Excess fertilizer from both agricultural and residential lawns prompt fish kills. This can be prevented by installing and managing vegetative buffers around farm fields, blowing excess fertilizer from sidewalk and street into the lawn, preventing it from getting into the storm water system in roadway.
Excess fertilizer and nutrients in our waterways create algae blooms in our streams, rivers, lakes and ocean which removes the oxygen from the water causing fish kills when the fish swim through water without oxygen.
9 out of 10 farms do not observe the best management practices that protect the integrity of our ecosystem. Not managing livestock waste (pee and poo from cows, chickens, and pigs) properly can cause fish kills.
Solution:
Collection - Create concrete corals for waste collection
Reuse - through manure injection (also horse drawn injectors are available)
Storage - (with electric generated from digestors capturing methane generated from livestock waste.)
Every farm with a stream through it has regularly has excess fertilizer due to insufficient vegetative buffers between field and waterway absorbing the excess fertilizer in storm water runoff.
Live stock in streams also undermine the integrity of our streams in multiple ways.
Livestock will change the landscape around streams removing vegetation undermining erosion prevention, and algea bloom prevention the problem created by excess fertilizer and nutrients removed by those vegetative buffers.
Algae blooms take all the oxygen out of the water and the fish suffocate causing fish kills.
Problem:
When using a seed spreader / fertilizer spreader, it is easy to get excess on the sidewalk or street.
Fertilizer applied by your landscaper should all be on the lawn and not on your sidewalk, driveway, and street.
Unabsorbed fertilizer on sidewalks and blacktop end up in storm water systems that go directly into a stream then lake, river, or ocean causing algae blooms due to excess nutrients in the waterway.
Landscapers, lawn care services, licensed applicators of herbicide, insecticide, and fertilizer should always be mindful of applying chemicals near pavement. Fertilizer should not be laying directly on pavement.
Solution:
Blow excess fertilizer from sidewalk onto lawn.
If fertilizer is left directly on your sidewalk the excess should be blown into the lawn allowing it to be absorbed into the lawn when it rains.
Using an MOU - to have Land Grant College research, guide reduction of Excess Nutrients by coordinating, communicating known problematic environmental impacts caused by private lawn care companies' practices on commercial and residential properties.
Learn more about this MOU collaboration with Commercial Lawn Care companies to lessen excess nutrients: https://www.chesapeakebay.net/what/publications/memorandum-of-understanding-among-chesapeake-executive-council-headwater-st
Many golf courses have streams going through them.
Each stream is part of a greater watershed.
Stewarding our waterways' consists of:
Cooling the water
Preventing excess fertilizer, herbicide, or other turf treatments from entering our waterways
Insulate our streams (Cool and also keep warm during the winter)
Shading streams that could support trout. Tree shade over streams in our golf courses can help the integrity of the over all watershed, ecosystem, and wildlife
Waterway Management - Cool Creeks with trees for trout
Preventing excess fertilizer, herbicide, or other turf treatments from entering our waterways
Both vegetation buffers around waterways to absorb excess fertilizer and tree shade to lessen the water temperature help our native fish and macro invertebrates survive.
The CBS news report on July 30 2024 titled Poor water quality, warmer temperatures causes massive fish kill along Little Egg Harbor lagoon reported that this mass fish kill happened due to water temperature and water qaulity.
CBS also reported that this occurred 2 other times in the recent past both 2 weeks ago and last year in this area.