Protecting Long Island's Drinking Water one Lawn at a Time

Long Island's Drinking Water

The source of drinking water for Long Island’s more than 3 million residents is underground aquifers, which yield over 300 million gallons of water each day. Replenished by rainfall, aquifers easily become contaminated with chemicals applied to and spilled on the ground. Among those chemicals are pesticides and fertilizers used to maintain lawns and landscapes, including golf courses, home lawns and commercial turfgrass and sod.

Long Island Pesticide Pollution Prevention Strategy

The Long Island Pesticide Pollution Prevention strategy, initiated by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation in 2014, is a blueprint for reducing risks of pesticide pollution and protecting water quality while continuing to manage pests effectively.

Our Land Our Water Campaign

NYSIPM plays an educational role in this blueprint and has created a public outreach campaign called Our Land, Our Water, to target Long Islanders with messages reducing inputs to home lawns and landscapes to protect water quality. The main objective is to encourage Long Islanders to consider IPM alternatives to lawn and landscape pesticides and to choose sustainable practices that protect the environment.

Digital Campaign Reach and Messaging

Digital efforts for this campaign reached more than 90,000 people in 2022 and the first quarter of 2023. Through social media posts, quizzes, polls and a dedicated web presence, Long Islanders (and others from throughout the state) learned about invasive weeds and their removal, to avoid fertilizing their lawns before April 1, reasons to consider “grasscycling,” the benefits of leaving fall leaves on the ground rather than raking and a host of other tips for maintaining great looking lawns while saving time and money.