Another thing that I wanted to mention in the exhaust is the formation of gas... Ground level ozone. So with a lot of these exhaust chemicals, that combines with ozone that's naturally occurring in the environment, and it forms something called ground level ozone. And I'm sure many of you are familiar with, the monitoring air quality and the air quality index, and seeing that your ground level ozone levels are high. Now that's not because the environment is making too much ozone. That's because ozone is undergoing a reaction with all of these different chemicals, the nitrogen dioxide as well, VOCs, particulate matter, and that's rising. So gas powered leaf blowers can play an indirect role to the hot humid days where we see our ground level ozone higher. Ground level ozone is a known airway irritant. It can make it harder for all of us to breathe. And as I mentioned, our sensitive populations, in particular children with asthma.
So as those chemicals and those toxins live in our environment for a longer period of time, the downstream effects, the byproducts that we see even at a later date, all accumulate with each other. I wanted to mention noise. And the American Academy of Pediatrics does a lot of work with noise, especially in and around the, issue with gas powered leaf blowers. So we know that hearing loss, if, can occur when, noise is sustained above 65 decibels even for short periods of time. Most gas powered leaf blowers operate about 95 to a... Well above a 100 decibels. We also know that the stress response, not even necessarily just, hearing loss, but the stress response, the increase in blood pressure, the increase in heart rate also occurs at that level of about 70 decibels. So the stress and the propensity for hearing loss that occurs with gas powered leaf blowers is something that we can't ignore. It's not just, oh, it's some loud noise. It can actually have pretty significant consequences on both just the sympathetic nervous system of individuals around the gas powered leaf blowers and then long term consequences for hearing loss. And then finally, the dust. So these gas powered leaf blowers, they're not just blowing leaves as we all know. They're blowing everything around it. They're blowing the pollen. Let's talk about children with allergies, who are highly sensitive. They're blowing the soil that's around there that may or may not have been treated with a pesticide or some sort of chemical that can also be made airborne. We know... And I'm gonna talk about, in just a moment some of children's vulnerabilities, but we know that children are the ones who are more likely to spend time closer to the ground, or on the ground. And as all these things are aerosolized and then are beginning to settle again,
they're in the lower breathing zones, which is where we know children are breathing at, again, because of their size and their nature. So children aren't just little adults, and this is something that I say a lot of times in nearly all of my talks. And I'm not using slides, but I have some great pictures that just, like, kind of illustrate the comedy there. But it really is true. They're not little adults. They're developing adults. They're developing into adulthood. And so why that's important is I'll talk about their unique physiology, but we have a chance to intervene. Their bodies haven't yet developed. So it's really upon us as a community to give them the best possible chances at at development. So in particular, for their developing lungs, the way that the children's lungs develop is if anyone's familiar with a newborn baby and how fast they breathe. They're breathing at about 40 to 60 breaths per minute because their lungs are small, and in order to maintain what we call ventilation, they have to breathe faster, because their lungs are smaller compared to all of us here with, you know, adult sized lungs who are breathing at about 14, 16 breaths per minute. So per body weight, every child is taking in a higher effective dose of the environment because in any given minute, all of us are taking in the environment about 14 to 16 times per minute. If we're exercising and active, it's even more. But children from birth, 40 to 60 breaths per minute, that goes down, but it's how they might be closer to 25, 30, and into adolescence. And so it's an opportunity to take in either more clean air, more fresh air, or especially as we think about what's happening in our communities and proximity to gas powered leaf blowers,
it's an opportunity to take in more toxins. So it's just something to think about that the effective dose of the environment higher to children and what we can do collectively
to... Doctor Brown, I'm sorry to cut you off. Yeah. But we're gonna we're gonna... If you could just wrap up, we're gonna move on to our next panelist. And then,
you know, we're not gonna do q and a after doctor Brown. So if you have questions for her, just put it... Put them in the chat, we'll come to them... Come back to it at the end. Okay. Yeah. No problem. I'm so sorry. I was trying to go through, like, the kind of spiel one zero one. There's so much to say on this topic. But, yeah, just to just to wrap it up, we're really the guardians of children's health, in particularly lung health. Again, I... You know, there's the vulnerable populations, children with asthma, pregnant women, developing babies. But then there are just children, and there's our future generation. And there are the concerns about all of these chemicals that are emitted and the noise. And so, really, what I leave you with is, you know, it's very... I... As an asthma specialist, I can take care of patients in the hospital who were admitted because they have an exacerbation that may have been triggered by their environment, which is often the case. But I'd much rather work with groups such as this group right here to talk about how we can prevent that from happening in the first place. And so thank you for your time, and, yes, I'm available for any questions, that you may have. Thanks.
