[ApS]

Originally Posted by aopel

"...I am seeing more and more bright green lawns that go right down to the lake..."

IMHO, it's what you don't see that is more sinister.

My Dad mows and fertilizes a green, grassy four acres of lawn ¼-mile from the lake. His sloping lawn puts his rain-runoff to his neighbor's yard, which is nearly six acres of emerald-green lawn: It's only a stone's throw from both lawns to the lake.

As you travel into the hinterlands of the Winnipesaukee Basin, even more clearings are added that require fertilizer.

Originally Posted by aopel

"...I am also seeing weeds in places that I have never seen them in my 45 years on the lake..."

Last year, Mirror Lake—which drains into Lake Winnipesaukee—had the Town of Tuftonboro posting "No Drinking" and "No Swimming" signs due to a blue-green algae bloom. (A poison to man and beast—worse than E. coli—which frequently closes entire beaches in the summer).

I think the greater problem is algae of all types rather than just weeds.

This site quotes a water clarity of 23-feet for Lake Winnipesaukee. With a major 100-acre bulldozing at my back door recently, I couldn't find my mooring block in only 15-feet of water.

Originally Posted by aopel

"...I would like to see an end of the suburbanization of the lakefront and the ensuing decline in water quality that comes with it. The laws are in place, if only we had enforcement...Does anyone know who is responsible for enforcing existing laws and if there are any cases where homeowners have been fined...?"

1) I suspect that there is little meaningful enforcement.

2) Every Autumn, I watch as "something" is hand-cast over that 25-foot lakefront space by local lawn-maintenance guys: whatever it is, it's too easily broadcast to be "just seeds".

3) If you look at Rattlesnake Island any boating day, you'll see large expanses of emerald-green lawns that just replaced forest. Those lawns are in front of brand-new cottages!

4) New Hampshire prefers that its citizens address issues such as this voluntarily. The problem is greater than we can know, however, as "ridge-development" has started to appear all around the Winnipesaukee Basin.

"Mother Great-Spirit" sequestered 30,000 years-worth of nitrogen-rich soil—and a whole lot of that is headed downhill to the Big Lake.

Originally Posted by jrc

"...The wetlands buffer is more than a 100 feet and my lawn stops well before that, so I load it up with the good stuff, looks like a golf course..."

A golf course is good? Isn't "good stuff" what draws Canada Geese—and a whole set of new problems?

(Issues, I meant).

Originally Posted by Rattlesnake Guy

"...One thing you can say about lake front lawns is the owner does have plenty of water available for watering..."

In places where water is bought at a "dear" price, emerald-lawns have been replaced with "xeriscaping", or minimal-maintenance yards.

My retired BIL in Sacramento just dug up his front lawn last week and replaced it with river rock. To his new planters, he added the "natives" that grow in the desert terrain surrounding his huge "Dell-Webb" development. In his case, it's not so much to be "Green", but to save on the expense at the water meter.

We absolutely need the same native plantings—and there are some around.

Having "plenty of water", however, just may be the curse we don't need.