More environmental doom and gloom today - the oxygen-depleted "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico is bigger than ever. Too much flood runoff, too much fertilizer ... and now 8,800 square miles of dead zone. Unfortunately, corn farming to make ethanol is a very messy practice, leaking even more fertilizer into streams, rivers, and finally the gulf of Mexico.

Closer to home, the Chesapeake Bay also has a dead zone also. link

We live in York County PA. The stream in our backyard flows into a small creek, which flows into a large lake (the public water source) the outlet of which makes it way to the Susquehanna and then to the Chesapeake Bay.

Most of the lawns in our neighborhood are very nicely groomed. A few times a year, a salesman from Chemlawn or a similar company comes by to "help" our lawn. They are very concerned - our lawn is at risk from an attack of grubs which could destroy it in just a few days. The salesman is often confused. Why does the largest lawn in the neighborhood not get the same chemicals that all the small lawns get? Why does this homeowner not conform to the neighborhood standard? I point to our pond - a 3/4 acre stocked fish pond in a suburban backyard. We do not fertilize our lawn to keep runoff from causing and algae bloom in the pond. The salesman responds "Oh, we can fertilize very carefully." They are not surprised to be sent away.

When we bought the house, the lawn was richly green - and so was the pond.

We have now set up a system where we can actually remove some nitrates from the stream water - a gravity fed 4" pipe brings stream water into the pond. Our pond plants are fertilized by the stream water, and excess water is discharged back into the stream. Last summer we were able to keep our pond water levels high despite late summer drought ... but our pond turned green.