TOMS RIVER, NJ — Ocean County, NJ, officials are moving closer to regulating lawn fertilizer use in an effort to control unwanted plant growth in Barnegat Bay, reports the Asbury Park Press.

The Ocean County Health Department is planning to draft a sanitation ordinance to regulate use of lawn fertilizer, which researchers say is a major source of excess nutrients that flow into Barnegat Bay tributaries like the Toms and Metedeconk rivers, and contributing to explosive blooms of phytoplanton and masses of algae. The health department is concerned that excess nutrients are changing the bay's ecology, making it more attractive for invasive species, such as stinging jellfish.

The officials met with the marketing agency Salter-Mitchell/Marketing for Change to consider a campaign to get residents to buy into the idea that low fertilizer use relates to regional pride of place and lifestyle, similar to the program in place in the Chesapeake watershed.

Ocean County health officials are asking other agencies and groups how a fertilizer ordinance would be enforced and what kind of public support it would have. The department is also researching legal issues examining a model ordinance the DEP has drawn up, as part of a similar regional effort to reduce phosphorus-based nutrients in northern New Jersey's Passaic River watershed, reports the newspaper.

"County has model in bid to curb fertilizer use," by the Asbury Park Press, Feb. 9, 2009