You can have an immediate, positive impact on the health of our coastal waters if you stop using fertilizers and pesticides. Our BayScaping program works with Casco Bay communities to keep lawn chemicals from polluting the Bay.

Pesticides are getting into Casco Bay

Stormwater testing by Friends of Casco Bay found that rain picks up pesticides as it runs off into Casco Bay. Our goal was simply to determine “presence” or “absence” of pesticides in the runoff. Lab analysis of the jars of rainwater we collected, between 2001 and 2009, identified 10 different pesticides at 13 coastal communities from South Portland to Brunswick.

Our lawn fertilizers are over-fertilizing the Bay.

We also tested for and found excess nitrogen and phosphorous, key components of fertilizer, all around the Bay. These nutrients can pollute drinking water wells, and when washed downstream can cause algal blooms, degrade marine water quality, and create conditions that worsen coastal acidification.

We created our BayScaping Program as a public education campaign to stop pollution from lawn care practices. BayScaping reaches out to homeowners to encourage them to reduce their use of pesticides and fertilizers.

• Download our BayScaping documents and follow these tips:
  • BayScaping: Casco Bay begins in your backyard
  • An important conversation with your lawn care professional

Working at the local, state, and national levels

Many Maine homeowners still use pesticides and fertilizers. We became involved in “grassroots efforts” with local communities that are developing ordinances to restrict or ban lawn chemicals. Our data on pesticides and nitrogen runoff have been requested by communities such as South Portland, Portland, Harpswell, and Falmouth.

Maine is one of only seven states and the District of Columbia that allow local governments—using home rule—to restrict the use of pesticides.

Friends of Casco Bay’s data and BayScaping information helped South Portland enact an ordinance in 2016 that restricts the use of synthetic pesticides on public and private properties. Executive Director Cathy Ramsdell served on a 2018 citizen’s task force that led to the passage of a similar ordinance in Portland.

In 2019, Cathy was recruited to serve on a Working Group to draft an ordinance to regulate fertilizers in the City of South Portland. In 2020, the City of South Portland passed an ordinance to restrict the use of fertilizers in order to encourage soil health and reduce nitrogen pollution into our coastal waters. In 2021, Portland’s Pesticide Management Advisory Committee recommended the city ban use of synthetic fertilizers.  We will continue to sound the alarm about the need for communities to adopt restrictions on the use of lawn care products.

Two dozen Maine communities have passed ordinances controlling or banning the
use of pesticides. A list of ordinances in Maine communities can be found at
http://www.maine.gov/dacf/php/pesticides/public/municipal_ordinances.shtml.

Additional resources:

• Grow Healthy South Portland, including their Landcare Management Ordinance, which covers both pesticide and fertilizer use, and soil quality requirements for new development.  
• Portland Pesticides ordinance

What you can do to reduce use of lawn chemicals

• Download and follow our BayScaping tips for a green lawn and a blue Bay:
  • BayScaping: Casco Bay begins in your backyard
  • An important conversation with your lawn care professional
• Post a BayScaping sign in your yard.
• If you hire a professional to care for your lawn, encourage them to follow the procedures laid out in Recommendations for Lawns Based on Water Quality Considerations.
• Keep pets off any lawn, park, or school grounds where you think pesticides have been used.*
• Become a Water Reporter. Our volunteer observing network tracks the spread of algal blooms around Casco Bay. We use that information to alert the State to changes in our coastal waters.
• Sign up for our emails so you can stay informed about this issue.

Get advice and use these resources to help you:

• Yardscaping: Cumberland County Soil & Water Conservation District
• Grow Healthy South Portland
• Portland Pesticides ordinance

Cover photo: Photograph by Kevin Morris • Aerial support provided by LightHawk

*A study at Tufts University’s Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine found that exposure to lawn pesticides, specifically those applied by professional lawn care companies, raised the risk of canine malignant lymphoma by as much as 70%.

A study at the Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences at Purdue University concluded certain garden and lawn chemicals are linked to canine bladder cancer, including common herbicides containing 2,4-D, MCPP, and/or Dicamba (all pesticides that Friends of Casco Bay detected in stormwater flowing into Casco Bay).

More on BayScaping: