Interested in improving water quality?
Karen Terry, a retired water resources educator with the University of Minnesota Extension, offered tips in her “Lawns and Lakes: There is a Connection” program.
The virtual workshop was co-sponsored by Hubbard County Extension Office and the Hubbard County Coalition of Lake Associations.
“There is no new water,” Terry emphasized. “The water that we have in the lake is the same water that we’ve had on this ball of Earth for all these years. We don’t make new water. We don’t lose water. It just gets reshuffled around the earth” in a cyclical process.
Water is affected by land use changes, climate, soil, vegetation and topography. “What’s going on around the water drives how it reacts,” she said.
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Hubbard County sits within three watersheds, meaning excess surface water in a watershed drains to a specific location. There are 80 major watersheds in Minnesota.
Terry said that second tier development “seems to be the largest risk to the lakes in Hubbard County. Once the second tier is developed, the drainage in the lakeshed changes and more runoff reaches the lake from impervious surfaces and lawns.”
Terry said property owners have “the mindset of we collect the water. We convey it off our house with downspouts. We send it away – concentrate it into ditches, gutters or valleys and then it ends up going down a drain somewhere before it goes into the lake.”
Stormwater runoff carries pollutants to the nearest lakes or rivers, she said.
“The trick is we want to take that lake home and make it function hydrologically more like pre-development,” Terry said.
The solution is slowing the flow of water, holding it on the landscape, letting it soak into the ground and using plants to take up nutrients. “We want to intercept the runoff before it reaches the lake,” she said.
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Terry said native plants, trees and shrubs can capture rainfall and filter out pollutants.
For example, trees that hang over impervious surfaces can reduce stormwater runoff by 20 percent, she noted.
Creating a buffer strip – a zone of native plants between the lake and the lawn – will act as a biofilter, protecting the lake from sediment and nutrients while also protecting the shore from wave action.
Keith Manlove, a University of Minnesota master gardener, said, “There are native plants that will thrive in every growing condition.”
More information about native plants are listed at “Restore Your Shore” page on the Minnesota DNR website (www.dnr.state.mn.us/rys/pg/index.html).
“All these plants are beautiful, but if you knit them together in a cohesive tapestry, you get something that is truly beautiful. Not only that, it is an endless source of entertainment. You will have a steady stream of birds, pollinators and dragonflies that are visiting your shore. Quite frankly, a turf grass lawn is quite boring,” Manlove said.
Other means of slowing down runoff are rain gardens, rain barrels and grassed swales.