Thank you very much, doctor Brown. My pleasure. We are going next to lieutenant Dan of the Larchmont Police Department. Larchmont is another municipality that has banned leaf blowers completely. The the sentence that I read from their code is no internal combustion leaf blower shall be operated in the village of Larchmont at any time. So, lieutenant Calipay, welcome, and please share with us how enforcement of this very stringent law has been going and anything else that we need to know. Thank you.
Hello, everyone. Thanks for having me, lieutenant Dan Calipay. So what qualifies me to talk on this this topic? I've been involved with, the leaf blower conversation and the Larchmont Environmental Committee since I was a police officer and a union president, discussing all the issues as, enforcement affected the police officers as well as the landscapers in the community. I was involved firsthand with enforcing and doing the, special enforcement of leaf blowers and issuing the summonses. I was then a sergeant in charge of supervising those details, and now as a lieutenant, I oversee all operations of the police department. So just some background on Larchmont's, history with the ban of gas powered leaf blowers is... It's it's been for a very long time. It's... I believe it's been over twenty years or or something close that we've had a ban on gas powered leaf blowers, and then we had exceptions for, spring and fall cleanup. So, in September 2020, we made that ban a little bit more strict where, excuse me,
where you cannot even use electric leaf blowers during the year. So our ban is so strict that both gas powered and electric leaf blowers are banned all year with a exception for the use of electric leaf blowers during spring and fall cleanup, which is March 15 through April 30 in the spring and October 15 through December 15, in the fall. A little bit more in my background is I... You guys didn't know this when you invited me here, but I've been in landscaping my whole life. I started working in landscaping when I was 16. I owned and operated a landscaping company from 2020 to 2025, writing... Coinciding with a few promotions that didn't work out for my business plan there at the time. But, as far as enforcement goes, something that I advocated for as a union representative was that, very similar to Irvington, that we issue a summons to the party that's operating the leaf blower. We issue a summons to the business owner, and we issue the summons to the homeowner. So now what what happens... I think, Charlotte mentioned she's not sure what happens on the back end of the enforcement to the homeowner and to the business owner if they're not on scene. So what we do is we collect all that information on scene. And if those other two parties are not there to issue in person, we forward that to our code enforcement officer who happens to be our, fire chief. So we work with the code enforcement. He issues those summonses via mail.
When I first started in the police department, it was not a law that was heavily enforced. We'd go on the calls. We'd ask the the operators to stop using it, and then we'd leave. That was that was common practice and procedure. Then there's a lot more interest in enforcement. They asked... The village asked us to to step it up, take it seriously, start issuing the summonses. So we had to put those up... Those procedures in place for proper issuance, get on the same page with the courts and things like that. So I would say pre 2020, I don't I don't have the exact statistics in front of me, but we frequently won on leaf blower calls. I would say it was in the range of a 100 to 200. That's a big range, 50% or a 100% jump. But it's... It was it was over a 100 calls a year that we would receive for leaf blowers. And in the past two years, 2025, we had 57 total reports of leaf blowers used. We had 24 summons issued. And then in this year so far, we've had 36... We we started breaking it down even further on our reporting side. We had 36 citizen reported incidents of leaf blower use, and we had 14 officer initiated incidents with a total of 50 total and 25 summonses issued. So 50% issue rate there for various reasons. And I'll open it up to to q and a if if we wanna move on to that. That's all I have prepared.
Thank you. We're actually gonna go through and make sure that every, panelist gets their time and then come back for q and a. But if you were listening and you have a question for the lieutenant, please write it in the chat, and we will come come back. Yes. And just to follow-up on an earlier comment, somebody said something about my authority of... On lithium batteries. I have no authority at all. I'm police lieutenant, not fire lieutenant.
So I'd be interested to hear from mister... I'm sorry. His name disappeared from the screen, but the owner of the electric, leaf blower company or the landscaping company rather.
Thank you. Our next panelist is James Bryson. Welcome. Mister Bryson, he is the director of agronomy at the Hudson National Golf Club, somebody who cares deeply about the environment and whose job is to keep the greens green at the golf club, and, is here to to share his perspective on leaf flowers. Welcome. Thank you for coming.
