This story appeared
in a recent edition of the Bay Journal. The Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
has partnered with the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural
Resources with an initiative whos goal is to convert 10,000 acres of lawn to natural areas. If successful, this
could have a tremendous impact on our environment (reduced air pollution and improved
wildlife habitat) and the water quality of our state’s streams. Here are a few Penn State Extension resources that may be helpful in this endeavor.
Landscaping for Wildlife: Trees, Shrubs, and Vines
Neighborly Natural Landscaping in Residential Areas
By Ad Crable
April 8,
2020
 |
| Photo by Ryan Davis |
Well-shorn
lawns are still the norm on the grounds of parks, schools, churches, hospitals,
business parks and neighborhoods. While better than exposed bare earth, such
swaths of green are still environmental minefields.
Rain flushes
dog poop, pesticides, fungicides and other chemicals from those grassy surfaces
into local streams. The springtime spreading of fertilizer to keep grass thick
and green is a troublesome source of nutrients that are harmful to the
Chesapeake Bay.
Close-cropped
grass grows from compacted dirt that doesn’t soak up much stormwater. The
short, monoculture grass has no wildlife value. The army of lawnmowers needed
to keep the grass cut to socially acceptable length emits air pollution at
three times the rate of automobiles.
And keeping
everything a tidy green eats up mowing dollars that could be better spent on
the missions of churches, schools and the like.
“It’s kind
of tyrannical. Lawns control us more than we control them,” said Ryan Davis of
the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay. “One of the most insidious parts of a lawn
is it doesn’t do anything. It’s just sterile and sitting there.”
Pennsylvania
has come to the same conclusion, launching a campaign to convert 10,000 acres
of mowed grass by 2025 into meadows or forests in parts of the state that are
in the Chesapeake drainage. There are an estimated 1 million acres of lawn in
Pennsylvania’s portion of the Susquehanna River watershed alone.
The lawn
conversion initiative, also known as conservation landscaping, is contained in
Pennsylvania’s latest official plan for helping to clean up the Chesapeake.
It’s the first time that lawn conversion has been included as a Bay cleanup
strategy for Pennsylvania, and a priority one at that. The project will count
toward the state’s nutrient reduction commitments.
The plan
seeks to reduce stormwater runoff which, according to the state-federal Bay
Program, is the only source of pollution on the rise. The goal is to convert
half of the 10,000 acres into meadows and half into forests.
The first
focused project to move that charge forward has already begun with a swirl of
interest.
To read the
rest of the story click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment