Messages: Your Lawn Care Impacts Health of Our Lakes

Here is this week’s edition of Lakeville Messages, which features a story about how we care for our lawn affects the quality of our lakes.

Here is the text of the story:

Lakeville residents value the beautiful lakes and wetlands of our City. That’s why we are reminding everyone that these amenities need your help to preserve their quality.

Your lawn care practices can have a huge impact on our lake water quality. The first thing you should know is that grass clippings = phosphorus.

Natural phosphorus is good for lawns. In fact, leaving grass clippings on your lawn provides the equivalent of one application of fertilizer per year. Grass clippings are free and this is an easy way to help keep fertilizer chemicals out of our waters.

Natural phosphorus is bad for lakes and ponds.

The same way phosphorus feeds lawns, it feeds algae in nearby waterbodies and causes nuisance algae growth. The water turns green and negatively impacts quality and clarity. According to City Environmental Resources Manager Mac Cafferty, there are two simple things you can do to help maintain our lake water quality:

These two steps can make a big difference in how much phosphorus gets into our lakes, streams, and wetlands.

Dispose of clippings properly. If you decide to bag your clippings rather than leaving them on your lawn, please dispose of them properly. It is against City ordinance to dump clippings, especially around lakes or ponds.

All waste haulers provide yard waste collection services, or you can find do-it-yourself composting instructions or compost site locations at www.lakevillemn.gov, under Environmental Resources, where you can also watch the new video about how storm sewers are connected to our ponds and lakes!