there needs to be a law....

[1/4 stick]

Originally Posted by Abbeysdad

I was speaking more of organic soil enrichment.

Compost.

Either till the leaves back in the soil or let it rot in a pile and become compost to mix with the soil. Veggies and flowers love that stuff. It puts the nutrients back in the soil that the plants suck up through the growing season.

Though I'm not sure it would be so great for the fishes if a lot of extra leaves got dumped in a lake. Too much of anything can mess up the natural balance of the waters ph.

[BassinID]

Originally Posted by 1/4 stick

Compost.

Either till the leaves back in the soil or let it rot in a pile and become compost to mix with the soil. Veggies and flowers love that stuff. It puts the nutrients back in the soil that the plants suck up through the growing season.

.

Key words are rot, otherwise leaves are chock full of tannens and celulose and those take tuns of nitrogen to break down. They will eventually dump the nitrogen and the nitrogen fixers back into the environment, but it may take years depending on the leaves (oak) and in that time the soil or water as the case may be suffers nitrogen deficiencies, then when they do dump the nitrogen and nitrogen fixers, along with the nutrients that they carried, it happens in a relatively short time frame and when in water that combined with heat can cause a serious algae bloom which then deprives the surrounding area of oxygen rendering it stagnant. Multiply this by dozens if not hundreds of homeowners and you are screwing up some major fish habitat.

Zook, environmental issues like this are usually taken very seriously by state legislators. If you could write up an elegant letter or even a bill (aka talk to wtl) then I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if you could get something done about it. Not that means that it will be strongly enforced, but if its brought to the public's attention then the frequency of occurrences will likely drop.