+1 This ban is completely unscientific and myopic. In the US, gasoline powered lawn equipment accounts for around 0.3% of total CO2 emissions, less than 0.7% of total PM2.5 emissions and 4% of Total VOC emissions. Leaf blowers account for less than 10% of total emissions for gasoline powered lawn and garden equipment. Under the most optimistic assumptions this leaf blower ban will reduce emissions (in MOCO) of PM2.5 by 0.1%, and VOC emissions by 0.5%. THIS IS A VERY COSTLY POLICY, that provides basically no health benefits to county residents while burdening business owners. |
THIS!!!! |
That was probably the pragmatic thing to do. I think lots of people will be removing trees in the future when faced with the added costs of leaf clean up without gas blowers. It’s a matter of economics. If trees cost too much to keep around, people are going to remove them. |
Obviously you've never paid to have a tree removed. A mature oak tree in an urban or suburban environment will cost at a bare minimum $5,000 to remove and that's for the most straightforward, no-issues removal possible. If it needs a crane, god help you you're looking at $10K easy. You'd be cold and in the ground long before you ever make up the cost with an extra $100-$200 a year in leaf blowing. Not to mention if you're in DC (and maybe other jurisdictions but I don't know their laws) there's an additional approval and permitting process for trees over 44" circumference and trees over 100" are straight up banned from being removed with huge fines for felling heritage trees - $30,000 minimum for cutting down a 100" tree + $300 for every additional inch of circumference. |
The city will remove dead/dying trees free of charge. Just drill a few dozen deep holes into the trunk near the roots and fill it up with round up. It will die and the city will remove it for free. |
Stupid. Trees provide shade which lower our electric costs. There’s a reason MoCo will plant trees for free, that’s a good policy. You don’t HAVE to clean the leaves that fall, it’s mostly for aesthetics |
Don't give MoCo ideas. |
Trying to understand the logic here…you paid what, $8000 at least (probably more like $10000) to save maybe $200 - $300 a year on leaf clean up? Not to mention it probably brought down your house value as long as these trees weren’t in danger of falling on your house. |
Not on private property you moron. They will remove only city trees. |
Right…because I guess they don’t like making money…so sure, I get rid of all my Chevy Chase and Bethesda clients who don’t care about price (also DC has a gas ban too) and I am left with who exactly? All because I have to use an electric blower? Are you this stupid in real life? |
The ones in the tree box strip next to the sidewalk ARE city property, dummy. |
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The County is completely stupid. They have the nanny state part of democratic socialism down, but not the part of democratic socialism that builds and repairs infrastructure, builds bathrooms at parks instead of giving residents crappy port a potties to use, administers after school care at public schools instead of farming it out to price gouging companies.
Maybe clean up the constant litter in the medians and roads first before making laws about leaf blowers. Maybe cut the grass in parks more than once a month. This place is so backward. Its heyday was 20-30 years ago. Move to VA if you still have the chance. Arlington and Fairfax have liberal policies that actually help families and provide services, unlike MoCo, which provides no services and just makes laws about trivial BS like this. |
Wow, not only are you stupid to believe nobody is going to notice you intentionally killed the tree, you're also incredibly selfish for killing a perfectly healthy tree. What a losing combination you loser. |
You really are a moron...everyone was responding to PP who removed 4 oak trees from THEIR property. Not property owned by the local government. |
I don't know where you are getting your price information from but we had four large oak trees taken down and stumps removed for and everything hauled away for $7300. That's four oak trees 70 feet high. We use to pay $3,000 a year for leaf cleanups. Now we will pay nothing. |