EDITOR’S DESK

What’s Your Nitrogen Footprint?
Most of us are familiar with the concept of a carbon footprint – how our day-to-day activities impact climate change – but fewer people know how their behavior impacts Tampa Bay. The nation’s first-ever nitrogen footprint calculator, developed by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, helps you identify activities that could harm Tampa Bay.

Across the board, behaviors that reduce greenhouse gasses also minimize nitrogen emissions. For instance, burning fossil fuels to generate electricity and drive automobiles creates about 40% of the nitrogen that enters Tampa Bay. Manufacturing chemical fertilizers, which are made with natural gas, produces nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than CO2. Then fertilizer that leaches from yards across the watershed is a significant source of nitrogen loadings in Tampa Bay.

From a more positive perspective, growing trees capture both carbon dioxide and nitrogen and can help homeowners save up to 30% of their air-conditioning costs.

The primary difference between Tampa Bay and Chesapeake Bay is sewage disposal. The 1972 Wilson-Grizzle Act requires that any sewage released into Tampa Bay be treated with advanced methods that remove most of the nitrogen in the water. On the other hand, officials in the Chesapeake Bay watershed are still educating residents about the importance of improved sewage treatment and searching for funds to pay for upgrades.
So while your score on the Chesapeake chart might not correlate exactly with your impact on Tampa Bay, it’s a great way to take a new look at how you can help!

Visit www.cbf.org/yourbayfootprint.