Harboring Concern – Fertilizer Use On Nantucket

A series of advertisements in the Nantucket Enquirer Mirror tells local residents that what they put on the ground they will drink later. "Did you know that everyone lives in a watershed?" the notice asks, listing fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides among substances that will contaminate drinking water.

This is one of 12 public service announcements sponsored by the Nantucket Garden Club that aims to raise awareness about chemicals islanders dispense or apply – a campaign initiated after a study identified Nantucket Harbor as reportedly being stressed by nutrient loading caused by these type of substances.

But changing the regiments of estate owners with lush, green lawns might not be as easy as suggestions to maintain smaller lawns, or plant new strains of grass – such as Garden Club-approved Little bluestem, sheep fescue, switch grass, milkweed or New England Aster. Forget Kentucky bluegrass.

And no fertilizer.

"You can have a beautiful, green lawn without putting fertilizers on it," argued Linda Holland, director of the Land Council and one of the key players in efforts to curb chemicals on the Cape Cod island. Not everyone, however, is convinced that cutting out chemical treatments is the road to avoiding a contaminated harbor.

A DEVELOPING ISSUE. Nantucket Harbor’s water quality has been changing along with the island itself during the last 30 years – what was a bucolic, untouched island framed with fishing ports evolved into an exclusive, power-vacation enclave. Some islanders are not so welcoming to this growth, and certainly not warming to the thought of a polluted harbor, explained Michael Glowacki, owner of Albert Glowacki Landscape Inc. and 30-year resident of the island. Local activists are pinpointing fertilizer as one of the culprits of the degradation that comes with development.

Despite land held in conservation trusts, development pressures are leaving Nantucket with more rolling lawns than rustic reserves. And residents maintain and care for their estates, many of the properties being in families for generations. But some on the island are making efforts to change just how residents go about caring for their turf.

"The effort is to educate," Holland said of the campaign. "We are trying to protect the drinking water and have a healthy harbor, protect the shellfish and save the scallop industry."

But some say though concern for the health of the harbor is there, the research and statistics that verify fertilizer is a contributing contaminate to the harbor or ground water is not. That’s why the 1997 proposed lawn fertilizer ban for the watershed district was squelched. Fertilizer application is not a new point of debate in Nantucket, Glowacki pointed out.

"There is legitimate concern in developing around the harbor and water quality around the harbor," he said. "Fertilizer has kind of become the badge or symbol of that."

The issue has resurfaced in recent months, following a study by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute that identified the harbor as being in a stressed position because of nutrient loading caused by septic tanks, boats and fertilizers, Holland explained, confirming rapid area growth as the cause of the problem.

Aggressive action to eliminate boat septic problems has been taken, and sewer system improvements have been investigated – two significant contributors to potential contamination. But curbing fertilizer use is the most cost-effective solution to decreasing nitrate entrance into the harbor, she said.

"A town does not have to spend a penny to have homeowners change the type of grass they grow and not use fertilizer," she emphasized. "You just plant the right kind of grass and care for it, and you will have a gorgeous, green lawn without fertilizers or pesticides."

STUDYING STATISTICS. Local activists are pushing that fertilizer and pesticides are among possible threats to the island’s ground water, the only source of drinking water for the 33,000-mile land expanse. Claims are based off of various studies conducted on Cape Cod and Long Island that produced measured research regarding nitrate leaching rates, Holland explained.

Conditions figured into studies are the formulation of nitrogen use in fertilizer, the amount applied at any one time, the season of the year and the type of soil, its density and its overall health. Conditions in most studies are also hypothetical and figured in a worst-case scenario, Glowacki accented.

"That is valid as a research technique," he considered. "But it’s like the coffee-gives-you-cancer-if-you-drink-1,000-cups-a-day argument."

He is skeptical about the use of these statistics – what he calls "spinning science" – and questioned the studies’ relevance to Nantucket’s harbor. Fertilizers, he said, are getting a bad rap. Moderation in application along with attention variable like soil condition and season, will not result in water quality damage, he stressed.

"They (activists) are using hypothetical studies using wildly exaggerated numbers," he argued.

Glowacki described fertilizer as a "red herring," and believes there is "a fundamental dishonesty about what this campaign is really about." It is more about politics than pesticides, rapid development vs. islanders stubborn about growth, he said.

APPLYING MODERATION. Though Nantucket might be an extreme case, it is not uncommon for harbor or waterfront communities to place limitations on fertilizer, such as keeping amounts under 3-4 pounds per 1,000 square feet or limiting the use of phosphorus, commented Doug Masters, national sales manager for professional products for The Andersons.

Also, chemicals are more likely to leach in sandy landscapes if not applied under the correct conditions, which is why Masters recommends polymer-coated, sulfur-coated ureas, Nitroform, Nutralene and slow-release nitrogen sources that take longer to break down so the plant uses them in the process.

"Used in moderation, the fertilizer nutrients are used by plants, be it grass, ornamental or what have you," Masters emphasized. "If contractors use fertilizers properly, they don’t typically run into problems. And to me, no one that’s in the business is putting out a product they believe will harm the environment if it is used as it is directed to be used."

Glowacki admitted his own clients are questioning the safety of fertilizer use on their properties and expressed concern in the condition of the harbor. But with Nantucket’s sand bar landscape, chances are that most people use something on their lawn during some stage of the growth cycle, he said. Local landscapers and gardeners will still be in demand, and customers will still want fertilizer applications.

In the meantime, alternatives to freezing fertilizer use on the island are being investigated, Glowacki said. Engineering techniques to deal with water circulation in the harbor – a redistributing of silted-over channels to promote circulation – is an option. Keeping the land in its natural state is another, although not likely to be popular among those who wish to develop it.

Either way, he does not think the island will see another proposal to ban fertilizer use, and though there is a need for action, what is "appropriate and meaningful" is not preventing chemicals, he said. Still, no one wants to be responsible for spoiling the harbor.

"You won’t see another simplistic, sweeping proposal," he said. "I don’t think this is a regulatory issue at all."