Ideally, homeowners have natural landscaping surrounding their lake home. However, for those of you who maintain a groomed lawn, here is an important message from WI Association of Lakes:
“Using phosphorus free lawn fertilizer is an easy way everyone can contribute to better water quality—regardless of where they live. It’s community service for our lakes,” says Earl Cook, Wisconsin Association of Lakes President.
Why worry about phosphorus? Nutrients like phosphorus—a common ingredient in lawn fertilizer—are degrading 90% of Wisconsin’s inland lakes. Lakes can be extremely sensitive to even small amounts of phosphorus runoff.
Phosphorus is the fuel that transforms clear lakes into an algae laden, smelly green soup. Algae can make lakes unswimable, suffocate game fish, and choke out good plants. High phosphorus levels can also create conditions where nutrient-loving invasive species—like Eurasian watermilfoil and carp—can thrive.
Why worry about lawn fertilizer? Excess phosphorus from lawns washes directly into our lakes and streams. Recent data estimates average phosphorus levels in residential Wisconsin lawns have double the phosphorus (105 ppm) of the average farm field; that’s 5 times more phosphorus a healthy lawn needs.
Plants don’t absorb more phosphorus than they can use. When the soil is saturated with too much Phosphorus, it starts bleeding out, toward streams and lakes.
Lawn fertilizer is not the only source of nutrients in our lakes, but preventing unnecessary phosphorus from being applied can make a significant difference for some lakes, and is one needed step towards halting the avalanche of nutrients that are polluting our lakes.
Click on the link below for more info from the
Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection: