The lawn care

habits of Peachtree City residents are being studied by a group of scientists

from the University of Georgia on behalf of the federal Environmental

Protection Agency.

The three-year

study, which began in March, has been funded by the EPA in the form of

a $893,849 grant.

The scientists

will also analyze the stormwater runoff from yards in residential neighborhoods

for pesticides and nutrients typically used to enhance lawns, said Kevin

Armbrust, a UGA professor who's an environmental chemist and toxicologist

and a Peachtree City resident himself.

Water and sediment

samples will be taken from small streams in town on a monthly basis and

also when there are periods of heavy rainfall, Armbrust said, adding that

the local Adopt-A-Stream program will help perform samples as well. The

results from those tests should indicate if the pesticides and nutrients

are having an impact on aquatic life, Armbrust added.

"We want

to look at the biological effects on the organisms that live in these

streams," he said.

Even a small

release of pesticides and nutrients could lead to a severe impact on aquatic

organisms such as mussels and algae, Armburst said.

The samples

will be tested for pesticides that have been broken down naturally, since

those by-products can sometimes be more detrimental that the original

formula of the pesticide, Armbrust added.

The biological

inquiry is only the beginning of the study's scope. Peachtree City homeowners

will be interviewed to determine how they take care of their lawns, Armbrust

said.

The group hopes

to break down those habits into socioeconomic factors in other words comparing

results from neighborhoods with high home values to homes with lower home

values, Armbrust said.

That will help

the social scientists determine if there is a difference of lawn care

practices between the socioeconomic extremes, Armbrust said. He suspects

that residents with more expensive homes might use professional lawn application

services, while other residents might tend to take the do-it-yourself

approach.

"We want

to try to determine why people make the lawn care choices they do and

why they want their lawns to be green," Armbrust said.

All told, the

study group includes a chemical toxicologist, a nutrient chemist, a social

anthropologist, a social economist, an entomologist, an extreme ecologist

and an aquatic ecologist, Armbrust said.

Since Peachtree

City is a planned community, it was the best location in metro Atlanta

to perform a study like this, Armbrust said.

The study is

important for the EPA, which is beginning to look into home lawn treatments

as possible sources of contamination, Armbrust added.

"The EPA

is starting to look more closely at this," Armburst said. "There's

not a lot of data out there for this purpose. Though other studies have

been done, this will be the most comprehensive work on it."