Michigan Bans Phosphorous in Fertilizer

After Jan. 1, 2012, it will be illegal in Michigan to apply fertilizers with phosphorus to residential or commercial lawns. Phosphorus, a naturally occurring soil nutrient, helps grow strong plant roots, but when it runs off in large amounts into streams and lakes, it feeds algae and nuisance underwater plants.

Lawn companies and retailers say they won't have a hard time complying with a new statewide ban on phosphorus in fertilizer, since many townships, cities and counties already have similar bans. The ban, passed by legislators, leaves plenty of time to adapt to the law.

''We stopped selling phosphorus fertilizers about two years ago,'' said Bill Young, assistant store manager of Home Depot on Coolidge Highway in Troy. That's because Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties already have similar bans, and other bans nationwide have led fertilizer makers to remove the phosphorus from their products, often substituting potash, he said.

Young said Scott's Weed and Feed, a top seller, is already phosphorus-free. In the Midwest, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York and Illinois already restrict phosphorus in lawn products to protect the Great Lakes from algae.

The state's landscape industry supported the legislation, said Amy Frankmann, executive director of the Michigan Nursery and Landscape Association, which includes companies that apply fertilizers. The group was disappointed that the new law still allows local ordinances more restrictive than the state law, she said.