Tag: runoff

A man spreads fertilizer on a lawn, for an LCA post about proper lawn fertilization to avoid nutrient runoff.

Fertilize Lawns and Gardens Carefully To Avoid Nutrient Pollution

Spring is in full swing, and many of us are getting our lawns and gardens ready for the growing season. One springtime ritual, however, regularly leads to green, polluted waterways: over-fertilization of lawns and gardens. Plant fertilizers contain nitrogen and phosphorus, nutrients that are major sources of pollution in waterways. When too much fertilizer is…

A digital picture of a hand holding a tree whose roots are water and lead to a faucet dripping water, for an LCA post on Source Water Protection.

Join Us For Source Water Protection Week

Join us as we celebrate the American Water Works Association’s second Source Water Protection Week! The best way to ensure that we all have access to safe, high-quality drinking water at the tap is to “protect the source.” That means keeping our rivers, lakes and underground wells free from pollution — and it requires a concerted,…

Green up the garden, not the waterways – over-fertilization causes nutrient pollution

    With spring comes the greening of lawns and gardens — and, by extension, the greening of rivers, streams and other bodies of water. The first is a good thing. The second — well, that’s decidedly bad.  As we finally dust off the winter doldrums and head outside to start gardening, it’s easy to…

Polluted runoff has far-reaching consequences

Over the past few months, we’ve written about buffer zones and source water protection in an attempt to outline the importance of keeping our water supply clean. A recent study by the University of Georgia, however, drives home the fact that the effects of polluted water reach far beyond local watersheds. Researchers there found that…