Like I said, in Florida, because folks travel there or live there to experience the beautiful beaches, waterways and gorgeous flora and fauna, they have a heightened sensitivity to environmental issues. Here it is highlighted in a PD article Fertilizer firms mobilize against regulation trend. The PD writer has drawn a line on the map between the activists working in Sarasota, Florida and Scott’s which is located in Marysville, Ohio. While the issue may be in Florida today, it does not exclude Northeast Ohio and our watershed.

Ted Steinberg says it will be an uphill battle for American activists to fight chemical weed killers and fertilizer companies. This article explains also the history of the fertilizer business in Post WWII America. We saw an explosion (literally since now fertilizer bombs are favored by terrorists) in the fertilizer industry after the war, so that the many nitrate plants developed to support bombmaking could stay in business.  But terrorism is not my point here. My point is that the massive amounts of fertilizer, herbicides and pesticides used on the lawns and golf course around the Shaker Lakes may be the very cause of algal blooms in the lakes. So if the folks who live along those lakes are disgusted by the green slime, they might think about it every time they call in the lawn police.

Better than that, Cuyahoga County or Ohio could, like Quebec, just say no to lawn chemicals. (Unlikely since Scott’s is headquartered in Marysville, Ohio).

“The probable link between use of lawn-care pesticides and rising rates of asthma in children, rising allergy and spiraling cancer rates had aroused these activists to eliminate unnecessary pesticide use from their community.” says a report that addresses the ban in Quebec. Wonder why the little flags are placed on lawns that have had a recent lawn chemical treatment? They are supposed to be there until after a rain. This is so that the chemicals can run off into our lakes and streams and induce their damaging effects in our water instead of on our skin, lungs and other internal organs. The little flags do not have skull and cross bones or a surgeon general’s warning, but maybe they should. “The most commonly used weed killer on Canadian lawns and gardens, 2, 4-D is “persuasively linked” to cancer, neurological impairment and reproductive problems, according to a recent study in the journal Pediatrics and Child Health. [7] “2, 4-D is far from safe. It can affect women's ability to bear healthy children, and epidemiological studies show strong links between use of 2, 4-D products and cancer,” notes Dr. Susan Kegley, senior scientist at Pesticide Action Network North America.” So when your church, school or you send the kids out to play on the lawn, do you ask yourself, are there dandelions and plantains in that lawn, or is my three year old developing asthma from rolling in that stuff?

This also from the article linked above: “The pesticide-free municipality movement continues to spread to other provinces. To date, ninety-five municipalities have passed pesticide regulations. These include large cities like Toronto…” If Toronto addresses this issue and stops pouring the chemicals into their side of Lake Erie, how long will it be before they press Cleveland, Detroit, and Buffalo to do the same? We live in a bioregion; alongside a lake. Should we not consider the fact that what we put in our lake might one day make it to our neighbors who live elsewhere along its shores? Whatever happened to manners?

And the use of some chemicals that hamper the growth of “weeds” can actually make it impossible to grow other plants. Even Dow seeks to ban its own weedkiller. It is because of the presence of this chemical Clopyralid which does not break down during composting and threatens the growth of some vegetables. Worried that if you weed and feed your grass, you might not be able to grow tomatoes? It could actually be an issue.

Since I am not a chemist, I have taken the easier route. Like Ted Steinberg, I do not use lawn chemicals, but instead apply compost made over the course of a year from kitchen waste. In the fall, I use leaves to cover beds and save the expense of Cuyahoga County Leaf Humus . (We have bought it though and find it to be far superior to chemicals which we feel require hazmat suits for application.) We have decided to kill our grass. Finally convinced of the inappropriateness of grass on our shady front lawn and faced with having a choice between trees and grass, we have decided that we like the trees and the shade they provide, far more than the resource-sucking grass that we have struggled to keep growing there. (I guess we have given up on “fitting in”, too.) We have chosen an area for grass (a small one) and will instead grow a ground cover under our big trees and landscape the other areas with moss-covered sandstone from discarded sidewalk sections.

For more info on how to make your property friendlier to your community, plan to hear Ted Steinberg speak at Cleveland Botanical Garden in March or just read the book, American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn. The book is available locally at Loganberry Books or your local bookseller. More tips here from the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes. Our personal actions must be considered if our children’s children will live in a Green City on a Blue Lake.

Framing it was pricey, but it is a comfort and an education to view my Northeast Ohio watershed map with regularity. It has helped me to be increasingly aware of the water issues we face in our bioregion such as the alarming number of CSO (combined sewer overflows), algal blooms in the Shaker Lakes, lawn care issues, land use issues and even energy and environmental justice issues.

I have it hung right next to an aerial photo of one of my other favorite watersheds -- the Apalachicola River watershed in Northwest Florida. Unlike the artist-drawn watershed map of Northeast Ohio, the Apalachicola River watershed map shows an aerial photo of the water from the Chattahoochee, Flint and Apalachicola Rivers spilling into the Apalachicola Bay and then on to the Gulf of Mexico. Though the area was once teeming with trade (cotton and produce from Alabama and Georgia was traded for sugar and coffee from Cuba on European trade routes in the early 19th century), the river’s connection to the bay and gulf now provide the rural areas greatest economic resource -- oysters.

Where as here in Cleveland, the river meets the lake surrounded by industry and bulkheads, in Apalachicola the lazy meandering river oozes through bayous, swamps, marshes, past tupelo trees, and pitcher plants as it watches the heron and the osprey soar and dive, the alligator sunning on the bank.

It’s getting cold in Northeast Ohio. Maybe it is time to make plans for a visit to the more temperate Florida panhandle… Though that area, like this one, has many challenges environmentally, there seems to be a heightened sensitivity to the fragile ecosystem there, an appreciation among residents for beaches and waterways that Clevelanders have yet to fully grasp in our own bioregion.

It is good to slow down, way down to about the speed of a porch swing. It gives one time to think about how the river flows, to remember early lessons about the water cycle. Here, in Cleveland, it is my watershed map that reminds me that there is water flowing underground and helps me to remember to conserve it.

If you simply don’t have wall space to place one in your living environment, purchase one as a gift for a friend or a classroom in your local school or library.