Healthy soil is a balanced community of soil critters.

About 1 percent are pests, while all of the other species can benefit your lawn and garden. When we use chemicals on our lawns and gardens in an attempt to get rid of that pesky 1 percent, we need to know the potential impact of those chemicals.

Studies on pesticide use reveal that homeowners are applying chemicals at a rate per acre that is 10 times more than farmers use; that pesticide use has doubled in the past three decades; that Americans use 1,200,000,000 pounds of pesticides per year. Research indicates that indiscriminate pesticide use actually could be counterproductive.

As homeowners, we need to keep in mind that pesticide use can:

- Unintentionally kill organisms that act as beneficial, predator species and promote healthy lawns

- Destroy 60 to 90 percent of earthworms in the soil

- Kill honeybees, which are essential for the pollination of many crops

- Kill birds.

The impact of pesticides reaches beyond our property boundaries.

Pesticides are now found routinely in tap water since water plant filtration systems are not capable of removing all traces of pesticide chemicals. That's because when it rains, what is on our lawn is carried away and deposited in streams and lakes or percolates into groundwater.

The pesticides that enter waterways harm fish and other aquatic animals by hurting their respiration, reproduction, growth and development and reduce the food supply for young fish by killing small plankton-like organisms. Pesticides also can accumulate in the tissue of aquatic organisms, leading to even higher levels in large game fish and fish-eating birds of prey.

If you would like to cut back or eliminate chemical pesticide use at your home, an effective approach is to work with nature.

Plant native plants to take advantage of the natural hardiness that these plants have developed over generations. These are plants that find conditions in the Moraine Watershed just right without the use of pesticides.

Native plants also support native birds, butterflies and other wildlife.

Native plants don't require much work to maintain, so on top of giving the environment a break, you also save money, time and energy.