Fertilizer bans start Wednesday in the five-county region of the Indian River Lagoon.
The bans also apply in nearly all of the region’s municipalities.
Frequent rains wash fertilizers into the lagoon, feeding the blooms that this spring triggered the worst fish kill in the lagoon in modern history.
Duane De Freese of the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program says the bans are aimed at nitrogen and phosphorus, nutrients at the heart of the lagoon’s problems.
“It’s a bad time to be fertilizing because it wastes fertilizer. But more importantly it transports those nutrients to the Indian River Lagoon, and we know those nutrients can fuel algal blooms.”
The fertilizer bans around the Indian River Lagoon extend through September.
