Bay Friendly Yards Blog
Speak For Your Bays: Contact Your State Senators
Tell your State Senator that you support S-8170, which would reduce the nitrogen content in lawn fertilizers, and give our bays a break.
Contact Kemp Hannon. Tell Him You Support S-8170 “The Fertilizer Fix”
As many of you know, a law has been proposed in Albany that would mandate that lawn fertilizer contain no more than 12% nitrogen in the bag, and at least 50% non-soluble (slow release) nitrogen. With at least 10% of the nitrogen in the bay coming from lawn...
Support “The Fertilizer Fix” and Help Our Bays!
Kudos to Grassroots Environmental Education, our partner in the I Love Long Island Campaign for 'bay friendly yards'! Thanks to them and to Assemblyman Steve Englebright, Chair, Committee on Environmental Conservation and Kemp Hannon,Senate Health Committee Chair,...
Have a Bay Friendly Yard
Hiring a landscaper for 2018? Make sure they are being ‘green’ about it. Ask them to use a mulching mower so that the grass clippings can feed your lawn. That is the best food your lawn can have. Why have the clippings dumped in a landfill so that you have to throw expensive chemical fertilizers on it?
If you have pets or children, love nature and respect your neighbors, avoid pesticides. If you kill the bugs, you kill the soil. There will be fewer birds, amphibians. Pesticides also have a way of ending up in our drinking water and our bays, rivers and ponds. We are seeing a global collapse of insects, including the pollinators. Let’s stop with the Roundup. There are natural ways of dealing with insects. Dragon flies, bats, and birds like Purple Martins are all voracious mosquito eaters. Take this route over Mosquito Squad. Your grandchildren will thank you.
LINAP: Is Long Island At a Turning Point?
Long Island is about to replace its cesspools and septic tanks. Nassau County has 140,000, Suffolk 360,000. Suffolk intends to launch a pilot program that will deploy 400 units over the next two years. Albany is chipping in with $2 billion to address the issue at scale. Yet more will be needed, but everyone, seeing the problem, is stepping up. At the same time that we do this, we need to stop polluting our waters with lawn fertilizer and pesticides.
Girl Scout Troop #217 Asks You To Take The Organic Lawn Pledge Today!
Girl Scout Troop #217 (Bayport – Blue Point) is challenging their community to go green, to move away from pesticides and high nitrogen fertilizers, and make The Organic Lawn Pledge
Lets Have a REAL Ban on High Nitrogen Lawn Fertilizers in Suffolk County!
Organic Lawn care is crucial to protecting our drinking water, our groundwater, rivers, ponds and streams. Excess nitrogen is killing all our bays and contaminating our drinking water. Let’s not be spreading it on our lawns.
Beautiful Native Yards Are Good For Your Local Waters
Save The Great South Bay will help your community go organic and with that help your local waters
So, What Communities on Long Island Are Going to Join the Organic Lawn Movement?
What is the water quality of your local pond, stream, or bay? How much are we contributing to water quality problems through what we put on our lawns? How can you make a difference in local conditions?
Support The Moratorium
Sayville is the first village on The South Shore calling for a moratorium on pesticides and fertilizer. It will not be the last.
Local Moratorium On Pesticides and Fertilizers Continues To Build
A number of local businesses in Sayville are joining the effort to launch a moratorium on lawn fertilizer and pesticides in order to bring back The Great South Bay.
Mapping a Sustainable Long Island
Our latest web based map showing where to wine and dine sustainably and organically on Long Island.
The Long Island Clean Water Partnership – A Roster
The mission of the partnership is to build awareness among Long Islanders as to the threats to our drinking water, our bays, rivers and ponds so that we can address these threats. The largest threat our water faces on Long Island is the nitrogen pollution in our groundwater from 500,000 septic tanks. It sparks the algal blooms that are killing off all our waters. Then there are also high nitrogen fertilizers, polluted storm runoff, pesticides. Each of these 100+ organizations, and the individuals here listed are dedicated to addressing our groundwater pollution problems before it is too late, and our lakes rivers, ponds and bays are lifeless and our drinking water compromised.
When It Comes To Long Island’s Ground Water Pollution Problem, The Facts Are Now Speaking For Themselves
Ever since the release of The Comprehensive Water Resources Management Plan, January 23, 2014, County Executive Steve Bellone has been on a mission to focus attention on the need to address our septic tank and water quality issues. He kicked off matters with a 9500 person conference call on water quality in. He has since then called for funding and for extending sewer districts. Most recently, Suffolk County won an IBM Smarter Cities Award, which will be used to study how best to address the septic tank issue in the county. Bellone worked with Senator Gillibrand to advocate for this. We are thankful to both for working on behalf of Long Island.
Long Island’s Ground Water Pollution Problem — How Nitrogenous Waste From Septic Tanks, Fertilizers, and Poorly Treated Water Is Sparking Potent Algae Blooms in Our Bays And Choking Off Life
A global expert on algal blooms and nitrogenous waste, Prof. Gobler has been tireless in getting his message out to all Long Islanders and to the country — we have a very serious problem with polluted ground water, and it is triggering algal blooms — brown tide, rust tide, red tide, blue-green algae — and wiping out marine and fresh water habitats. As a part of The Long Island Clean Water Partnership (please sign up and help out!), a group of some 125+ organizations seeking to build a sustainable Long Island, SCERP (The Stony Brook Coastal and Estuarine Research Project) is contributing some of the basic scientific research that is helping us to identify our water problems and to develop the solutions.