The winters in New England are long and our lawns can take a beating with the weather. When the nice weather hits adding fertilizers to your lawn is appealing to many in order to achieve that lush green lawn we desire. Did you know that adding fertilizer to your lawn can affect our water quality? Even if you live far from a lake or river, your lawn and household maintenance can affect water quality. This is because everyone lives in a watershed!
What is a watershed? In short, a watershed is a precipitation collector. It is an area of land that drains all the streams and rainfall to a common outlet such as the outflow of a reservoir, mouth of a bay, or any point along a stream channel. It is also the land area where water soaks through the earth filling an underground water supply called an aquifer. Water is a universal solvent, affected by all that it comes in contact with: the land it passes over, and the soils through which it travels. The important thing about watersheds is: what we do on the land affects water quality for all communities living downstream.
Phosphorus is the nutrient that most influences the growth of algae in lakes. Research has found that just one pound of phosphorus can feed 300-500 pounds of algae in a water body.Found in lawn fertilizers, manure, as well as in human and other animal waste, phosphorus causes algal blooms and excessive aquatic plant growth when present in high concentrations. While most algae blooms are generally harmless to humans, decomposing algae and weeds take up oxygen in the water that is vital to fish and other animals.
