Group wants leaf-blowers banned from Marblehead

MARBLEHEAD – Leaf-blowers, those noisy gasoline-powered tools that clear the leaves from summer lawns, may be banned from Marblehead if a committed group of environmentally concerned residents has its way – and it?s seeking the support of the Board of Health to do it.Article 36 of this year?s 41-article Town Warrant seeks to ban leaf-blowers. It was sponsored by Christopher Bergonzi, who visited the Board of Health Tuesday evening with Pat Beckett and several other supporters and gave board members an information packet, including information on several other communities nationwide that have banned leaf-blowers, including Brookline.Beckett asked the board members to co-sponsor an informational meeting on the article, which is scheduled for 7 p.m., Tuesday, March 27, at the Abbot Public Library. So far the list of co-sponsors includes the Winter Garden Club, the Marblehead Neck Association and Healthlink.Beckett listed noise pollution and leaf-blower emissions, both gas and particles, as health hazards.?I haven?t come across anybody who says these things are safe,” Bergonzi said. “Their reasons for using them are economic ones.”Board member Michelle Gottlieb said she was in favor of supporting the meeting as “an educational event,” but her colleagues, Helaine Hazlett and Todd Belf-Becker, said the board should read the information Beckett provided first. They appeared to be sympathetic to the concept but, without fully informing themselves, “We don?t want to be seen as sponsoring the article,” Belf-Becker said.Beckett said she hoped that landscapers would attend the meeting to express their views. Former landscaper Beth Grader, a supporter of the article, said she spoke with an unidentified landscaper who said he would be glad to rake leaves instead of using the leaf-blowers, as long as his competitors did.?Some of his clients want their lawns to look like they?re under a glass dome,” she said.Board members said they would take the weekend to think the matter over and make a decision Monday.