Hi, everybody. I've been the director of agronomy at Hudson National Golf Club for a little bit over a year now, and I'm also fortunate to call this wonderful village my home. I hold a bachelor's degree in environmental sciences from Delaware Valley University. Take great pride in my profession and in the responsibility that comes with a large property. Golf course superintendents are stewards of the land. Many of us are avid outdoorsmen who appreciate fresh air, hiking, wildlife, bird watching, fishing, and protecting the environment for future generations. I'm here today to discuss how large turf covered property like a golf course can service an environmental asset while still meeting the demands of maintaining one of the best, golf clubs in the world. A common misconception is that golf courses are entirely made up of heavily maintained turf. In reality, less than half of the typical golf course property is dedicated to intensely maintain playing surfaces such as greens, tees, and fairways. Hudson National Golf Club encompasses more than 280 acres, yet only 34 acres consist of greens, tees, and fairways. Even with including the driving range, our fine turf areas account for only about 15% of the entire property. We also maintain approximately 80 acres of fescue that are not fertilized or irrigated. These areas are allowed to grow up reaching about 20 inches, and they provide a valuable habitat for wildlife and, corridors for the animals to move throughout the property. Our goal is to manage the property responsibly while maximizing its potential as a wildlife habitat and a natural cooling area during the hot summer, months. In 2023, Hudson National seeded double o seven XL bank grass into the tees, greens, and fairways. This is developed through Rutgers University. This variety offers improved performance with reduced water,
fertilizer needs, and chemical needs. So, you know, Hudson National is always about doing what's right for the environment while maintaining one of the best golf clubs in the world. We also rely on soil testing, data driven management decisions to ensure that products and resources are only used when necessary. A lot of this, data and research driven management style is through large universities like Rutgers and Purdue. Looking ahead to 2027, we plan on incorporating additional native host plants to our, parking lot flower beds and support even more native insects and pollinators. We're also working towards introducing milkweed into select out of, area plays for the 2027 season. And then this brings us to our leaf management, discussion. With the topic of leaf management, we use a balanced approach to ensure that safety of our staff and members... To ensure the safety of our staff members and guests. At commercial lever... Level, we manage, liability for the safety of our staff, guests, and members. Leaves create slipper... Slippery surfaces for golf carts and equipment used to manage the property. Additionally, leaves cover up unknown surfaces, which could lead to safety issues for golfers and staff walking the property. From a maintained turf perspective, greens, tees, and fairways are mowed at fractions of an inch, and the grass survives with the minimal light that it gets during the short fall season. A layer of leaves shuts down photosynthesis. It also holds in moisture, right against against the crown of the plant and sets up for snow mold and winter kill. The USGA, which is the United States Golf Association, says this plainly in its green section guidance, and produce extension says the same for heavy layers of, any leaves on lawns. Mulch mowing works for the light scatter of leaves, but when it's a thick dense layer, it smothers the turf.
There's nothing, there is nothing that mulches, you know, leaves that are on tees, fairways, and greens, which is where we use our leaf blowers. Hudson at Hudson National, we use a combination of strategies and equipment to blow mulch and collect and compost our light... Leaves here on-site. Our Our goal is to mulch whenever possible and collect the leaves when necessary. Our equipment includes electric blowers for smaller jobs that we typically like to use in the summer as well, even for larger surfaces in the summer where there's not total cover and we just wanna get out there and use an electric one. We also use low noise gas pack pack blowers. These are rated at 65 decibels, and the equipment muffles, the the equipment comes with a muffle, on the actual tube extension. So not only is it a quieter engine, but it also muffles that whiny noise that comes out of the tube. Like I said, these are rated at 65 decibels. We use those on medium sized jobs. For larger jobs, we use PTO driven blowers and large turbine blowers for areas requiring more sustainable equipment. Our operators are very good at using these, and they know that, when you can throttle down and make less noise to make less noise. Let's be honest. Me as a
member of this village, I also am aware that a lot of these loud backpack blowers are extremely annoying. Leaf vacuums that collect leaves for composting and redistributing throughout the property are also used. Like I said, all of our, leaves that we collect at Hudson National, our main stay on the property. We use them for other projects. We use them for our flower beds when we're digging out shrubs and, to help keep things warm in the winter as well. We invest in lower noise backpack blowers out of consideration of both of our neighbors and our employees. We are mindful of the approximately 10 homes that border our property, the majority owned or leased by the club or its members. This is, to to bring up Irvington and, Ardsley Country Club, which is over there, they have 254 residential properties within 500 feet of their golf course. Like I said, we have 10 that directly border, and we have about 16 that are within 500 feet. So we're much, less concentrated density where it comes to, noise pollution. We recognize that every property neighborhood is different in the golf course. Golf courses throughout, you know, band properties or band... Golf courses that have bans put on them, are typically in different, residential zones that just have more, properties next to them. Our approach to use appropriate equipment for each situation, minimize unnecessary noise, and remain considerate of those who live around us while we still maintain our property safely and effectively. Hudson National is committed to the community. We are the only private golf club in the Golf Digest top 100 that allows access to our residents, or the the residence in which it is located. I believe the golf course is gonna be much more than recreational facilities. When managed thoughtfully, they can serve as valuable environmental resources and contribute positively to the communities in which they operate.
