It may be the dead of winter (even though it doesn’t seem like it with all this rain and no snow…yet), but the multi-billion-dollar green industry is busy getting ready for the spring season…a new spring season that spells trouble for our fragile environment here on Long Island.

The industry is using this seasonal down time to ramp up production and distribution of fertilizers, pesticides, and other chemical lawn products that landscaping services and homeowners will be applying to lawns as early as March to get a jump start on the growing season.

Landscaping companies are printing up their new 2024 contracts, listing all the “applications” they can apply to your lawn to make it the envy of your neighbors, and hoping you’ll sign up for another year of service. They’ll probably promise a “quick green-up” and a lawn free of weeds and insects, all courtesy of chemicals.

It’s emblematic of the hubris of man that we think we can outsmart nature with chemical innovations, instead of harnessing the natural power of nature to accomplish our goals. Keep in mind that before World War II, all the great gardens and beautiful golf courses around the world were maintained without any chemicals at all. What happened?

Money is what happened. Today, manufacturers tell us we just can’t have a lush green lawn without using their pesticides and high nitrogen fertilizers – two things which are known to contaminate our ground and surface water and lay waste to broad swaths of our unseen but critical members of our natural world.

The story actually gets worse. You may have heard about PFAS, the class of cancer-causing and endocrine-disrupting chemicals that seem to be in everything from non-stick pans and waterproof boots to beauty products and grease-proof pizza boxes.

It turns out that a lot of “natural” lawn fertilizers contain dried sewage sludge (more often referred to as “bio-solids”), which contain significantly high levels of PFAS.

But that’s not the only source of PFAS in lawn fertilizers. Many of the most popular lawn fertilizers contain PFAS in the plastic coating of their “slow release” fertilizer pellets.

The thin layer of plastic is designed to keep the highly water-soluble nitrogen from dissolving too quickly. As the plastic begins to deteriorate on your lawn, the nitrogen and the PFAS are released into the environment. Oh, and did I mention that the plastic waste never goes away?

Some of the nitrogen will be taken up by the grass plants, but a lot of it (some studies have suggested as much as 50-60%) misses the plant completely and “disappears” into the environment, running off into nearby streams and bays or leaching down through the soil into our drinking water aquifers.

Lawn fertilizers, especially those with high levels of nitrogen in excess of 12% are major contributors to our nitrogen loading (or nutrient loading) problem here on Long Island.

Excess nitrogen in our surface water is one of the root causes of harmful algal blooms and fish kills during the summer. So the most popular fertilizers on the market deliver a double whammy to the environment: PFAS and harmful levels of nitrogen.

The good news is that this is a problem with a solution. First, nature has already figured out how to deliver just the right amount of nitrogen to your lawn: leave the clippings on the lawn to feed the microbes in the soil.

Those microbes will work for free, slowly turning those clippings into nitrogen for the grass plants. It’s an elegant process that works like a charm, unless humans get in the way.

And often, we do. In an effort to control “pests,” many homeowners and landscapers turn to chemical pesticides. Pesticides kill virtually every living thing in the soil.

So think about it: if you use pesticides on your lawn, and then leave your grass clippings on the lawn, there won’t be any microbes left to turn the clippings into nitrogen.

You’ve defeated nature’s system! Now you’ll have to go to the big box store or garden center and buy the nitrogen that nature would have provided for free.

So, bottom line, if you want free nitrogen and free labor, stop using chemical pesticides that kill the microbes that nature has provided for us, and if you want to avoid algal blooms, fish kills and contaminated drinking water, stop using high-nitrogen fertilizers.

If your lawn really needs more nitrogen than nature can deliver, there are several excellent products which contain water insoluble nitrogen and no PFAS.

You can find a listing of those products on the website, LIWater.org, along with a list of landscaping companies that can maintain your lawn without harmful chemicals.

And of course, if you really want to get to the root of the problem (no pun intended), consider cutting down on the amount of lawn you have on your property.

Plant a vegetable or flower garden, build a pond or bird bath, plant native grasses, or let part of your property go wild and see what nature will create! And let your kids and pets out to run and play.