Leaf blowers: perfect delivery systems for airborne pathogens

Good reasons to ban “leaf blowing” machines keep piling up in my head. Swine-bird flu in the news this week sensitizes everyone to air-borne pathogens. Austin residents stay constantly aware of air-borne allergens – pollen, mold, dust mite excrement, what have you. Some yeas ago, hantavirus outbreaks sensitized Americans of the semi-arid Southwest to the dangers of inhaling dust that contains traces of mouse feces. Many got sick; several people died. People with compromised immune systems (AIDS) find out about the dangers of toxoplasmosis (transmitted via cat feces) in the most gruesome ways. Thanks to a population of feral cats in the city, landscape dust contains this pathogen.

All sorts of potential disease vectors reside in soil and dust. Indeed, soil could not provide all the benefits to life if it did not contain a multitude of things that we should not inhale. That said, it seems insane to intentionally stir them up and blow them around where we can breathe them in.

Takoma Park, Maryland, as recently as January 2009, began discussing a ban. “Takoma Park residents presented a letter to Mayor Williams requesting … ‘city action to phase out the use of gasoline-powered leaf blowers in Takoma Park.’ The letter states that harmful emissions, energy inefficiency, and noise results from the use of the leaf blowers.” Council work session documentation enumerates municipalities that have already enacted bans on “leaf blowers:” Berkeley and Palo Alto in California; Township of Montclair, New Jersey; and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“Leaf blowers,” or as I prefer to call them – dust cannons, when new and operating according to manufacturer’s specifications emit ear splitting noise, noxious pollution, and dust that we would never tolerate from any motorized vehicle on our city streets. Inefficient, unsophisticated motors that power the dust blowing machines, in addition to disseminating biological agents of disease, contribute to our ground-level ozone pollution problem.

Blowers emit copious quantities of unburned hydrocarbons (aka: volatile organic compounds or “VOCs”). When VOCs meet other combustion by-products (e.g.: NOx, SOx) in the presence of sunlight, they produce photochemical smog. Smog contains a large component of ozone. This form of oxygen, when suspended in the stratosphere, protects us from damaging ultraviolet light. However, near the ground, ozone causes serious lung damage when inhaled. Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety gives an alarming summary of the health threats.

Ozone pollution in the air we breathe seems a particularly dangerous companion to airborne toxins and pathogens contained in dust. Even in small quantities, inhaled ozone increases our bodies’ adverse reactions to everything else in the air. Leaf blowers seem perfectly designed to deliver allergens and pathogens to our respiratory systems – in the most irritating and destructive manner possible.
When someone becomes contagious with the flu, we admonish them to stay home so as to avoid transmitting the disease by sneezing or coughing germs into the air that we all breathe. Why in the world do we allow people to intentionally use power tools to blast dust into the air and emit chemicals that make our lungs even more vulnerable to the pathogens residing in the dust? Landscape blowers represent a clear and present danger. We must ban them for the sake of public health and safety.

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Big retail versus big real estate and a choice between decay or renaissance

One more time, the Austin American-Statesman reported yet another casualty of the post peak oil crisis without recognizing it as such. Nor did the Statesman or the parties involved recognize the opportunities for urban renaissance inherent in the local manifestation of the global economic crisis.

Suburban shopping mall developers finally receive their comeuppance. Simon Property Group, Inc., a principal owner-operator of Highland Mall in Austin, Texas, finds itself the subject of a lawsuit brought by a major tenant (Dillard’s Department Store) distressed by the decay ensuing around it. Simon trades on the S&P 500 as “the largest public U.S. real estate company,” (according to its web site http://www.simon.com/About_Simon/ ). Simon presides over interests in 386 properties comprising 263 million square feet of gross leasable area (GLA) in North America, Europe, and Asia from its headquarters in Indianapolis.

Simon owns 33 properties in Texas and six in Austin. The 13 properties within 100 miles of Austin include: Arboretum at Great Hills, Barton Creek Square, Gateway Shopping Center, Highland Mall, The Domain, The Shops at Arbor Walk, Lakeline Plaza, Lakeline Mall, Round Rock Premium Outlets, Wolf Ranch Town Center, Rolling Oaks Mall, Ingram Plaza, and Ingram Park Mall.

Simon describes itself as “a fully integrated real estate company.” What Simon says might make sense to a shopping center developer with an MBA, referring to “vertically integrated management structure.” However, it rings hollow to an urban planner who looks at land use and community zoning. Simon properties rarely ever contain any other land use besides retail. Practically no customer can walk there from their home or office. Good luck arriving by bus.

In the U.S., Simon’s 246 million square feet (GLA) earned tenants an estimated $62 billion in total retail sales in 2008. Regional malls (like Austin’s enclosed Highland Mall) together represent 64.5% of Simon’s U.S. portfolio, as of 12/31/08. Although Simon claimed a lease occupancy rate of 92.4% for its U.S. properties, a lawsuit brought by Dillard’s department store complains that Highland Mall suffers from a roughly 50% vacancy rate. Simon owns only 50% of Highland, which officially enjoys an occupancy rate of 60.5%, according to its own reporting. Simon owns 100% of Barton Creek Square (97.7% occupied) and 100% of Round Rock Premium Outlets (100% occupied). Dillard’s alleges, in court documents (Dillard Texas, LLC and The Higbee Company v. Highland Mall limited partnership, U.S. District Court, Austin, 3/27/09) that the mall partnership’s neglect of the property brought about deterioration and loss of tenants in the property. Clearly, neither party acknowledges the global situations affecting them both.