Thank you for letting me be a part of this panel. And I'd also like to, volunteer if anybody from the CAC would like to see a demonstration of our low noise blower. I'd be more than happy to set something up with them.
Thank you very much. And thank you for your presentation. We... I will come back with any questions. So, people watching, feel free to put questions for mister Bryson into the chat, and we'll we'll loop back around. We're gonna go to our final panelist next. Dave Baker is a Croton resident and an owner of Planet Wild, a landscape design company that also provides all electric lawn maintenance services. And, you will have to tell me your name again.
Yeah. This is, so I run Plan A Wild. This is my wife, Joanna. Joanna. Thank you. Yep. Alright.
Very, family run operation here. Joanna has a tech business that she also runs called Wylar Places. But we are an ecological landscaping company that's been around for ten years now. I live in Croton as well. We operate in all throughout Westchester and a little bit of Connecticut. We specialize in, ecological restoration, design, and build. I'm a landscape architect by trade, and we specialize in native plantings and also the stewardship side of larger properties, smaller properties. You name it, we've done it. We've... We went electric. I mean, we started electric, and we've been doing it for six years. All all equipment, leaf blowers, mowers, zero turn, all the things are all electric. It's been a great experience. I have firsthand knowledge of how much it's improved my guy's life just by ease of use of the equipment, as well as it's just easier to maintain. It's much quieter. All the things, it's just a better experience for everybody on the crew. We've downsized in the last couple of years, but that is not because of the market. I get questions every day about, can you help me do this, do... Maintain my property all electric? And I'm not taking on new clients anymore, but I can promise you that the demand is there. And it's just important to me because, I care about our, community, about the work we do, and it's just, reassuring that we've just saved tons and tons of carbon over the last six years just by doing this, one single step. I think we've saved... We've we've calculated before. We saved about 35 tons to 40 tons of carbon put back into the atmosphere over the last six years. So that's a pretty big number. We've also been profitable at this business. We have, you know, we bought all our electric equipment in 2021 and we've... We paid it off in about two to three years. And ever since then, we've been in the green, and we just operate with, you know, 20, 20 or so batteries per year over the last six years. And I can answer all questions about costs and, how I've operated specifically. The last thing that I would like to say is that we are an ecological maintenance company. So we do have tactics,
to, you know, manage leaves in a very smart way. We try to utilize all our leaves. We try not to shred our leaves. We try to spread our leaves. We try to reuse them in in all the landscape beds of all our clients. All those tactics are helpful to reduce time, to reduce money, to reduce effort, to reduce all the things, to reduce particular matter going into the air, all the things, we try to do on a daily basis, and we've been very successful doing it. And if you have any questions, please fire them away. I'm happy to answer.
Thank you very much. And thank you to all our panelists. We are now going to go to questions. How are we doing there, Nora? Are you are you ready or still looking at what's coming in? I'm
ready. Let me set up this... The view, though, so everyone can see everyone. Alright. I'm gonna start with questions for Amy. I know she answered this question in the chat, but Amy, are you ready?
I know you answered this question in the chat, but I think, people would be curious that, the question is, are there studies that show that blowers are more damaging than when people clean their houses with any pesticides that may be used or control for pests?
