Well, golllee — surprise, surprise surprise!

how much!!!???

Cost to convert entire Greenwich fleet to electric leaf blowers 'shellshocking,' officials say

GREENWICH — Town officials voted to enact a summertime ban on gas-powered leaf blowers earlier this year and now the bill is coming due.

The Departments of Public Works and Parks and Recreation have asked finance officials for $476,000 to buy new electric leaf blowers and upgrade facilities to store the new gear.

… DPW and Parks and Recreation leaders told the Board of Estimate and Taxation on Dec. 10 that the $476,000 is basically the bare minimum they need to go electric and comply with the legislation.

“We're not over-asking,” Parks and Recreation director Joe Siciliano said. “We're just asking for what we think we need based on our work capacity and also the amount of acreage, which in Parks — it's over 2,000 acres.”

The total would allow the two departments to convert half of their respective blower fleets to electric, Deputy Commissioner of Public Works Jim Michel said.

"If we were to truly do this for the whole fleet, full power and so forth, we'd probably be looking at all new (electric) services, basically from the (utility) poles out on the street," he said. “Which would have been a significantly higher number than you even have in front of you today, which we knew was going to shellshock (the BET) because it was shellshocking us.” 

Parks and Recreation wants to buy 21 Stihl backpack leaf blowers, dozens of accompanying batteries, handheld leaf blowers and 21 portable power stations to charge up in the field. DPW is requesting the same equipment in smaller quantities.

The bulk of the cost, Siciliano said, comes from the batteries. The Parks Department asked for 21 primary backpack batteries which cost $1,529 each, according to BET documents, and each of the 42 backup batteries cost $1,299.

The departments have also asked for money to upgrade electrical panels in storage sheds so they can handle the excess power demands as well as money to buy specialized cabinets to hold the batteries. The cabinets are designed to stop the spread of fire if a battery fails and combusts.

Each battery lasts about two hours, officials said, but that can vary depending on how vigorously the batteries are being used. A light job may extend battery life past two hours, but intense blowing will drain the charge quicker.

Given that capacity, officials are working off the assumption that a blower will start a work day with two full batteries and one filling up on a mobile charger. As batteries are drained, they will go on the charger — and even then crews may run out of juice.

“I do think that the three (batteries) are gonna get us through the day, just barely, in most of our jobs,” Daniel Carlsen, assistant director of parks and recreation, said.

Those of you who employ private yard services can expect to add similar costs to your own bill, as well as joining your fellow tax payers in paying for this particular harebrained scheme. Did no one really not price this out before whooping it through the legislative process? Of course not; government by good intentions doesn’t work that way.