Baltimore-State fisheries crews believe fertilizer runoff is a factor – but not the only one – for the deaths of 500 or more fish, including rainbow trout, the day after they were stocked in a 12-acre man-made pond at Lake Waterford. Some 720 trout were placed in the lake March 22. “While fertilizer is a likely factor, we cannot quantify how much of a factor it would have been,” Maryland Environmental Department spokesman Jay Apperson told Green Markets. “Any source of nutrients in the watershed would be suspect. Lake Waterford is an example of an urban water body where factors like stormwater runoff, especially runoff with lawn fertilizers and sewage spills, and wildlife, such as geese and ducks, make for too much nitrogen and phosphorus. The situation illustrates the need to control stormwater runoff.” Water sampling showed oxygen levels below normal at one part per million at the surface and zero parts per million underwater.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain