Good news that the state has provided more funds for monitoring the water quality of the Deerfield and Connecticut Rivers. A relatively easy way to lower the damaging nitrogen inputs that flow from these rivers to Long Island Sound, would be to discourage the use of lawn chemicals. Lawns are our biggest irrigated crop (over 50 million acres in the country.) Someone has to pay to try to remove the nitrogen that runs off from our lawns into the only water we will ever get. It is very expensive, costing some communities that use river water for drinking water to spend 26 times more.

Once the nitrogen reaches the ocean, like it does at the end of every river on earth, it destroys the habitat for fish nurseries and creates dead zones. Phosphorus run-off can also damage water quality in freshwater ponds, causing harmful algae overgrowth that makes these wetlands unusable. While you are improving water quality by just saying no to lawn chemicals, you will also be protecting your children, pets, and wildlife from their harmful effects. And you will be allowing your soil to be a natural repository of beneficial invertebrates and a sink for storing carbon. There are easy alternatives that home owners and landscaping professionals can use. Healthyyards.org has many useful suggestions.

Mary Metzger

Westfield

]]>