Petition to Ban Quick Release Water Soluble Fertilizer On Long Island: An Open Letter from Marshall Brown

LongIsland.com

Long Island needs your help, and now. Nitrogen pollution, mostly from the 500,000 septic tanks in Nassau and Suffolk, is causing massive algal blooms that are wiping out entire ecosystems.

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This Open Letter was written by Marshall Brown on behalf of Save the Great South Bay, and does not necessarily reflect the views & opinions of LongIsland.com and its staff.

South Shore, NY - October 28th, 2014 - Long Island needs your help, and now. All of our bays, ponds, and rivers are dying. Nitrogen pollution, mostly from the 500,000 septic tanks in Nassau and Suffolk, is causing massive algal blooms that are wiping out entire ecosystems - in The Great South Bay, Peconic Bay, Shinnecock, everywhere. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) lists all our waters as impaired.

It is also threatening our drinking water, which we pump directly from the aquifer below us. The scientists know it. Our local, state, and federal policy makers and politicians know it. We have little time left, but it will be at least 10 years before we can fund, plan and deploy the sewage infrastructure necessary to address the problem.

What we can do now and today to buy time in the middle of this ecological collapse is to ban the use of water soluble quick release lawn fertilizers. As we struggle to buy precious time for our waters, and for our children and theirs, we must stop buying and spreading about these chemical fertilizers on our lawns.

Long Island is a unique and beautiful place, created from what was once bedrock, eroded down into fine sand by a mile high ice sheet that covered Canada and New England. Our drinking water is glacial water, left eons ago.

You and your friends and neighbors and their friends and neighbors can help to save the Long Island we love for our children and their children by lending your voice.  Tell our local leaders you want a future for our marine heritage, so that future generations can fish, swim, and clam as we did for generations before. Ask those who also care to add their voices. We can't fix the planet, just the little corner of it we call home.

Click here to view  & sign the petition, and please pass this on.

If you and your friends sign on, and their friends too, we can reach our goal of 10,000 signatories, and with that we believe we will be heard.

Best,
Marshall Brown, Founder
Save The Great South Bay, a 501(c)3 Non-Profit
www.savethegreatsouthbay.org
marshall@savethegreatsouthbay.org
212-380-8418
"Our bay - for future generations"

Image courtesy of the Nature Conservansy and SOMAS.

 

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