Yeah. So... And I think if I'm understanding this question correctly, so a few things to say. Number one, there really are very few studies looking at gas powered leaf blowers in general. The EPA did a study a few years ago, and it looked at small engine machines, and that's where we extrapolate a lot of the data, but that's not specific to gas powered leaf blowers. So setting that up, there are no studies looking at comparisons as well. Right? So a lot of this is just extrapolation of risk. Every single thing mentioned there, pesticides, cleaning products in your home, These are all things that carry a significant burden that as community members we have to think about. What were we using in our house? What are we using on our lawn? I think ticks were also mentioned there too in mitigation. So there's nothing to say worrying about one thing is better than worrying about another, or there's more risk with one, or there's more risk with another. They all carry their own risk, and it's this constant risk assessment and risk analysis and thinking about what we can do at all levels, at the individual level, at the level of our communities, and obviously beyond. But... The the answer is no. There's not great studies. But, again, in a lot of these areas, especially especially with with advocacy and policy, sometimes we have to extrapolate, and that's a lot what we do in this space. And then also, as you've been doing in tonight's panel, learning from others who have done those, changes and thinking about the impacts across all sectors and if it's feasible. And I think what we've seen, especially in Westchester County, but even, you know, on a larger scale, is that it is feasible,
and it does have tremendous environmental impact by making those changes. So I hope that answers the question. Yes. Thank you. Great. And
another question for you is, you know, we've got a large train yard here in Croton on Hudson, you know, where there are idling trains. So when we're thinking about kind of comparing the train yard to gas leaf blowers and what their output is, you know, is there an equivalent of, you know, talking talking about those two things in the same... In terms of the health risks to children?
Yeah. I mean, it would be hard again to compare the two. And at any given time, the concentration could be different. The emissions are slightly different. The exposure to the individual, the proximity to the actual source. So it'll be very, very hard to compare, but what we know is that things are additive. So the more... Right? So having all of these exposures, you know, when we're talking about this, we're not just talking about gas powered leaf blowers as the sole risk. So if there there are emissions from vehicles... And, actually, what we've seen is as we've made strides with, you know, with exhaust from vehicles, with more electrification, with reductions in traffic related air pollution, we've seen improved health outcomes. Right? And so we're making strides there. This is another area where we can make strides. It would be, again, hard to compare and say which one is better or worse, but it's really that additive. Right? Where can we make those strides, and can we make them in a synergistic fashion to reduce emissions, together? I wish there were studies. I really do. Make every... And if there were studies, truly, there wouldn't be as much debate about the policy. Right? Because sometimes it just has to be, like, thinking about what we know, and understanding that there are certain things in health that we are not able to study efficiently. But in the absence of those studies, if we see a signal and we know that there are significant risks, we also can act on that ahead of time, as we, as science is conducted.
Let me remove this. Okay. So questions for you. You know, how does Larchmont... Can you tell us a little bit about the number of people that live in Larchmont, the number of officers that are on your police department, how much time the department is taking in leaf blower enforcement?
Sure. Larchmont has a population of about 6,000. We are a 24 person, department. And, as far as... I think one of the questions was was does this distract from other services or other police calls? And it's just about how we prioritize them. Right? So we've always made it known to our board and the environmental committee that we're not gonna be going lights and sirens to these type of calls, although there are plenty of people that want us to, because we have a lot of advocates out there that are are standing by on scene while somebody's using a leaf blower because oftentimes, it's just a it's a response time issue. The residents will call, concerned parties will call, and we'll we'll show up after the operation has ceased. So, unfortunately, unless we witness it, observe it, we cannot issue the summons in those cases.
Thank you. Our next question is for James.
James, so, you know, if Croton did ban gas leaf blowers, you know, do you have a sense of how you would manage the leaves at the property, you know, if you didn't have use for gas leaf blowers?
I mean, it it would be very, very difficult for us to do that. I I think we would have to to see what happens and go from there. I I don't think I can answer that question, at at the moment.
Okay. And then, another question for you is, you know, are are you able to take a stance on this, at the moment?
I mean, ultimately, it's not up to me to decide. I think it's up to the the CAC to make a recommendation so I can provide you with what information I have, let you know that it's gonna be difficult for me to do it, and that's it.
So it's, it's actually something that I brought with me from a a prior club. It was one of my purchases when I got here because of how happy residents along my previous golf club were with the the low noise. You know? Some of the the comments I would get were, oh, I love your new electric backpacks. And they're actually... When I use them out here, and I have one electric going and and one of these low noise models going, you can actually hear the electric louder. It is like the the whiny high pitched noise versus, you know, just a very muffled, you know, engine running. So they're the echo l n six seventy model. I hope we can put that in the comments where somebody can, you know, look it up. Yes. We certainly will send that out.
And, Dave, the next questions are for you. The spotlight. Can you successfully meet your client's demands without gas leak blowers?
Yes. 100%. It's happened every year for the last six years. I don't think we've ever gotten a complaint.
People are curious about your business and the comment that you made about why you're not expanding your business, why you're not taking on new customers. Do you wanna speak to that?
It's not that we're downsizing or not expanding. We are... We specialize and we're very mission oriented in, native plantings and tree reforestation. So we're just... We just took a different route versus the mowing and blowing and stewardship.
