The Scotts Miracle-Gro Foundation announced today a creative collaboration with Andy Mann, globally acclaimed adventure and environmental photographer. Mann will document U.S. watersheds affected by harmful algal blooms, bringing to life how toxic blooms fed by nutrient runoff are affecting communities across the United States.
“Water is the biggest environmental priority of The Scotts Miracle-Gro Foundation” said Jim King, Foundation president. “Our company is proud of everything we’ve done to protect water resources, but we also know that algae blooms represent an under-recognized global crisis. The goal of our Foundation related to this issue is two-fold – to create more public awareness about this crisis and to fund the efforts of environmental partners across the country who are trying to solve it”.
Driven by excess phosphorus, harmful algal blooms pollute fresh waterways in all 50 states. Over the last decade The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company has taken action to prevent local nutrient pollution from lawn and garden activity by removing phosphorus from its traditional lawn fertilizer products sold under the Scotts® brand. The move has reduced consumer use of phosphorus by 10,000 tons each year. Unfortunately, more than 10 million metric tons of phosphorus continues to flow into freshwater from other sources annually.
Demonstrating its ongoing commitment to this issue, The Scotts Miracle-Gro Foundation has established a national Water Positive™ initiative dedicated to protecting freshwater in key regions and uniting citizens, scientists, and communities in finding a lasting solution for excess phosphorus.
The creative collaboration with Mann will also focus on The Scotts Miracle-Gro Foundation’s multi-year sponsorship of the Everglades Foundation’s George Barley Water Prize, the world’s largest water prize. This prize competition, now in its third stage, awards $10 million to the person or team developing the most cost-effective, scalable technology to remove phosphorus – the root cause of harmful algal blooms – from freshwater sources.
“Few people in the world are capable of capturing images that depict the beauty of nature while simultaneously showing the damage being inflected on the environment from algae pollution. Andy’s work will capture this issue in ways that greatly enhances awareness for millions of people.” said King.
Mann has captured stories from key watersheds affected by algal blooms, including the Florida Everglades, Lake Erie, Chesapeake Bay and the Long Island Sound. He will share the culmination of his work through a photo and video docuseries to be revealed on World Water Day in March 2018.
Follow Mann’s journey documenting these waterways at www.instagram.com/andy_mann/
And at www.instagram.com/ScottsMGroFoundation.
For additional information on water quality issues and solutions, visit www.scottsmiraclegrofoundation.org.
