Save Florida from Nitrogen Pollution

Sign ORI's Letter to encourage counties to reduce nitrogen pollution of waterways. Please provide your comments for why a ban on lawn fertilizing, a holiday when no nitrogen is needed on lawns, is good for Florida.

Tell Florida Governor to Stop the State Government from Stripping Local Governments of the Right to Regulate Fertilizer Application and Nitrogen Pollution

In response to a Martin County lawn fertilizer ordinance that bans the application of nitrogen and phosphorus from June 1 to September 30th, the Florida State Government now wants to have a lawn fertilizer “limited certification” program.  Certified applicators, after paying a nominal fee, will then be exempt from all county and municipality fertilizer regulations.  They will be permitted by the state to apply fertilizer to lawns when grass plants will not benefit, and when nitrogen stormwater runoff will do must damage to ecosystems and death to marine life.  

For the state politicians this bill is all about control and usurping responsible stewardship by local government.   They claim to be supporting jobs and are unaware that landscape contractors are delivering lush landscapes while at the same time reducing hundreds of tons of fertilizer application annual.  Landowners like taking a vacation from lawn fertilizing and seeing their lawns stay just as green.

House Bill HB421 and Senate Bill SB604 are moving through committees.  Join us in writing to the Governor to step up and put a stop to a bill that is bad and wastefulness in many ways. 

Sign onto ORI’s letter and please add a few words of your own as to why you care about a fertilizer bill.

Background

The Indian River Lagoon is a shallow estuary closed off from the Atlantic Ocean by barrier beaches.  Once a place with lots of white sands, seagrasses, and abundant wildlife, it has become over-saturated by harmful nutrient pollutants, with a black, mucky bottom, choked by algal blooms.

Dolphins are dying at alarmingly high annual rates. In 2008, 43 dolphins died in the Indian River Lagoon. In 2009, 48 dolphins died. Research has revealed that dolphin deaths are highest when chlorophyll and nitrogen levels are highest in the water. The EPA estimates that the Lagoon gets 475,000 pounds of phosphorus in a year.  This is twice the phosphorus load that the ecosystem can sustain.  Three million pounds of nitrogen per year comes off the land. This is 1 million pounds of nitrogen over the ecosystem’s sustainable threshold. Excessive nutrients create toxic algae blooms, ocean dead zones, fish die-offs, harms wildlife, and greatly threatens biodiversity, as well as lessening recreational beach and water experiences. Dolphins are getting sick, exhibiting skin-eating fungal infections, and they’re dying.  Their waters have become a toxic soup.  To save the dolphins, we must lessen the amount of nutrient pollution entering the Lagoon.

Martin County, one of the six Lagoon counties, has taken the lead in fighting this issue. In January, Rob Moir and Capt Nan Beaver met with the County Commissioners and delivered 10,000 ORI letters. Six months later Martin County passed a new fertilizer rule banning the application of phosphorus and nitrogen fertilizers on lawns from during the summer rainy months, June 1 to Sept 30, a time period when fertilizer does the least good for lawns and when the most dolphins die. 

The Martin County ordinance also requires setbacks from waterways, and at least 50% of the nitrogen must be slow release.  The more slow release nitrogen the more fertilizer stays in one’s lawn, and not into the Lagoon.  

Take Action: Sign ORI's letter. Tell County Commissioners of the other Indian River Lagoon counties why it’s important, for the love of the dolphins and seagrasses, to ban the excessive and unnecessary use of turf fertilizers.

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