FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 17 , 2010
THE INDIANA LAKES MANAGEMENT SOCIETY JOINS CLEAR CHOICES, CLEAN WATER

Clear Choices for Clean Water is a campaign to increase awareness about lawn care and its impact on our streams and lakes. Water quality friendly lawn care includes practices such as using phosphorus-free fertilizer, landscaping with native plants, managing yard and pet wastes, and overall lawn reform.

Clear Choices, Clean Water is in its first phase where we emphasize how much your fertilizer choices matter, letting you know why you should choose a phosphorus free fertilizer. Your understanding of phosphorus will help protect local water quality now and for many years into the future.

Let's face it, "phosphorus" is not part of the everyday vocabulary of most people.  Maybe you remember it as part of the Periodic Table in high school or maybe you have never heard of it at all!  Either way, here's your chance to get all your questions answered.  Phosphorus is a critical element in the chain of life and appears in many things.  It can have both positive and negative impacts on the world around us. 

What is phosphorus? Phosphorus is a challenge for local water quality because of its role in the scientific process called eutrophication.  This occurs when excess nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) accelerate the growth of algae in a stream or lake.  This then often results in a decrease of oxygen in that waterbody, as well as the production of potential algal toxins and taste and odor compounds in the water.  Lawn fertilizer washed into local waterways by rain presents one of the greatest, quickest dissolving inputs of phosphorus to streams and lakes. Remember, what make plants grow on land also makes plants and algae grow in the water!

How can you help? Take the Pledge and Go Phosphorus Free!  Visit www.clearchoicescleanwater.com and click Take the Pledge Now. Enter your name, address, and yard size - then join the Indiana Lakes Management Society's Clean Water Team or start your own for your lake association. Invite your friends to take the pledge to track the phosphorus that we pledge to keep out of Indiana's lakes, learn other options for what they can do on their property, and access coupon's for phosphorus free products.

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