And just to clarify because I saw there were a few questions around that. You know, our goal was always to help clients that were looking to rewild their property, like, manage it in the best possible, know, ecological health. And so we do design, install, and stewardship. And we've just been leaning more into the, like, upfront design, supporting recommendations, and then plantings. We still maintain our existing clients, but we just haven't been expanding that business. And then in fact, a few years ago, we made a point to team up with some other local, you know, green partners that specialize exclusively in electric bow and blows that we could pass that business off to them, and that is exclusively what they do while we do a little bit more upfront of the design planning and install.
Thank you. Can you talk a little bit about how you're storing your, your battery operated equipment?
Yeah. We're... They're always outside. They're never stored inside. We we... Our headquarters is in a greenhouse, so it's a little bit different than, like, a garage or a home or something. But, technically, we we also have a, I think the law is to keep them into... In a metal container. So, you know, a door with with... That's all built out of metal. So we have those. And over a long weekend or when we're not using them, we're storing everything in the metal containers and outside. But I've never had any issues with any burning, any fires on all my equipment in the past six years. I've never ever had an issue.
Someone would like to know why you keep them outside. Is that something you would recommend other people to do?
That's just our... How our facility is. It's more open than a garage. I would say if you have to keep them inside, you should definitely keep them in, a metal box. We just do that because we rent property and we kinda have to for insurance purposes. But, yes, definitely keep them in a metal container, if you can at all times.
Thank you. We're gonna jump around a little bit. Just back to Amy, if that's okay. So, Bryson mentioned he's using a lower frequency blower, gas blower. How would that compare for for damaging hearing compared to higher frequencies?
She may have stepped off.
I can answer that a little bit. So at at 500 feet away, it's 45 decibels. Our operators all have hearing protection. So from from 500 feet away, it's it's 45 decibels, which is, about, you know, the volume that we're talking at right now.
Thank you. Someone wanted to point out that California, through studies compiled by California Air Resources Board, banned the retail sale of new gas leaf blowers. Someone asked, and this may be a good question for Eva, what other Westchester municipalities other than Irvington and Larchmont have a year round ban on leaf blowers?
There's a fairly long list at this point. I wanna say, I wanna say eight to 10, that it's either complete or close to complete. Maybe, lieutenant, do you have, is, is Rye another one? Do you have some in your in your area as well as your own? Do you know?
I'm not entirely sure about what I know. Okay. So here... Right around here, Ossining,
it has, one that's close to complete, but there are a number of exceptions. So that's our nearest neighbor that does. Besides Irvington, I believe Hastings as well. There's a... Yeah. I don't have them. I I do not have them all the tip of my tongue, but I think it's it's eight to 10. We have them all compiled on a chart. We have a a very excellent multicolored chart that another member of our committee has made, Madalyn. And if that's of interest to the person that asked, we could send that to you. If you wanna if you wanna let Nora know who that is, I'd be happy to send that on.
Yeah. And we can do a... Everyone that participated, we could add to our website that on gas, leaf blowers, that information, as well as the other information we can put out to the people that are on the call and then on the village website. Someone asked how does Dave charge his batteries between jobs?
We have enough batteries to fully operate all day. We have chargers in the cars. They're, you know, most of our trucks have an outlet these days. So you can just charge on your way to and from a job. And, also, our customers, we always ask, and the majority of them just say yes, not a problem. We charge outside at an outside outlet.
Sorry. I'm just going through the questions in the chat.
This question is for Dave. Have you ever had an end of life battery, and what do you do with it?
I... It's... The batteries definitely lose power over time. That is certain. I've never had one. I... If... I've had some that are... They don't work anymore after a year or something. And if they're under warranty, you take them back and you get a new battery. And all the batteries that I've bought since 2021, I still have. Some of them don't work very long, but I still have them as... Because they still work.
We do a combination of both, on all pavements, driveways, anywhere where leaves get slippery when they're wet. We blow those into beds or we leaf mulch them. And mostly, our customers are very happy with us mulching the leaves into the lawn. So we don't usually have to blow off every square inch of someone's lawn. We just mulch those leaves right in there and they're used as fertilizer and, they make everything grow back much better. They're natural fertilizer that we should all try to be reusing.
But but clients have different preferences. So we always make our best, you know, recommendation in terms of the highest ecological health. But... So, yeah, some of the properties want it to be very neat, and we're just blowing under, you know, soft landings under trees and into the woods and so forth. But but for the most part, you know, we're able to accommodate. But we do traditional mow and blow just with electric for a subset of our clients.
