How YOU can reduce Nitrates!

​by Doug Moran

Doug’s lawn is in the Vermillion watershed. He minimizes his fertilizer use and composts his grass trimmings. He’d rather fish than do lawn maintenance, but it doesn’t look too bad!

We all know that Minnesota has a nitrate problem. 

We know that nitrate is bad for humans (cancer, thyroid disease--especially for infants), bad for aquatic life, and bad for our economy ($210 billion/year).

27% of surface water tested by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency exceeds the EPA limit of 10 mg/L.  And 10 percent of the private wells sampled in southwestern, southeastern, central, and north-central Minnesota have nitrate levels above 10 mg/L.

So what can you do about it? A lot. A few simple things!

1. If you fertilize your lawn, use only “slow release” nitrogen fertilizer.
2. Keep your lawn clippings in your yard (or compost) & off the street, you can reduce your fertilizer load by 25%!
   
3. Pick up pet waste
   
4. Join Adopt-A-Drain (https://adopt-a-drain.org) and keep your storm sewer drains clean.
   
5. Practice landscaping for clean water. Your soil & water conservation district has some tips. Here’s the Dakota SWCD’s site Landscaping for Clean Water - 2024 - Dakota County-SWCD but look for your local site.
   

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Do your part! It’s easy to reduce the amount of nitrate you add into our groundwater!

​PS:  If you’d like to learn more about Nitrates, please click here for a great article on the MNTU website.