If we don’t address the nitrogen problem now, all our bays, ponds and creeks will be gone over the next two decades, killed by the massive algal blooms that have been choking the life out of our waters.
There are a number of high density building projects now on the drawing boards that depend on sewering for their viability — The Ronkonkoma Hub, Heartland, where Pilgrim State Psychiatric Hospital once stood, as well as several proposed development projects proposed by RXR a Long Island real estate giant with $10 billion under management at Island Hills Golf course at Garvies Point in Glen Cove, and elsewhere.
Some find it counterproductive for New York State and Suffolk County to be spending billions to reduce nitrogen by way of saving Long Island while high density projects only increase nitrogen loading, traffic, and air pollution in a place where we are at a critical point in all three areas.
Further, these onsite systems can be deployed now.
It is estimated that 70% of Long Island’s excess nitrogen problem comes from septics.
Some also comes from lawn fertilizers.
If we are about to spend $2 billion on waste water infrastructure, with about another $400 million allocated, and plan to allocate another $5 billion on top of that to address the nitrogen problem, what is the dollar cost / value of addressing the 7-15% contribution of lawn fertilizers?
As the folks at The Perfect Earth Project will tell you, mulch, let your grass grow high (3 1/2 inches) so the roots grow deep and the lawn crowds out weeds, introduce nitrogen fixing clover (which bees love by the way) and use native plantings, ones made for our climate that don’t need constant watering and care.
They actually have a training program for landscapers that teaches them eco-friendly yard care measures.
Nitrogen pollution on Long Island has a million sources — every septic tank and lawn.

Portman meets with Lake Erie advocates to hear Great Lakes success stories.
(Thomas Ondrey/Plain Dealer file photo) CLEVELAND, Ohio – For the first time in decades, yellow perch fingerlings have returned to the once reed-choked Mentor Marsh, an ecological benefit of the federal Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.
The focus of the round-table talk was the recently proposed White House budget cuts, and the potential destruction the reduced funding would cause to Lake Erie and the rest of the Great Lakes if allowed to become law.
It’s all dependent on keeping up the fight, and the funding is critical for that."
The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative is the cornerstone of a network of programs designed to protect and restore the largest system of fresh water in the world, by combating water pollution, especially toxic algal blooms, to prevent and control invasive species, and to restore habitat to protect native fish and wildlife.
Over the past seven years, the Great Lakes initiative has provided $650,000 to the Nature Conservancy to help eradicate invasive phragmites at the Mentor Marsh and the Cleveland Lakefront Nature Preserve; $3 million for a Cuyahoga River urban riparian restoration project; $15 million for restoration of the Black River; $175,000 to the Cleveland Metroparks for a stormwater project at Wildwood Park, and $500,000 for restoration work on the Chagrin River watershed.
"It finances grass roots cleanups of legacy pollution in some of the Lake Erie tributaries."
Frank Greenland, director of watershed programs for the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, said Great Lakes initiative funds have been critical for at least five projects, and provides the primary funding for testing the Lake Erie beaches for bacterial level during the summer.
Kristy Meyer, managing director of the Ohio Environmental Council, said Great Lakes initiative grants have helped her organization to educate farmers in the Maumee Valley on the best practices for reducing their runoff of fertilizers and manure that feed the annual algal blooms in the lake’s western basin.
"This is about where we swim, where we fish, where we work, and most importantly where we draw our drinking water," Joyce said.

Illegal cannabis farming has negatively impacted the area greatly by introducing petroleum contamination into water sources, rodenticide poisoning of wildlife and illegal clearing of forests for farming. The Eel River Recovery Project has been working with cannabis cultivators in the Humboldt county region for four years now, and together they have held a series of community meetings focused on toxic algae blooms and local resident health. The Eel River Recover Project is a program sponsored by the Institute for Fisheries Resources, part of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. Legalization and regulation of cannabis farming in California has allowed agencies to work with farmers to provide support and offer best practices for conserving the…

Biological Restoration of water and land.
The problem is not only the amount of water available in the world’s rivers, lakes, and aquifers, but the pollution of those resources from human contamination, including bacteria, toxins, and nutrient loading.
Fortunately, this triple threat of nutrient loading, bacteria, and toxins – can be mitigated using organic, biological methods, generally known as “bioremediation.” Bioremediation Certain microbes, bacteria, fungi, and plants can remove or metabolise pollutants in soil or water, including assisting in the removal of industrial chemicals, petroleum products, and pesticides.
Some compounds – certain heavy metals, such as cadmium or lead, for example – resist bioremediation.
“How,” Goldstein and Johnson ask, “can we imagine a form of production that can both reproduce beautiful lives and unmake the infrastructure of our ecologically catastrophic social formation?” Ecological restoration To create successful biological design, we not only have to ask, “How does nature solve this physical challenge?” but also ask: “What is natural economics?” The economy of an ecosystem is non-hierarchical It is a web of shared relationships that contribute materials, energy and services to other parts of the network, as growth fluctuates within natural limits.
Lake Winnipeg in Canada suffered from high levels of phosphorus loading from the surrounding community, causing severe algae blooms.
In the 1990s, John Liu, an American who had been living in China for over 30 years, joined a Chinese government ecological rehabilitation initiative to restore the Loess Plateau economy by restoring the ecosystem.
“Landscape restoration,” explains Lui, “starts with restoring ecological function.
Real economy is understanding that natural ecological functions that create air, water, food and energy are vastly more valuable than anything that has ever been produced or bought and sold.
“Why fresh water shortages will cause the next great global crisis,” The Guardian, March 2015.