LOCAL ANGLES: WITH EPA RULES, SAY `BAA BAA' TO MOWERS

The EPA's out to get them -- those pollution-spewing, gasoline-powered lawn mowers that keep suburban life so neatly trimmed.

Last week, the mammoth federal agency set emission standards for lawn mowers and other gasoline-powered tools.

We're told that 5 percent of air pollution comes from the 89 million lawn mowers, garden tractors, chain saws and other gas-powered tools. More than 6 million tons of pollutants are churned out annually by this equipment.

According to the environmental watchdogs, one hour of operating a walk-behind mower is equivalent to the emissions generated by driving a new car for 11 1/2 hours.

Personally, I'd take the car. It's better going up hills and it's got plenty of room for the kids.

The EPA says the regulations will help assure that all Americans have clean, healthy air to breathe.

But most of my neighbors aren't worried about the air. They just don't want weeds in their yards.

EPA officials insist they aren't out to confiscate our grass-cutting equipment and that the regulations apply to new mowers. Still, federal regulations have a way of expanding over the years like tangled honeysuckle.

I get concerned when government bureaucrats start worrying about what's in my tool shed. Will we soon have to worry about weed-eater wardens or garden gumshoes?

Will those of us with rusty, old lawnmowers have to sneak around like thieves, mowing our grass in the cover of darkness to avoid the pollution police?

With all this talk of bad lawn mowers hitting the front pages of the nation's newspapers, I've been reluctant to get my mower out of the tool shed.

My mower's a red, discount-store-variety machine. Rust is beginning to eat away at it. But it still runs, the engine sputtering and belching like a bad go-cart as I push it across the sweet-gum-ball-laced grass.

But I'm not ready to part with it. It certainly won't make the EPA showroom of proper power tools, but it suits me just fine.

I have no desire to own some high-tech, gear-crazed mower that looks like something NASA would have designed.

After all, I don't want to go to the moon or cut down the Amazon jungle. I just want to give my yard a trim every couple of weeks.

The EPA has said that it may look into requiring catalytic converters, fuel-injection systems and even alternative fuels in the future.

It might be cheaper, however, just to use sheep. They not only cut the grass, they fertilize it.

The city of Cape Girardeau used sheep as grass cutters in Arena Park in the 1940s. The city didn't have to pay them wages and they could cut the grass even when it was raining. Of course, I doubt the sheep did any trimming -- and weeding was out of the question.

Digging in our newspaper files the other day, I found this entry from May 6, 1942: "Flock of sheep at Arena Park used as lawn mowers are being sheared."

It turned out that the wool from the 35 sheep netted more than $80. I wish my lawn mower could generate that kind of money.

At some point, however, the sheep were put out to pasture, displaced by mechanical mowers.

But with the EPA ready to shear the nation's lawn mowers, I may have to trade in my clanking grass cutter for one that goes baa.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.