||| FROM THE COLORADO SUN ||| Reprint at request of Orcasonian reader


Standing on a leaf-strewn lawn at Sloan’s Lake Park early on a sunny December day, Jordan Champalou says cutting ozone by switching to cleaner engines is as easy as pressing a button. 

And then he presses the button.

One of the battery-powered leaf blowers he employs in his lawn care business hums immediately to life. The array of lawn tools, from mowers to chain saws, spread in front of Champalou are just as powerful on batteries as any gas-powered equipment his competitors use, he says. None of the tools’ motors need any maintenance beyond recharging. 

Speaking of recharging, he adds, when he’s on the road doing lawns all day, he pops the batteries into chargers that are connected to solar panels. Solar panels that he’s taped to the roof of his pickup truck. 

“I still have power at the end of the day,” grins Champalou, who says people stop him every day to talk about electric lawn tools and how they stack up against dirtier gas-powered models. “It’s never run dry.” 

Environmental advocates were happy to stand quietly in the Sloan Lake sunshine and let flannel-bedecked Champalou make their best arguments. The clean electric lawn display is part of an environmental sprint before Dec. 13 to get the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission to reject state air pollution officials’ ozone-fighting plan and write a tougher one. 

Champalou, 21, who maintains lawns around Westminster, said he first went electric at age 10 when he knocked on neighbors’ doors trying to make a buck. 

Solar panels mounted atop Jordan Champalou’s pickup truck roof keep his battery powered lawn tools charged in between business stops. Champalou and others are advocating a switch to clean-powered electric tools to help solve Colorado’s ozone problem, and he demonstrated various tools at Sloan’s Lake Park on Dec. 1, 2022. (Michael Booth, The Colorado Sun)

“I did not want to smell like gasoline, and I did not want to be breathing those fumes,” he said. He’s adamant that much of the blue collar machine world can switch over to clean running electric tools with no compromise on performance. 

READ FULL ARTICLE


 

**If you are reading theOrcasonian for free, thank your fellow islanders. If you would like to support theOrcasonian CLICK HERE to set your modestly-priced, voluntary subscription. Otherwise, no worries; we’re happy to share with you.**