No. Over 45,000 pounds of atrazine, a weed killing chemical, are sold each year in Austin in the very popular weed and feed lawn care products. The highly mobile chemical is not just staying on our lawns, but is also traveling to our creeks and groundwater. Atrazine is showing up frequently at more than 50% of our surface water monitoring sites and 70% of the groundwater monitoring sites city-wide. It has also been detected in 86% of the samples from Barton Springs pool.

While the levels of the chemical detected are fortunately still low, the City of Austin and the Texas Cooperative Extension are launching a new educational program to keep Austin’s water clean. Through Grow Green, their earth-wise landscaping program, they are asking homeowners city-wide to take action now and avoid using weed and feed products.

For the full article, see Wage War on Weeds, not Water

For information on the City of Austin Grow Green program, see Grow Green

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