The last post I wrote was about the affect of industrial pollutants like
PCBs and mercury on the waterways in the Great Lakes area. Shortly after I wrote the post I heard about the
Riverwatch group in Indiana. This is a group of volunteers who are trained in how to monitor streams and rivers in Indiana watersheds. Because this subject was on my mind already I signed up to attend training at
Gibson Woods in Hammond, IN on April 30
th. (A lovely park I never knew about. I urge people to go. The pond is beautiful.)
A stream may seem like something small when thinking about what’s going on with Lake Michigan but those streams are important. Understanding what a watershed is, exactly, helps us understand that what we do impacts more than just our immediate location. A watershed is ALL the land, above and below the surface, where water that runs off/out of it ends up at one point. We all live in a watershed. You’
ve probably seen the signs along highways saying that such and such and area is part of a watershed. What that means is that whatever we put onto the ground in that area or into the water ends up in our larger bodies of water, including Lake Michigan. When we hear about a body of water that’s polluted we tend to think of industry or perhaps farms causing that pollution but we need to remember that we contribute as well. In fact pollution directly from something such as a factory discharging into water is only 25% of the pollution (point source pollution). The remaining 75% is from the land use in a watershed.
How do we contribute? One way is what we put on our lawns or gardens. Nitrogen and phosphorous are ingredients in chemical fertilizers. They are also something that the
Riverwatch group tests for in waterways. Just like these chemicals promote the growth of plants and grasses, they increase the growth of algae in water. This algae grows too fast, causing plant death. As the plants die and decompose, the oxygen in the water
decreases and fish can die.
(One extreme example is the dead zone in the
Gulf of Mexico)
The picture at the right from
NOAA shows this area and it's dissolved
oxygen (DO) level (something else
Riverwatch tests). For aquatic life to be happy the DO needs to be at least 5 ppm. On the picture that doesn't start until the lightest shade of green.
People can help to reduce their impact on the water in their area by avoiding chemical fertilizers. If possible, using native plants in your yard is a good idea. Check out
Clear Choices Clean Water for details on ways to do this. To find environmentally friendly lawn care products, I recommend
Clean Air Gardening.
Some of the other sources of phosphorous include manure from farm field run off or human waste from failing septic tanks or from municipal treatment discharge. A further source of phosphorous is detergents, so much so that many states are enacting bans on phosphates in detergents. This is good for the environment but many people complain their dishes aren't as clean. I've found that a product called
Lemi Shine works WONDERS for cleaning dishes and removing hard water stains.
As far as nitrogen, the ways to reduce phosphorous help but the main source of nitrates in Indiana water is sewage. Unfortunately the only way to reduce that source is infrastructure investment and
improvements, something I am not going to address at this time but if you want to understand some of the issues with it check out the movie "
The Crumbling of America" from the History Channel. I don't see it on
Netflix but it still comes on the History Channel occasionally.
I hope this post gives you some things to think about. Remember, no matter what size, we all have an impact on the environment and every little bit we can do to lessen that helps.
which worked GREAT. I bought the staking system for my tomatoes and have also grown peppers, chard, and herbs in the system. I recommend it to anyone who doesn't have a yard or who can't do a full garden. Last year I moved into my boyfriend's house and he has two acres of land. I still used the Earthboxes because I was taking summer classes and just couldn't get to a full garden. Unfortunately my tomatoes got blight. Worried that emptying the dirt out (far from anything else in the yard) and washing the boxes out wouldn't get rid of it all, I am trying the square foot gardening method this year. 
,seems to be the bible for this method. Initially I had planned to make two 3' x 3' boxes out of cedar. I was at the store to buy the materials for the boxes and the ingredients for the box fill when my boyfriend called and asked if I could use the kiddie pool the previous owners of his house had left behind. Uh, yeah. Saving the time and cost of building the boxes, helping him clear out the area next to the garage, and putting a plastic pool to use instead of it ending up in a landfill? Win-win-win situation. To that end...my kiddie pool garden.
