Leelanau County is fortunate to have an abundance of high-quality lakes and streams that everyone can benefit from for swimming, boating, fishing, drinking water, or simply enjoying. However, the health of these bodies of water is dependent on how well we, Leelanau County residents, care for them.
The Lake Leelanau Lake Association (LLLA) would like to share information on landscaping for water quality and ways you can help protect our beautiful Leelanau County waters.
Impervious surfaces on your property allow fertilizer, sediment, pesticides, and other pollutants, to runoff into waterways. Carefully designed landscape features can decrease the speed of water flow and reduce its ability to erode soils and sediment and deposit pollutants.
One important landscape feature for riparian owners is native shoreline buffers or vegetative strips. A shoreline buffer is a planted area along the shoreline ideally extending at least 35 feet back from the water’s edge. Another landscape feature that can prevent runoff and erosion is the rain garden. Rain gardens are impressions lined with a coarse or porous soil mixture of sand or gravel beneath a bed of native plants. Runoff water collects in the rain garden, soaks quickly into the soil, or is absorbed by the plants.
Native plants are preferred for a variety of reasons. Native plants thrive here because they have adapted to the soil and climate. They also provide habitat and food to various insects and animals that require specific native plants to live. Lastly, native plants have much larger and stronger root systems than turf grass making them a better option since they hold the soil in place and prevent erosion.
Those who want to maintain a lawn should take care with their watering, fertilization applications, and herbicides. When fertilizer reaches the lake, it provides nutrients to the aquatic plants and algae. The result is excessive aquatic plant and algae growth, lower water oxygen levels, and nuisance or harmful algal blooms.
Many lawn services recommend four to five nitrogen applications per year for a robust yard. However, nitrogen is highly soluble in water, so much of the nitrogen applied to lawns eventually makes its way into the lake. Michigan soils are naturally high in phosphorus, another essential lawn nutrient. In 2010, the Michigan Legislature passed a law (Michigan Fertilizer Law 1994 PA 451, Part 85, Fertilizers) prohibiting the application of lawn fertilizer containing phosphorus, with certain exceptions, because of its adverse impacts on lakes and streams. The law requires fertilizer on impervious surfaces to be cleaned immediately to prevent it from being washed into a lake or stream and prohibits fertilizer application within 15 feet of surface water to prevent run-off high in nutrients.
As an alternative, waterfront owners can achieve and maintain a healthy lawn through organic compost supplements and lakewater irrigation. Lake Leelanau contains many natural-occurring nutrients that can feed your lawn without fertilizer. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) encourages lake water irrigation and allows lakefront owners to install and operate irrigation pumps without permits.
