I don’t know anyone who has a ‘lawn’. But that’s cause I’m sort of a freak.

Do you have a lawn?

Here’s a story from Wired you should read.

What happens on your lawn should stay on your lawn. Scientists have found that runoff from residential yards is filled with far more pollutants than theoretical models would predict, even more than in some agricultural areas.

Loren Oki, an environmental science and landscaping expert from the University of California, Davis, and his colleagues picked eight neighborhoods in California and collected sewage every other week to check for pesticides, nitrates, and other pollutants.

“We started our study in 2006, and at the time there was very little data,” said Oki.”There is a chronic level of pesticides, specifically fipronil and bifenthrin, sometimes at very high concentrations.”

Most of those pesticides are often meant for killing ants, Oki explained, during a press conference at the American Chemical Society. In sewage, the poisons tend to be commingled with high levels of nitrates, from fertilizer, and other pollutants. So his team has been reaching out to several communities, in Sacramento and Orange counties, and offering suggestions to reduce their toxic runoff.

The solution is simple: Design your sprinkler system, and your lawn, so that none of its irrigation water runs into the gutter.

Oki’s lab plans to continue monitoring sewage from the neighborhoods to learn whether their intervention has been effective.

I hate lawns. In arid parts of the country they should not be allowed at all.  A couple of years ago Las Vegas banned all new construction from installing lawns.  If I could I would rip up every square foot of lawn around my house and plant only self sustaining ground cover.  If you have metered water you get slapped twice where I live.  You get charged for water and sewer, but no water goes down the sewer.  I was told for $500 they would install a lawn/garden water meter and charge only for water use from that source. How many gallons of use would make up for that?

This is a great way to discourage prowlers.

i grew up not too far from a big lake in california that has slowly lost it’s luster almost entirely due lawn fertilizer run-off.

So what did all those homeowners with big fancy lawns do?  They tried to pass laws against two stroke engine in the lake.

I worked for a lawn company once. my boss tried to tell me the fertilizer we used ‘wasnt harmful’. I suspect he really believed it, too.

I don’t have a lawn & I don’t use chemicals but I never thought of myself as a ‘freak’, just mildly eccentric.  Last summer (drought, remember) someone told me I could water with used dishwater.  I tried that and it’s true, just don’t freak and think you’ve killed something when the first tree loses its leaves (that happens every fall, remember).

I have a lawn, but I don’t water it or use any pesticides, I even let the yellow jackets living there have their space. I think of my lawn as ecologically diverse and far healthier than any of my neighbors who fertilize and use pesticides.

I’m willing to bet that the lawn was a solid 45% of the stress in my first marriage.

Bugg - 25 August 2009 09:42 PM

I’m willing to bet that the lawn was a solid 45% of the stress in my first marriage.

wow, glad to see you got a divorce.

Amen, brother.

The only pollution in my lawn is dog shit and my pee from when the bathrooms are in use.

If you are a man, you pee on the lawn. That’s not pollution it’s marking your territory.

I’m so glad I have that to think about now.

shadmarsh - 26 August 2009 10:22 PM

If you are a man, you pee on the lawn. That’s not pollution it’s marking your territory.

The real measure of a man is whether he shits on the lawn.