Compost to Save Our Bay




Our nation’s largest estuary, the Chesapeake Bay, is threatened due to nutrient over-enrichment. How we better manage our home lawn and yard waste provides us with an opportunity to “Save the Bay”. Composting is one simple way we can help improve our water quality and allow aquatic life to flourish. Compost can directly lessen the loss of sediment. Both nutrient management and storm water runoff controls can be achieved by a well managed and placed compost pile.

If we wish to reduce nutrients by 40 percent yard owners can preserve our Bay for future generations. Million of sources of contamination or non point pollution jeopardizes our quality of life. Just leaving your clippings on your home lawns makes a big difference and provides your yard nutrients and moisture. Citizens who compost their yard and food not only recycle new earth not lessens the need to use more fertilizer. Test your soil out. Also we lessen more airborne nitrogen by not having to truck this valuable organic material to be disposed. Composting can easily save our region in millions of dollars of environmental costs. Everyone who has a yard can make a difference preserving our Chesapeake Bay by wise nutrient and storm water runoff management.

We are all interconnected when it comes to saving our earth. Composting helps also lessen soil loss. Erosion is the leading pollution source to our waterways. An average of nearly 17 tons of soil lost per acre of cropland per year. Just 2 billion tons of topsoil lost through erosion every year

Just a few hundred of years ago our land had hundreds of inches of topsoil. Today we barely have a few inches.

We must promote is both home, local, and regional composting that can lessen erosion and amend our soil. With accelerated building, construction and road development, we must stimulate the market for recycled humus and "buy compost". Not only will composting keep our area more beautiful it can transform our waste into new resources. Let’s lead the way as did George Washington who was our nation’s first composter. Celebrate compost week and make yourself some new humus!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Page County Landfill Story

Recently, Ryan Grim’s article “Marvin’s Dirty Secret,” appeared in the October Rolling Stone Magazine exposing how the President’s brother’s waste company went bankrupt. This firm left behind Page County , Virginia citizens to pay a $8.5 million dollars environmental bill. Page County has a population of 24,000 and is a hour-and-a-half drive west of Washington D.C next to the Blue Ridge Mountains . It is also home to a major Virginia tourist attraction, Luray Caverns. Page County has been spent a lot of time dealing with landfill issues . There have been numerous questions of conflicts of interest . It’s as if a huge political football is being kicked around regarding what happened and why over the private operation of one unlined landfill and a mega-landfill recently closed by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VADEQ) for ongoing violations and excessive trash intake . There have been many anomalies in the operation of these Page County landf
Read more

Despair in Repair

Image
Recently I learned that I have prostrate cancer. For many years my dermatologist has been removing this from my skin. In my recovery may I honor each day as my last. My priceless experiences comes from this celebrating what I been given. How better may I address my mortality then to Face Everything and Recover. When I Frick Everything and Run this other FEAR fosters little repair of my despair. It is challenging to deal with what is happening. Climate change profoundly terrorizes me. First addressing my inner conflicts best allows me to accept outer events. My way out of disaster is to triumph by accepting within. When I become more tolerant this attitude of gratitude renews me.  Such a resilient mindset liberates me. Acceptances frees me to whatever circumstances arise.   Fearless insights liberates me from my selfish emotions.  When my deeds and values align I find harmony. Being of greater service also gets me out of my victimhood. Kind acts heals me. Excess egotism le
Read more

Renewed Light

Image
  It is during our darkest moments that we must focus on the light - Aristotle I am a child of light and my initials are RA. Also this is the name of the ancient Egyptian sun god. Exploring my aversion with darkness allows me greater potential, possibility and purpose since new light always emerges. Winter solstice represents death and rebirth since the sun is at its weakest point. At Xmas it begins a new cycle of rays out of the darkest days. All spiritual traditions celebrate creation itself or this enlightenment of new beginnings. All awakening goes back to the beginning of human consciousness. All ancient people shared being children of light. On the Winter Solstice the sun remains on the Southern Cross constellation for three days. Then on the 25th the sun moves one degree North. It is born and grows out of darkness/death to light/life. We are all new seeds of light being germinated. Our luminous nature is reflected above in the Milky Way starlight. Native people believe w
Read more