At its October 23, 2019 meeting, the Sustainability and Resiliency Committee was presented a status update by the Public Works Department on the transition plan for gas blowers and to comment on noise complaints received from residents.

The Greenspace Management Division Director reported that since the 2017 pilot study, several City departments have been acquiring more battery-operated leaf blowers to comply with Resolution 2017-29867, allowing the voluntary transition to battery-operated leaf blowers used by City landscape contractors under their current contracts, and mandatory usage at renewal. He stated that Greenspace Management has converted the majority of their inventory to battery operated leaf blowers. And by the second quarter of 2020, all Greenspace Management and Parks Department landscaping contractors working on City owned property will solely be using battery-operated leaf blowers. 

The Committee made a motion to have the Greenspace Management and Sanitation Divisions research the best path to accelerate the City’s transition from gas-operated to battery-operated leaf blowers and to change staff start time in residential areas. Recognizing that the goal is to have the entertainment and commercial areas cleaned prior to business openings, staff advised that personnel would be directed not to utilize blowers in residential areas until after 8 AM.

CURRENT STATUS

The Greenspace Management Division has converted and is currently using electric blowers for their daily operations. A handful of gas powered blowers remain in storage for emergency response operations. Provisions requiring the use of electric blowers has been included in the solicitation documents for landscape contracting although the advertisement for such has not been released as of yet.

The Sanitation Division currently has 62 gas blowers in stock (45 are handhelds and 17 are backpack blowers) and three (3) electric blowers currently in use. The batteries to operate the blowers only last about 45 minutes, and as such, 2 batteries are required per blower. Due to the usage duration of the batteries, the Sanitation Division is contemplating to purchase 16 high speed AC 120 V chargers at an estimated $125.96 each, which would be installed in City crew vehicles. The Fleet Department will have a vendor install an inverter for these chargers in City vehicles at a current cost of $212.50 per vehicle. The estimated cost to replace all 62 blowers with handheld electric blowers and outfit the crew trucks is approximately $125,000.

The Sanitation Division has been operating at a deficit in the past few years which has prompted adopting recent fee increases. The transition to exclusive use of electric blowers is envisioned to coincide with the replacement of the crew vehicles over the next few years. Four (4) crew vehicles have recently been purchased which will be the first to be outfitted with the inverters and chargers. If this deployment proves successful, the remainder of the crew trucks will be analyzed for similar implementation taking into consideration vehicle age and available budget.

This information is being presented to the members of the Land Use and Sustainability Committee for discussion and further direction.