Thank you. Someone asked about kind of the... You know, why we're considering this now. So, I'm happy to take this. I mean, I think there's a great amount of public interest in looking at, our regulation. You know, the... This regulation was passed a few years ago as a partial ban. So, there was a a great amount of public interest, directed towards the board of trustees to look at this full year ban. So when the board of trustees considered it, we asked the CAC to investigate and study this again. So that is what led us here today, to have this conversation. Other questions around, Croton Fire Department. Eva, if you could just chat... Talk a little bit about the CAC and next steps from a lithium ion battery perspective, that would be helpful.
Yes. We are engaging... Have begun to engage... Plan to engage in a conversation with the fire department, which we haven't done yet. So we've started by... We've submitted a foil request to to learn about what, what the fire department has handled in the last, in the the last span. I'm not sure how many months somebody else has addressed this work. He asked about, what fires had been in Croton, if any, had been attributed to lithium ion batteries so that we know locally. And then we're... But then I've been doing some research about the bigger picture in terms of fires that are known to be attributed to lithium ion batteries and a number of devices, just blowers of blow... Specifically blowers. There doesn't seem to be a lot of data about that similar to what doctor Brown was saying to to to be able to know, to distinguish blowers from from other sources of fire. And, actually, for fires that are... What... Something that I've learned from the research so far is that when when a fire is large, it's often hard to know what the source was at at all. But definitely to... For us to have a conversation with the fire department is something that still remains ahead of us.
Thank you. Yes. So this is, you know, a step in the process. So thank you for that. I think there are questions about what... How people should be storing their electric batteries. So, again, I I don't think anyone of us are experts on this... On the panel, so we will put that information out there in the public so people have the best information about how they should be properly storing this... Their battery operated equipment.
Someone commented there is a list of Westchester full year brown bands, and those are Dobbs Ferry, Irvington, Larchmont, Mamaroneck, Rye, and White Plains.
They don't drive. Could I comment on this and say that a lot of those towns that were listed do have exemptions? I'm friends with a lot of the superintendents and managers of those golf courses, and and there's exemptions for, you know, properties over x amount of size, whether it's a, you know, resident or a commercial property.
We should circulate that chart because the... Madalyn who compiled it was very specific for each of municipality as to what the exceptions are. There's... She's got a column where all that is spelled out because as as you say, the... Each, municipality's code is distinct. Yeah.
It depends. There's different volts on different, batteries. We usually use an 80 volt battery. And if it's brand new, it'll last couple hours with one leaf blower. My ones that are three years old last probably half an hour to forty five minutes. So... But they're still working.
Dave, is that with continuous use? Because, you you were talking about how you blow off sidewalks and, you know, smaller areas. If you were to blow a one acre property on full power, you know, with one of those batteries, how long do you think it would last?
Yeah. We got a couple of blowers and a bunch of batteries. So, you know, we could do it within two hours with all our equipment. But, yes, you would probably have to charge on the route, on your way or at somebody's house and you'd have a little bit of downtime, a battery will recharge. Typically, volt battery will recharge, and and the technology is better these days. A battery will recharge in about thirty minutes. And we have the ability to charge all 12 batteries with one one hundred and twenty volt plug. So you can plug into your car, you recharge all six batteries within a half an hour. So it is possible, and this is equipment that I've had that's now two years old. I haven't bought anything new since two years ago, and I know it's only getting better.
So possible for, you know, a company owner, but not not for a homeowner. You know, I've also purchased a lot of, you know, electric equipment over the past five years just trying to test it out, and I never get what the websites say out of it. So, like, on the EO website, you know, they say that their batteries last thirty minutes on high power. And I see in the field, I see about fifteen minutes on high power. So I'm just... You know, if if yours are working good, I want what you have.
Yeah. We're... We use all the commercial stuff, and I've been Greenworks commercial for six years because they've been good to me, and it seems to be the best product that I've used. So they're a little bit more expensive. They are a little bit stronger. They do last a little bit more than the homeowner stuff that you get at Home Depot. But, yes, you still do have to charge it and figure out your, logistics and all that good stuff. But, for homeowner stuff, if you got a typical one acre lot, I I do my one acre lot with residential homeowner stuff. No problem.
And, Eva, question for you. When your CAC is, you know, considering the recommendation to the board of trustees, are you looking at cost of equipment?
Yes. We're looking we're looking at everything we can, and that cost of equipment is part of it.
Thank you.
Question. Is it a mistake to focus so much on gas versus electric? There are other ways to deal with leaves than blowing them away. Is that correct?
