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A Cleveland Park resident has identified the latest pestilence he would like to see the D.C. Council confront: gasoline-powered leaf blowers. Bill Adler, who runs the neighborhood’s email list, is asking Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) to introduce a regulation banning the lawn care appliances because of the noise, wind and pollution they emit.

“Everyone is familiar with how unpleasant and disruptive leaf blower noise is,” Adler writes in the letter. He argues that gardeners using the devices to tend to their gardens makes it difficult for people working from home and unpleasant for people walking by. Adler also includes a litany of comments from his Cleveland Park neighbors about all the nuisances supposedly caused by leaf blowers. Here are a few highlights:

• “We moved into the city for its many amenities, but the distraction and pollution of gas-powered leaf blowers make residence near them anything but ideal.”
• “We enjoy our front porch and patio in the rear. But every Sunday during a late breakfast, the leaf blowers are out. Not a civilized way to live.”
• “I find the level of noise from leaf blowers to be hellacious!”
• “Ever get hit by an acorn in the face by one of those things? Not very fun. Lucky I didn’t lose an eye.”

There’s some truth to those claims. Gas-powered leaf blowers are hot and noisy. And it was probably a horrible experience for whoever got plunked by a flying acorn. But Adler isn’t just whining about the noise (and projectile acorns), he’s also making a health claim. Which, in the case of gas-powered leaf blowers, is quite valid.

Adler cites a December 2011 report by Edmunds that found that pound-for-pound, a standard gas-powered leaf blower emits 23 times as much carbon monoxide and 300 times as many non-methane hydrocarbons as a Ford pick-up truck.

That all sounds pretty nasty, but would an enforced switch tor electric leaf blowers be effective? They are far cleaner, but also far less powerful. And proposals to ban gas-powered blowers elsewhere have led to situations pitting neighborhood do-gooders against the lawn-care professionals they employ. That’s what happened in Orinda, Calif., a small town outside Oakland featured in an October 2010 story in The New Yorker. In that instance, residents tried to ban even the electric variety of leaf blowers, suggesting instead that the entire town go back to manicuring their lawns with rakes and brooms.

Just why is Adler’s letter targeting Cheh? He cites comments the councilmember made earlier this year on The Kojo Nnamdi Show about the bothersome qualities of gas-powered leaf blowers and her history as the shepherd of the tax on shopping bags.

Cheh has not, however, introduced any regulations about leaf blowers. Calls to her office went unreturned.