Help Keep the Water Clean this Winter We Can All Do Our Part The region’s lakes, rivers, and creeks provide the drinking water for humans and livestock, pets, and wildlife. These waters also provide irrigation for farms, habitat for fish and wildlife, and recreation opportunities that have become increasingly important during these strange times. While our nation’s water quality has drastically improved since the 1960s when rivers routinely caught fire (thank you, Clean Water Act!), several waterways in southern Illinois still have pollutant levels above recommended guidelines. Protecting our water is important year-round, and in winter, particular actions can help reduce the amount of water pollution coming from communities, fields, and yards.
Road Salt and De-Icing Sodium chloride, or road salt, is widely applied to roads, parking lots, sidewalks, and driveways to improve travel safety. This valuable safety measure, however, has considerable negative impacts on water. When the temperatures increase, the salt does not evaporate. Instead, more than half of the applied salt washes into lakes and streams and, the chloride settles into the deepest areas of our region’s waterways, reducing oxygen in the water and causing harm to fish and other water dwellers. The sodium from road salt can then enter
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drinking water sources causing levels that may become harmful to people with heart problems and high blood pressure. The other half of the applied salt sinks into the ground, killing beneficial soil bacteria and seeping into the groundwater that many people use for drinking water. So, what can you do instead? Here are some alternatives with fewer impacts on water: Apply magnesium chloride to surfaces before winter storms to decrease the need for a salt application. For driveways and walkways, the best alternative is to shovel early and often. You can then determine where a deicing agent is needed, if at all.
Fields and Home Vegetable Gardens When fields and vegetable gardens lay bare in the winter months, the exposed soil is highly susceptible to wind and water erosion. This erosion carries away the soil’s nutrients needed for healthy crops and deposits them instead in lakes and creeks. This causes health issues for wildlife and making drinking water more costly to treat. So, what do we recommend? COVER CROPS! For agriculture: Plant cover crops in the fall after corn and soybeans have been harvested. This can reduce
nutrient loss by 50% and erosion by 90%. Cereal rye, winter wheat, and lentils are just a few of the options. Although the initial cost of introducing cover crops can be a hurdle because of special equipment needed, the consistent use of cover crops increases yields and profits for farmers. The State of Illinois agrees; check out Illinois Department of Agriculture’s program: “Fall Covers for Spring Savings”. For your home vegetable garden: Cover crops act as a living mulch in your home garden. When planted late in the growing season (early fall), the plants will die over winter and wilt, creating a weed barrier for you in the Spring. Winter peas and oats are some of the many options.
Leave the Leaves, But... You may hear us tout the benefits of leaving your fall leaves in your landscape to benefit wildlife. This practice provides cover for overwintering pollinators and other critters that use the leaves for warmth and shelter. However, leaving leaves should be practiced with some additional care for those of us living in town. Autumn leaf litter contributes significant amounts of phosphorus to stormwater, which reduces oxygen levels in lakes and streams. As you might have guessed, low oxygen causes fish and other wildlife survival problems. It also contributes to algae
www.HeartLandsConservancy.org
