Falmouth Ashumet Plume Citizens Committee- FAPCC       

 

 

 

 

 

 

                Falmouth Selectmen Award More FFL Certificates                                  

 

 

 

 

 

FALMOUTH, June 15: Falmouth Selectmen awarded another 13 Falmouth Friendly Lawn Certificates

at their meeting last night. FFL Certificates give public recognition to undertakings by local organizations to limit their use of lawn fertilizer nitrogen and thereby help protect Falmouth coastal waters from nitrogen pollution. Last night’s action raises the total number of FFL Certificates to 71.

 

Ahmed A Mustafa, Chairman of the Falmouth Board of Selectmen, congratulated the new participants for their dedication to environmentally-responsible lawn care practices and distributed the FFL Certificates.  The Certificates come in frames for wall display. Participants also receive a matching photo of the award taking place. Chairman Mustafa asked town residents to thank participants for their civic leadership wherever they see FFL Certificates on display.

 

All of the new awards use the Light Duty classification, as do the great majority of all other FFL Certificates. Light Duty is for lawns with limited traffic that need no more than 1 lb of nitrogen per 1000 sq ft of turf area for one entire year. That rate, together with recycled clippings and atmospheric deposition, supply the nutrient to keep established lawns healthy while minimizing the leaching of nitrogen into groundwater that eventually discharges into our coastal ponds.

 

“We are nearing the end of FFL Certification for the 2004 season”, John E [Jack] Barnes informed Selectmen, “and look forward to celebrating the successful launch of this outreach campaign next month”.  There still are a number of homeowner and other organizations that are reviewing the program with boards that are becoming more active with the onset of summer. Anyone interested in learning more about FFL Care can email questions to FAPCC volunteers at [email protected].

 

The latest participants include 6 homeowner associations: Seacoast Shores in East Falmouth; Pinecrest Beach and Ashumet Valley in Hatchville; Silver Beach in North Falmouth; and Chapoquoit Associates and Sippewissett Place in West Falmouth. Those associations set examples for their members by limiting the fertilizer they use on their own lawns to 0 to1 lb N/1000 sq ft/year.

 

Three motels and inns also received FFL Certificates: Bed and Breakfast of Waquoit Bay; The Beach Rose Inn in West Falmouth; and the Nautilus Motor Inn in Woods Hole.  These establishments have highly visible lawns and are especially welcome as demonstration sites.  

 

Two more churches, West Falmouth Friends Meeting and John Welsey United Methodist Church, have now joined the program. They raise the total number of churches with FFL Certificates to 9, reaching from Waquoit Bay to Falmouth Village, Woods Hole and North Falmouth. 

 

Falmouth Yacht Club joins Menauhant YC and Waquoit Bay YC in demonstrating their concern for preserving quality coastal waters and encouraging their members to practice FFL Care.

 

Rapoza Landscape and Lawn Care joins 5 other professionals in offering FFL-Certified Care to their customers.  The FFL team is working cooperatively with a limited number of professionals who volunteered at our workshop in February to develop a complete FFL Care program that they can use to promote and help educate their customers about responsible lawn practices.

 

 

Embargoed until 8 am, June 15                                          Contact: Jack Barnes 508.540.2392