East
Greenway Events
Join
ParkWatch for Trail Event – June 6 is
National Trails Day. ParkWatch will sponsor an
open trail event at the East Greenway. Arrive any
time from 9 am to 1 pm. Activities for children
will include a scavenger hunt on the trail and a free
nature craft.
Eradicate
Invasives – Pull garlic mustard on
Saturday, April 25 and May 30 from 9 to 11 am.
Meet on the west side of the south Pick ’N Save
parking lot on Pioneer Road. Bring gloves, a small
digging tool, and a kneeling pad.
Caring
for Our Lakes
BANNING
PHOSPHORUS
Nutrients
like phosphorus—a common ingredient in lawn fertilizer—are
degrading 90% of Wisconsin’s inland lakes. Plants don’t
absorb more phosphorus than they can use, and excess
phosphorus from lawns can wash directly into our lakes and
streams, causing smelly algae blooms, fish kills, and
declining water quality.
Lakes and rivers can be extremely sensitive to small
amounts of phosphorus runoff. It takes 20 parts per million
(ppm) of soil phosphorus to grow healthy turf; 25 parts
per
billion (a
quantity 1000 times smaller) can promote excessive algae
growth in lakes. Preventing even small amounts of
phosphorus from getting into the water can make a big
difference.
The League of Conservation Voters has made a ban on
phosphorus for lawn fertilizer a conservation priority for
this legislative session.
Park Watch of Fond du Lac has
requested the County Board Committee on UW, Agriculture and
Recreation to introduce a resolution to the County Board
supporting AB 3 and SB 5 which would ban phosphorus in lawn
fertilizer except for new lawns. This ban would not affect
agricultural uses of phosphorus.
If cleaning up our lakes is important to you, please attend
the County Board Committee Meeting on March 4, 2009, 6 p.m.
the UW Extension office on the UW Campus. Legislative
issues are always subject to change, if you plan to attend,
please send an email to
ldegolie@tds.net
(or call
921.4191) so that I can alert you to a change in the
agenda.
Follow this link to information about phosphorus in lakes
published by the Wisconsin Association of Lakes:
http://www.wisconsinlakes.org/press1-12-09.html
ParkWatch
News
ParkWatch of Fond du Lac has
received the approval
of the UW Agriculture and Recreation Committee
for two grants totally more than $3,800 to restore
shoreline along DeNeveu Creek in Lallier Park and to
start the restoration of a Maple-Basswood Woods in a
former landfill, now a part of the E. Greenway along
the east bank of the East Branch of the Fond du Lac
River.
The Lallier Park project is an opportunity to restore
natural habitat with native plants and enhance the
beauty of Lallier Park. Plantings could include native
grasses like little bluestem, prairie dropseed, butterfly
weed, wild indigo, purple coneflower, bottle gentian,
rough blazingstar, foxglove beardtongue, early goldenrod,
spiderwort, culver’s root and many more.