LIforrelaxin-
Yup, if you stopped doing the yard work for a couple of seasons there might be an increase in the amount of pine needles and leaf litter that make it to the lake...but the fact is that for thousands of years there was no one on the lake to do yard work and the lake was just fine. It is an ecological system that developed with a consistent, annual budget of leaf litter coming into it. If you speak to someone with a fisheries background as well as many ecologists they'll tell you that the majority of northern lakes would be sterile if not for the leaf litter accumulation. It provides the base for the food chain.
Having now admitted that some organic matter is a good thing (btw - some people will COMPLETELY disagree with the idea that ANY leaf litter is good) we often get the response that if some is good, more must be better, and people should be advised to dump leaves in the water. This is not a good idea. First off, your neighbors will probably not appreciate you mucking up their swimming area with leaves that will get all icky in a couple of years. (Neighbors can be funny that way but you do have to live next to them.) Second it creates a concentration of nutrients in the deposition area that will cause localized problems such as algae blooms. A small amount of organic matter spread over a large area is a good thing; a large amount in a small area is not. Another question that we get is, "if leaf litter is ok, why is fertilizer bad?" The best way I can explain this may be with an anology. The lake needs a certain amount of nutrients to function properly as an ecological system just like people need food. Natural deposition of leaf litter is like eating a salad, whereas fertilizer is like sucking down a bottle of chocolate syrup. It might sound like a good idea but it will just mess you up in the long run.
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