Local non-profits and community organizations have recently launched the “I Love Long Island” Water Conservation Initiative, a campaign whose mission is to protect ground and surface water on Long Island. The initiative aims to bring awareness to the dangers of lawn pollutants by seeking to restrain the usage of pesticides and high nitrogen fertilizers, and encouraging the community to change these habits. By taking action, the “I Love Long Island” community hopes to resolve the negative impact the pollutants have taken on the quality of the water supply.
“Anything we put into our lawn, whether it’s pesticides or lawn pollutants, gets absorbed into the ground and can go into our drinking water or our creeks and ponds,” Marshall Brown, President of Save the Great South Bay, said.
The campaign has encouraged many Long Island occupants to participate by signing a pledge on ilovelongisland.org where supporters can pledge against the purchase and use of pesticides on their property. The website offers information on local landscapers who can offer natural lawn care services as well as advice on how to harmlessly tend to your lawn.
Doug Wood, founder of Grassroots Environmental Education, said “It’s ironic that even though our community knows we have a serious nitrogen problem, they still go to the stores in the spring and buy bulks of high nitrogen fertilizers.”
Wood explained that he feels this is a serious topic that legislation should be taking into their own hands. “But since no action has been made here, it’s time for the people of Long Island to make change. Anybody who has a lawn here can be part of the solution, rather than the problem.”
The call for change isn’t solely directed toward homeowners of Long Island. This call for action is also directed toward students to make change by raising awareness via social media and by participating on campus to make sure that environment-friendly fertilizer is used in place of high nitrogen fertilizers.
On campus, the Sustainability Club also works to keep Hofstra pollutant-free from high-nitrogen fertilizers. They do so by tending to an organic garden on campus where no pesticides or high-nitrogen fertilizers are used. “The measures we take in order to act against the use of nitrogen fertilizers as a Sustainability Club are to try and get these facts out to the Hofstra Community for people to know and understand,” Vice President of the Sustainability Club Amit Nath a junior sustainability studies major said. “Once people become more aware of the dangers of nitrogen, they would act to stop the pollution of nitrogen. The use of high nitrogen fertilizer effects our water quality greatly.”
