If Winnetka trustees approve it at their next board meeting on Feb. 7, a new ordinance could ban residents from using phosphorus-containing fertilizer on their properties under all but a few circumstances.
Trustees first considered the ban, which was recommended by the village’s Environmental and Forestry Commission, at their Jan. 17 meeting. Public Works Director Steve Saunders said the commission studied the proposed ban starting last July, after the Village Board directed it to do so.
Some levels of phosphorus, which naturally occurs in nature, are necessary for plant life, Saunders said, but too much phosphorus running off into rivers and lakes can degrade water quality by spurring the growth of algae, which in turn cuts down on oxygen levels and, eventually, biodiversity in those bodies of water. The state Environmental Protection Agency lists the Skokie River and Lake Michigan as being impaired with phosphorus, he said.
Saunders said Illinois already bans large-scale commercial companies such as TruGreen from using phosphorus-containing fertilizers, and many Chicago-area suburbs, including Vernon Hills, Mundelein, Grayslake and Libertyville, have passed local bans to extend that to the local level.
The proposed Winnetka ordinance does have exceptions similar to those included in other villages’ regulations, Saunders said; people could use phosphorus-containing fertilizers like Miracle-Gro on newly installed lawns, in vegetable gardens or in areas where there isn’t enough naturally occurring phosphorus. The new regulation would also allow the village’s Public Works Department to inject phosphorus into the soil around new or stressed parkway trees, he said.
Saunders told Trustee Kristin Ziv that rather than issuing a lot of municipal ordinance tickets against scofflaws, the ban would likely focus on educating Winnetka consumers, in part by requiring retailers to post signs about the phosphorus ban.
“We’re not going to be going around tearing the ingredient lists off bags of fertilizers in people’s garages,” he said.
When Trustee Scott Myers asked if the ban would apply to park district properties or golf courses, Saunders said it would apply to properties within village borders. That would exclude the Indian Hill Club, which lies outside Winnetka, he said.
Trustee Penny Lanphier, who serves on Environmental and Forestry Commission, said the group wants to gather more information on other harmful chemicals that could be found in fertilizers or pesticides. Keeping village water supplies as clean as possible could also play a valuable part in Winnetka’s current talks with the county, the park district and area school districts, as it looks for places to store stormwater, she said.
“We don’t want to ramp up on public communications until we can have better overall communications on all the kinds of compounds we need to be concerned about,” she said.
According to minutes of the commission’s November meeting, Lanphier suggested adding nitrogen to the ban, but the commission eventually decided to make the phosphorus recommendation, and to consider other potential chemical bans later. According to minutes of the commission’s September meeting, commission members also wanted to discuss herbicides, pesticides and fungicides.
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