Posted on May 2, 2016It wasn’t that long ago, perhaps 30 or 40 years, when it was common to see people washing in the lake. The same strategy that worked to stop that, education and peer pressure, can work for current issues. Here are some low hanging fruit to prevent phosphorous, which causes excessive weed growth, from entering your lake.
Ribbon of Life
Educate residents to maintain a natural 15 meter strip of vegetation beside the lake. Eliminate the lawn going down to the water’s edge, all you need is a path to the dock. You’ll be amazed at how quickly wildlife starts moving in to your new ‘habitat’.
Why would you add fertilizer to your lake?
Speaking of lawns stop using fertilizer, instead replace it with not raking your leaves in the fall and let the earthworms break them down for natural fertilizer. And for those that must fertilize, yes there will be some so you might as well offer some mitigating options, ensure you aerate prior to fertilizing, use liquid fertilizer, make sure you do it when there is no heavy rain forecast for the next week, gently water the lawn every day for the next week etc. – any strategy that gets the fertilizer into the ground quickly so it doesn’t get washed into the lake the next heavy rain.
Don't overflow your septic system
Have your septic system checked on a regular basis and pumped out the recommended every 5 years. If you are having a party with over a dozen people then chances are your septic system will be over-worked and the ‘septic water’ will be pushed through the system too fast to be properly treated – tell your guests that ‘if it is yellow let it mellow’ is all part of cottage living, another version is to just have the guys adhere to the yellow mellow rule.
Avoid hard surfaces
There is also natural phosphorous that comes in rain, again you want the phosphorous to soak into the ground, not run into the lake. Avoid paved or hard surfaces that steer rain water toward the lake. Have eavestrough downspouts go into perforated big O, wrapped in filter cloth, buried into the ground.
Rotting vegetation = more phosphorous
In the fall don’t rake your leaves into the lake, rotting vegetation breaks down and adds phosphorous. If you must rake or harvest excessive weed growth in the water, in most cases not fruitful as the pieces that are broken off often re-root and produce even more weeds, then try to get them out by the roots and ensure you take the weeds out of the water and pile them far away from the waters edge – again when they rot phosphrous is released.
Now is the time to act
With climate change warming the water and winter getting shorter and shorter the weeds are thriving, if you haven’t paid attention to the phosphorous entering the lake from your property then now is the time to act!