Yes. Yes. We should try to utilize our leaves. I'm a big component of that. Leaves house our pollinators. Over 1,500 in a 10 square foot section of overwintering, animals and insects and bugs that are beneficial to all our gardens and all our world. So I'm a big component of trying to utilize your leaves, leave them be, and not blow them away. 100%.
There's a there's a huge movement underfoot that has been for some time just around leaving the leaves. There's so much research around the the ecology and the value. And recently, they've been doing some work around fireflies, and more and more folks are realizing that they're sort of... You know, they've seen less fireflies in their property than they used to, and that's partly, you know, associated with, the removal of leaves. The the firefly larvae overwinter under the leaves, and so there's sort of a direct correlation between the two. It also saves money because then folks remove the leaves that can act as mulch, and then they tend to buy mulch, which very often has invasives... Invasive plants in the seed bank. So there's a real cost to homeowners as well if they're willing to use nature's mulch, which is leaves, and put those in the garden beds, or even it actually is proven to enhance the soil by leaving it in the grass and in the lawn.
And there seems to be a bit of a debate in the q and a, so I'll go to the doctor for... You know, is there any risk with the mold... Any mold, in leaf piles for children with asthma?
Yeah. So that's a great question, and this is really where it comes back to you're talking about are there other strategies, you know, raking leaves, just collecting them without the aerosolization. And, absolutely, we know especially with the autumn leaves after rainfall, especially if the conditions remain damp, that can absolutely... It's mold, it's pollens. It's a lot of different things. Children with asthma depends what they're sensitized to, but all of... Almost all of them, whether there's... If they're sensitive or specifically allergic, it can be even more catastrophic versus just more irritating to them. So, again, every patient with asthma's individual triggers, but we know that as a population to children, moldy leaves aerosolizing and making molds airborne, especially the pollens that are around in the fall that are falling onto the leaves that are then being re aerosolized can all be triggers. And so all of these, this is really where it comes into even, like, with pest management. As we think about integrated pest management, like, along the way, this is kind of like a parallel. Along the way, what can we do? We know we wanna solve a problem by reducing pest exposure, but we have to do it in a variety of different ways along that exposure reduction path. And so, again, you know, switching to just electric is not necessarily the answer. The answer is really, like, integrated leaf management, reduction of blowers, or just the blowing aerosolization altogether will have the biggest benefit. But really thinking about that approach would have the biggest impact on health. Although if we're thinking about emissions, other emissions, the exhaust, you know, that's another kind of topic that I started to touch on.
Thank you very much.
I'm not seeing any other questions in the chat. If you feel like you haven't had your question answered, I'm I'm certainly... You can type it in. One of the questions I was asked was how... What the village does with its leaves. So those are trucked to a transfer station and then composted.
And and this this is a tough question for Eva. Eva, where where are you at in your... The process here with the recommendation to the board of trustees?
We're hoping to have a recommendation by the end of the year. But is... You know, to this point, the more research we've done, the more research we need to do. So that's that's that's... It's turned out to be quite a big topic. But but... Yeah. We are... We're we're hoping to have a recommendation by the end of the year. Thank
you.
And someone finally... It finally asked if, with the village, DPW's experience with their electric equipment is. We can we can also find that out as part of the research that, the CAC is doing, and get some feedback on the work... On the equipment that they're using and what their impressions are.
Well, many thanks to everyone for attending this evening, to our panelists, to Eva and the CAC for organizing. I'll pass this over to Eva for final final thoughts and words.
To the people attending, final thought or encouragement is if if you are a Croton resident and you would like to express an opinion to the board of trustees but have not yet, then please send an email. And, Nora, are you able to type that that address into the chat so the people people can see it? Yeah. Unfortunately, our chat is disabled, but Oh, okay. I will... Alright. Well, I I I... You can find it with a few clicks on the village website. You go to departments, and then you go to board of trustees, and you can find a place that says contact us. And then you can send an email on this topic. We are keeping a a list of just of people's people's views, and we're reading every email as well. So feel free to personalize it. So so everybody that attended, thank you. And then a special thank you to our panelists. Thank you very much for giving your time so generously, all of you, to speak to answer all the questions that came at you to share your experience with us. It makes a really big difference. Thank you very much.
And with that, I think we have reached our time. We're on time. That's wonderful. Thank you very much, Nora, for so skillfully, bringing everybody's questions to the front and making sure that everything got addressed.
Thank you. And this is recorded, so it will be posted, on the village website shortly.