Florida Local Fertilizer Laws May Be Axed

Floridians for and against a bill that would abolish local restrictions on lawn fertilizer use in favor of state law are voicing their concerns at a series of town halls on the matter.

Environmentalists and local government officials are worried about a bill moving through the Florida Legislature that would abolish all local ordinances restricting lawn fertilizer use, replacing them with a less restrictive state law.

In the Tampa Bay area, Pinellas and Sarasota counties have adopted ordinances banning nitrogen or phosphorus fertilizer use during the summer rainy season, to prevent pollution of Tampa Bay and local lakes and springs.

They cite fertilizer that spills off residential lawns as a cause of algae growth that pollutes water bodies.

Ending local governments' ability to restrict fertilizer could even harm economic growth, say the local officials.

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But retailers who sell fertilizer argue that a statewide law is needed to prevent a patchwork of regulations from county to county or city to city, some limiting fertilizer sales, some limiting fertilizer use and some doing both.

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It would require counties with polluted water bodies to adopt a "model ordinance" developed by a state Task Force two years ago, but forbid them from adopting anything stronger. It and a companion House bill would also revoke stricter ordinances already passed.

"It stops a patchwork regulation [that would] continue and further hurt our business and retailers," said Evers, who runs a farm supply store.

David Cullen of the Sierra Club of Florida, a member of the task force that wrote the model ordinance, said it "was designed as a floor, as a minimum level of care and restriction," but the bill "would make it a ceiling."

Michael Juchnowicz of Gardenmasters landscaping company in Venice, also a task force member, told the committee he initially opposed fertilizer restrictions, like many landscaping professionals, but now favors them.

Working within the restrictions, he said, he used 200 tons less fertilizer last year, cutting pest and fungus problems.

"My kids live here, I have to live here," he said. "It's all about, are you for clean water or against clean water."