The Rock River Coalition Promotes a Restriction on Excessive Use of Phosphorus Fertilizer on Residential Lawns

Phosphorus leads to excessive plant growth

The Coalition has completed an electronic presentation on why it’s important to restrict the excessive use of phosphorus-based fertilizer. We encourage communities throughout the basin to either enact a ban on the unnecessary use of phosphorus fertilizer on lawns or to follow Jefferson County and the Wisconsin Association of Lakes to encourage the state to enact such a ban. This restriction would not impact the use of phosphorus fertilizer on farms, gardens, flowers, trees or shrubs.

We encourage this since, unfortunately, many of our basin lakes have a problem with excess algae growth and too many rooted plants. We can’t turn this problem around quickly, but there are things we can do to lessen the problem. And we can definitely work to keep it from getting worse. The excess plant growth in our lakes can be attributed to two things: sediment and phosphorus. What’s great for our lawns and on our farms, is a big problem for our lakes. Phosphorus is limited in lakes, even when nitrogen and other plant nutrients are available in large amounts. It is the naturally low levels of phosphorus that puts a brake on plant growth. So when phosphorus is added to water you essentially take the brake off. You might be interested to know that one pound of phosphorus added to a lake can result in 500 pounds of algae growth!

Please email the Coalition if you would like the presentation “Controlling Excess Phosphorus: A Watershed Approach” given to your group. The development of the presentation was funded through a DNR Lake Planning Grant.

Presentation (pdf 3mb)
Presentation script (pdf 932kb)