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EPA STAR Research Finds Water Quality Improvement after Fertilizer Ban
A series of studies awarded to the University of Michigan by USEPA STAR, USDA CSREES, and the City of Anne Arbor, helped establish before and after datasets showing the impact of a fertilizer ban on total phosphorus levels in the Huron River. The studies showed a 28% total phosphorous reduction 1 year after implementing a municipal ordinance limiting the application of lawn fertilizers containing phosphorus.
Lawn fertilizers, can kill fish and cause algal blooms and other problems when the phosphorus washes out of the soil and into waterways. Municipalities around the country are hoping that banning the use of phosphorous containing fertilizers will help decrease phosphorous pollution. The City of Anne Arbor, facing the potential expenditure of more than $1.5 Million to upgrade its wastewater treatment plant to meet federal phosphorous water quality standards, passed an ordinance in 2006 banning the use of phosphorous containing fertilizers on lawns.
Principle investigator Dr. John Lehman indicated that until now there has been no evidence that these ordinances actually had a positive effect. Lehman and his students Douglas Bell and Kahli McDonald published a paper in the journal Lake and Reservoir Management on August 14, 2009, “Reduced River Phosphorus Following Implementation of a Lawn Fertilizer Ordinance”, that shows phosphorus levels in the Huron River dropped an average of 28 percent after Ann Arbor adopted their ordinance in 2006 that curtailed the use of phosphorus on lawns.
Lehman’s study showed that no reductions were seen at an upstream control river site which was not under the jurisdiction of the ordinance. Also, non-target analytes including nitrate, silica, and colored dissolved organic matter did not change systematically as did phosphorous. The data were analyzed in the context of a statistical model that characterized historical temporal variability and predicted the sampling effort needed to detect changes of specified magnitude.
Lehman believes that the ordinance had an impact but also thinks that public education efforts and general increased environmental awareness among Ann Arbor residents also may have contributed to this equation. Lehman believes the study will have significant impacts, as it has already attracted the attention of the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG), which invited Lehman to present the study results at a meeting earlier this year.
For more information on:
This study: http://www.umich.edu/~hrstudy/ 
and,
http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncer_abstracts/index.cfm/fuseaction/display.abstractDetail/abstract/5866/report/0
The current publication:
. Lake and Reservoir Management, 2009;25(3):307-312 Other news souces:
http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=7272