To the editor:
The Leaf Blower Study Committee has worked hard to gain support for regulating the use of leaf blowers in Lincoln. They have earned limited support from the Board of Health for regulation in South Lincoln, but no support for town-wide regulations either from the Board of Health or the Conservation Commission.
Leaf blowers affect the health of the environment not only in town but also in outlying residential areas and within our conservation land. Property owners frequently have leaves removed in their woodland, occasionally over their entire two-acre parcels—a process that can last up to eight hours. The air becomes heavy with dust and pollution, affecting the surrounding neighborhood, not to mention the noise that is generated.
This is a problem of “the commons,” to reference the words of the American ecologist Garrett Hardin. At a global scale, we now know that our atmosphere and our oceans are being altered to the detriment of us all. Accordingly, individual nations are recognizing that that they cannot continue to degrade “the commons” and that all nations need to make some sacrifice for the betterment of us all. At the local level, “the commons” is the air we breathe and the conservation land we love. Both are being degraded by leaf blower-generated carbon pollution, particulates, and noise. Individual property owners, like nations, need to accept regulations that protect our “commons.” We must acknowledge, sooner rather than later, that our shared commons are more valuable to our well-being, and to our survival, than anything that we may own as individuals.
David O’Neil
4 Moccasin Hill
Letters to the editor must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to news@lincolnsquirrel.com. Letters must be about a Lincoln-specific topic, will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Letters containing personal attacks, errors of fact or other inappropriate material will not be published.
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