Thought some of you might be interested in this. And it's free!

EPA Webcast on Restricting Lawn Fertilizers
Register for an EPA Watershed Academy Webcast on "State and Local Policies to Restrict the Use of Lawn Fertilizers" on September 21, 2011 Join the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for a free Watershed Academy webcast titled “Nitrogen and Phosphorus Pollution Series: State and Local Policies to Restrict the Use of Lawn Fertilizers" on Wednesday, September 21, 2011 at 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm Eastern. Fertilizers, leaves, grass clippings, animal waste, and eroded soil are all sources of phosphorus and nitrogen. When they are swept or washed into the street or nearest storm drain, they end up in your local lake or river where they can cause algal blooms and other water quality problems. This webcast will highlight legislation passed by Minnesota, Michigan and the Chesapeake Bay states to restrict the use of lawn fertilizers, and will share key lessons learned. This webcast is one in a series on the important issue of nutrient pollution. Use following link to register:

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It's a big deal... I lived in a place that had problems with algae blooms caused by too much nutrients ending up in the watersheds.... The other thing it caused was huge growth of aquatic weeds - which then clogged up all the canals and waterways....

Now - I would be interested to see how much of it actually comes out of Lawns vs how much of it comes from building projects, uncovered soil, Live stock, improperly maintained septic systems, and agricultural processing... The trouble is that sometimes, we want to make people feel like they are doing something to stem the tide... when the real, substantial actions aren't nearly as obvious or as easy for the general public to take part in...

There was a similar project here locally to reduce Fecal coli-form contamination of the local creeks... Everyone was blaming the local wastewater processing station that discharged into a creek... and there was also a big push to control litter to help reduce it..... The university did a detailed study and found that less than 1% came from the wastewater processing station and litter.... 95% came from Livestock watering in the creeks or livestock waste washing downhill into the creeks and old improperly maintained septic systems overflowing into the creeks.... This lead to very specific projects aimed at getting live stock out of the creeks, Repairing, capping, or destroying old septic systems, and planting out large green spaces between the livestock areas and the creeks to soak up the waste...

I think in this case - the people would be best to challenge the EPA or relevant authority to provide actual peer-reviewed, measured data showing what the % contribution was coming from different sources - then take specific action based on that....

John_in_SC wrote:I think in this case - the people would be best to challenge the EPA or relevant authority to provide actual peer-reviewed, measured data showing what the % contribution was coming from different sources - then take specific action based on that....

+1M ... I think actual scientific data is often frowned upon by "relevant authorities" because it's detrimental to acheiving their goals ...