Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk signed a partial ban on the use of phosophorous in lawn fertilizer Tuesday, saying it will help preserve both \blue lakes and green lawns.""
Signed on the shores of Lake Monona, the ordinance will go into effect in Dane County Jan. 1, 2005.
The ordinance is very similar to one the city of Madison already has, according to Falk spokesperson Sharyn Wisniewski. It requires fertilizer used on lawns, including golf greens, to contain no phosphorus unless the lawn is new or a soil test at a UW lab shows a need for phosphorus.
Soils in the area already contain two to three times as much phosphorus as they need, said John Magnuson, a UW-Madison professor emeritus in zoology who is on the Dane County Lakes and Watershed Commission. He said lawn fertilizers contribute approximately 2 to 11 percent of the phosphorus runoff into watersheds.
""It wasn't that it was the largest source, but that it was not needed,"" he said.
The ordinance has changed since experts and vendors discussed it last December. Sellers will not be allowed to display fertilizers with phosphorus on their shelves, said Sue Jones, the watershed commission's chair. Madison's ordinance already requires sellers to keep these products out of sight.
The county ordinance will go beyond Madison's by requiring stores to post signs this summer to inform people about the effects of phosphorus runoff on waterways.
The delayed onset of the measure until next year was a concession to vendors, Wisniewski said. Many vendors who voiced opinions at a public hearing in December said they had already made orders for phosphorous-containing fertilizers this year.
But an industry proposal to allow phosphorus content of up to 3 percent failed. Magnuson said most fertilizers already used contain that much phosphorus, a decrease from previous years.
Once the ban begins, anyone who wants to use phosphorus fertilizers on existing lawns will need a $15 test from the UW Soil & Plant Analysis Laboratory.
The water problems in the Madison area began as early as the 1880s, Magnuson said, and improvements will be seen gradually over the next few decades.
""Ten years is too short a time,"" he said.