Court documents outline a saga of successive ownerships, changes of store names, and economic transitions. The mall, built in the late 1960’s, opened in the early 1970’s; at the height of U.S. oil production and price hegemony – the “oil peak.” Cheap gasoline at that time enabled nation-wide aggressive suburban sprawl. Hardly anyone cared how much gasoline they consumed driving all over the urban area. Big department stores like Scarbrough (one of Dillard’s predecessors) moved out of downtown Austin to cater to suburban subdivision dwellers.

The concrete and paint had hardly dried on Highland Mall when petroleum production in the United States began to decline and imports began to increase. Gasoline prices rose accordingly. The Arab Oil Embargo occurred in 1973-74 and Americans suddenly became aware of our vulnerability to energy shocks resulting from foreign manipulation of the market. We had long since become inured to domestic market manipulation.

Since 1974, a major recession, an oil glut, plummeting investment in energy development, resurgent energy demand, an historic price spike, another major economic recession, and epidemic denial have left the U.S. no better prepared to cope with an energy transition than we found ourselves in 1974. The economic system that created isolated single-use urban zones called “shopping malls” assumes and requires cheap motor fuels and widespread automobile ownership, to say nothing of a transportation system that focuses on moving cars rather than facilitating mobility choices for people.

Highland and other malls could salvage their future and that of their surrounding communities if they transform themselves through transit-oriented development (TOD). Highland could even capitalize on its proximity to the new CAPMETRO commuter rail line just across Airport Boulevard.

The owners and managers of Austin’s Highland Mall do not need to reinvent reinvention. Chattanooga, Tennessee already provides an excellent example of how to do it. Congress for the New Urbanism featured the redevelopment of Chattanooga’s Eastgate Mall. Redevelopment began in 1997 with a nearly empty shopping center. A visionary group reintegrated the retail-only zone into the urban street grid. The shopping center no longer faces inward to private space but outward to public space. By 2001, occupancy rate returned to 90%.

We must all recognize that we cannot return to business as it existed prior to 1970. Prosperity will not return if we expect to power our economy on cheap fossil fuels. We must adapt our existing urban areas to cope with the new energy and economic realities. The Galleria in Houston offers a near example of the direction we might want to go. It provides almost all the pieces for mixed-use development except for the rail transportation link and mixed-income housing options. The Galleria contains shopping, office space, hotels, residential properties, and a variety of services catering to local and international clientele. The Galleria might yet succumb to its own success. The traffic around the Galleria remains virtually gridlocked for hours practically every day. Adding light rail lines to connect the Galleria to other urban villages and activity centers around the metropolitan area would help mitigate traffic problems and ensure mobility for merchants and customers.

Although Austin and Houston lack the population density of European cities that use efficient electric mass transit, both cities would redevelop themselves and cluster population and activity around transit nodes as they came on line. This has already begun in Dallas with the DART Rail system. Examples abound of ways to cope with the unfolding crisis. We need only adjust the way we view the world around us.

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Gas hogs – no! Trains – yes! Make real revolution with GM bailout

General Motors wants a bailout from American tax payers. After losing 53% in sales over the past year, GM obviously needs to reconsider its product line. We all need to consider today’s $2/gallon gasoline a very temporary situation. It will rise again.

Tom Whipple (“The Peak Oil Crisis: Seize the Moment,” Falls Church News-Press, Energy Bulletin, 4/2/09) recommends one strategy for GM’s bailout by the federal government. Among President Obama’s stipulations for the big automobile manufacturer, Whipple wants a requirement for very high-mileage cars. Whipple wants to see 100mpg cars getting ready for the post-petroleum era. I want to see more alternatives to cars.

I partially agree with Whipple. The U.S. government should not subsidize GM while it continues to produce low-mileage gasoline and diesel cars and trucks. In my opinion, GM should cut back on cars or stop altogether, at least for a while.

Instead of manufacturing personal cars and trucks, GM should build electric locomotives and other rail rolling stock. The U.S. government should take a hint from the Chinese. They have chosen to invest in infrastructure that reduces automobile dependence. According to Keith Bradsher (“China’s Route Forward,”NY Times, 1/22/09), “A $17.6 billion passenger rail line across the deserts of northwest China, a $22 billion web of freight rail lines in Shanxi province in north-central China and a $24 billion high-speed passenger rail line from Beijing to Guangzhou here in southeastern China are among the biggest projects. But extra spending is being planned in practically every town, city and county across the country.”

Rebuilding, restoring, and expanding the American network of electric trains would give GM something socially redeeming to do for the nation and the planet. At the same time, GM could build wind turbines, tidal turbines, and geothermal turbines to generate the electricity necessary to power the expanded rail network – without increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

The U.S. economic stimulus packages of 2009 would indeed waste precious national resources if we try to use them to do more of what we did to get us into this predicament. Fossil fuel consumption and prices act like a ratchet in this economic recession. Oil prices go up, consumption goes down, energy prices and profits go down, energy investment goes down, consumption goes up, supply goes down, prices go up… the cycle repeats itself again and again.

The future of this nation depends on finding ways to maintain mobility and access to transportation without burning fossil fuels. Electric trains move a lot of passengers and cargo in other countries; they can do it here as well.

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