05/15/2020
Clean Water Is Important to Us All.
By Asia Scudder, MLS May 15, 2020.
I was heartboken to read on Mark Ruffalo's live event yesterday the number of comments relating issues with waterways that are polluted with PFOA's! (see link below).
I could not believe the high number of comments from people - from all around the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Waters_(2019_film)
It reminded me that we hold the reins for our future environmental health in our hands. The quality of the water we bathe in, cook with and drink - its up to us. Sobering isn't it? The details are unfathomable. It was that event and having this platform that inspired me to begin writing again about this serious matter of "What's in Your Water?"
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Part I: Commentary on Lawn Fertilizer.
If I could have a capstone project in my career as landscape designer, synthetic lawn fertilzer applications would be one of my top three concerns. (Caveate: It IS possible to have a green golf course-like lawn with only organic fertilzers - I can teach you how to do that. If you would like to know more or would like to host a live event please contact me directly).
When inorganic (or synthetic) fertilizers are appied to your lawn or garden, please remember first off, that you're not just fertilizing 'your' lawn. That is, after you apply fertilizer to your lawn, you likely water it into the soil, or if it rains it might allow the fertilizer to soak deeper into the soil. Depending on rate of application and other factors such as the porous nature of your soil - some of what was applied gets washed away as excess.
Any run-off from your yard flows downhill - along the watershed (or into street entering a storm drain) where it next washes directly into surrounding lakes, rivers, and streams. It is the concentration of inorganic, nitrogen-based fertilzers that causes algae growth - which then needs further cost in treatment. Nationwide, over 60% of water pollution comes from fertilizers from lawns, farms and gardens ,+ golf courses. (Added to that are cars leaking oil, and failing septic tanks). All of these sources add up over timeand are controllable in our own backyards!
From an economic/ industry perspective there is a growing global market trend for organic fertilizers that include blood meal, fish meal, maure, greensand, granite meal and others. When added to your soil as a top treatment they feed a host of small organisms such as earth worms that break down organic matter into a rich, byproduct- healthy, living soil. Full of nutrients, this soil feeds the food we eat, enriching it with nutrients that are the building blocks to better health and balance.
Organic fertilizers can be applied to either small scale yards and gardens or at a macro scale on industrial farms, golf courses or open recreational spaces. Imagine the cost benefits, the reduced health risk and the benefit to soils, animals and our wellbeing. In fact, in contrast to inorganic fertilizers which destroy soil health via compaction and depletion inorganic fertilizers also lead to a dangerous dependency on the addition of three main ingredients: nitrogen, potassium, phoshate. Also a petroleum-based product, synthetic fertilizers are booming in the marketplace.
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The psa reminder today is that we are the future predictors of the health of our waterways.
What we distribute on our lawns and gardens ends up in our precious resource - the surrounding watershed.
The management of these areas influences our health and the environment as well as the food we eat and potentially the water we drink.
Please know and remember that what we eat, ingest and toss away is reflected in the waterways as well.
This is made clear with CFO's in our own Merrimack River. More on that in my next segment.
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*The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection *The Washington State Quality Consortium.
**Economics by IndustryARC, the fertilizers market is estimated to reach $151.8 Billion by 2020
Dark Waters is a 2019 American legal thriller film directed by Todd Haynes and written by Mario Correa and Matthew Michael Carnahan. The story dramatizes Robert Bilott's case against the chemical manufacturing corporation DuPont after they contaminated a town with unregulated chemicals. It stars Mar...
