March 17, 2023| Environment
By: Michela Sales
This post is part one of a three-part series providing homeowners around Lake Hopatcong with tips and information on ways to improve water quality, which is vital to the ecological health of our lake and our ability to enjoy it. The information in this series has been curated from the Lake Hopatcong Lake-Friendly Living Guide and focuses on the following actions: minimizing runoff, eliminating pollutants, and capturing and infiltrating runoff and pollutants before they enter the lake.
After precipitation events, such as a rainstorm or snowstorm, stormwater that can’t seep into the ground runs over land and surfaces, carrying pollutants such as oil, pesticides, and fertilizers into nearby waterways. This stormwater runoff can lead to a decline in water quality, an increase in weed and algal growth, the erosion of stream banks and shorelines, and harm to aquatic life. Minimizing stormwater runoff is an important step in improving our water quality. Below are three ways you can help minimize runoff on your property.
An impervious surface, such as an asphalt driveway or a cement sidewalk, is a surface that prevents water from being readily absorbed into the ground, leading to stormwater runoff. The more impervious surface on a property, the greater the volume of stormwater runoff.
Homeowners can manage the amount of impervious surface on their property by maintaining a modest sized home (rooftops are impervious surfaces too!) and keeping driveways and sidewalks to a minimum. Another option is to incorporate more pervious surfaces in your landscaping. Pervious surfaces are designed to allow water to pass through them, which helps to recharge groundwater supplies and reduce stormwater runoff. There are many different types of pervious surface options including pervious concrete, porous asphalt, and permeable pavers. Or you can keep it even simpler and use landscaping materials such as gravel, mulch, and crushed stone to create more porous walkways, patios, and driveways.
Illustration courtesy of "Stream Corridor Restoration: Principles, Processes, and Practices" by the Federal Interagency Stream Restoration Working Group.
While lawns have become the standard for homeowners, they are not ideal for minimizing runoff. Turfgrass can be quite dense, and soil is often compacted from heavy machinery during construction, preventing the absorption of water into the ground. Moreover, grass lawns do not have deep root systems that can help to absorb large amounts of water, making them more susceptible to runoff during heavy rainfall events.
Compared to lawns, more naturally wooded areas with multiple layers of vegetation including native trees, shrubs, and plants generally absorb larger amounts of water and filter out pollutants with their more extensive root systems. In addition, native plants are often low maintenance and require less water and fertilizer than traditional lawns, making them a cost-effective and environmentally friendly choice for homeowners.
Shoreline buffers are another great option if you own lakefront property. Shoreline buffers are simply areas of native vegetation (trees, shrubs, plants, and grasses) that are planted along the water's edge. These buffers help to capture runoff and also act as filters, trapping pollutants, and preventing them from entering the lake. They also help to stabilize the shoreline, reducing erosion.
A great way to help minimize runoff is to minimize water usage around the yard. As a homeowner with an irrigation system, be sure to water your yard in the morning or evening, to minimize evaporation during higher temperatures; adjust the irrigation system so only your yard is being watered; install a rain sensor so the irrigation system does not run during precipitation events; install shrubs and groundcovers instead of grass or hard-to-water areas; incorporate organic mulch in your garden to retain moisture; and use drip irrigation for shrubs and trees.
For more information on ways to minimize runoff from one’s property, check out our Lake Friendly-Living Guide. Or visit JerseyYards.org for resources on environmentally friendly landscaping, including the "Interactive Yard” tool, which can help you learn the basics of transforming your yard into a Jersey-Friendly Yard.
By incorporating the above practices, homeowners can help minimize stormwater runoff from their properties, and improve the water quality of Lake Hopatcong.
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