Healthy Cities Need Healthy Stormwater Ponds - Urban Green, Habitat and Herbicides

Feels like I am stuck in the movie, Groundhog Day starring Bill Murry.  You know, the one where he wakes up in the same room to the same song and everything repeats itself!

Same way with our local governments spraying herbicides into those otherwise healthy stormwater ponds.

Stormwater habitat destroyed with aquatic herbicides

For years we've discussed the concept of 'nutrients in, nutrients out' here in this blog and in other forums.  Simply put, once plants take up and sequester nitrogen, phosphorous and heavy metals they should be harvested out of the stormwater pond and composted, rather than conveniently killed with herbicides and left to decompose in the pond, releasing all the once removed nutrients and toxins right back into the water once more.

Native plant species, Typha sp. killed and left to return sequestered nutrients and toxins back into the water

The concept is so simple I really do not understand why most of our local governments still want to apply herbicides to stormwater ponds instead of simply taking a gas powered hedge trimmer and removing the upper biomass, then composting the collected vegetation.

Well, I can probably guess that the herbicide industry has spent untold dollars in lobby money, lunches out, small gifts, sponsorships of conventions, parties and the like.  After all the good-old-boy network is still alive and well and smoothly functioning!

I am really disappointed in the baby-boomer generation.  Though my hope has always been that the non-conformist ideas of the 60's would change the world, in reality there was little if any change and never will be much change.  As baby-boomers got older and fatter we fell prey to the corporate ideal of 'falling in line' and listening to not having enough energy to do anything that was out of the ordinary. 

So today I am hoping, younger generations, those in their twenties and thirties will actually implement change for the better across our world.

Local governmental decision makers are obviously still taking the easy way out with respect to urban green and habitat.  Poisoning stormwater ponds with mechanized spray is so much easier than harvesting and recomposting.  With spraying herbicides the bureaucratic bunch does not really even have to think!  All they have to do is buy the Roundup or other similar herbicide.  The more herbicide purchased the bigger the holiday parties the regional poison distributor throws, right?

Does anyone in your local public works depart even care that studies may exist showing a correlation between Monsanto's Roundup and Cancer, specifically non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

So in the meantime, while all the migratory birds and other local wildlife are drinking and otherwise using stormwater ponds for habitat (well they once were - until all the vegetation was killed), foraging and communal. local city and county officials are still jumping on the 25,000,000 pounds per year purchasing program of the poison.

No wonder our once healthy cities are becoming unhealthy.

No wonder wildlife, migratory birds, insects and pollinators are fleeing the urban core.

What is  it going to take to get it?

Are we finally ever going to vote into office those who want to be good land stewards instead of good corporate supporters?

Hello young folk!  What are you going to do to fix the mess we baby boomers have created?