Hooray for the New Fertilizer Bill

Our state has kicked off 2011 on a high note by passing the nation’s most far-ranging bill to regulate the content and use of lawn fertilizers. Fertilizers are packed full of nutrients, in particular phosphorus and nitrogen, which are a primary cause of pollution for our state’s rivers, lakes and bays.


Who doesn’t want a green lawn? We all do, but overuse and misuse of fertilizers cause way more harm than good, and this bill will go a long way towards improving water quality and restoring balance to our state’s delicate aquatic ecosystems.

Signed into law in the first week of this year, the bill bans phosphorus from lawn fertilizers while requiring that 20 percent of the nitrogen in them be slow release, so that more of the fertilizer stays on your lawn and out of local streams. Excess nitrogen and phosphorus, washed into streams through stormwater, produce algal blooms that reduce oxygen levels in water, threatening fish and other aquatic life. Throughout our nation, fertilizer runoff is causing dead zones - in the Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay, Peugeot Sound, Great Lakes and in New Jersey’s Barnegat Bay, there are areas where oxygen starved waters are virtually void of fish and other aquatic wildlife.

Application of fertilizers is also limited and regulated in the new bill, with homeowners banned from applying fertilizer before March 1st or after November 15th or at any time the ground is frozen. Professional lawn-care companies must now be trained and certified by the State if they want to apply fertilizer. Fertilizer cannot be applied, except under certain circumstances within 25 feet of a water body and never before or during a heavy rainfall.

While state retailers can continue to sell the existing fertilizer for the next two years, homeowners can start protecting New Jersey’s ecosystem right now by self-regulating their fertilizer use: Do bother to read the labels, don’t over-use fertilizer, and don’t apply it on frozen ground or near waterways.

Right here in the Upper Raritan Watershed region, stormwater runoff is our greatest threat to water quality. When URWA’s Staff and Volunteer Monitors come across a degraded waterway, it is typically caused by animal wastes, a failed septic system or overuse of fertilizer. We, as citizens of the watershed can each make a difference. Keep livestock and manure compost out of the stream buffer, clean up after your pet, maintain your septic system and please don’t abuse the use of fertilizers in your own yard. New Jersey’s new fertilizer bill presents a wonderful opportunity to protect our state’s most precious resource - WATER.