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How to Manage Pests

Quick Tips for Managing Home and Landscape Pests

water quality banner
Safe Use and Disposal of Pesticides For more information see our in-depth discussion of pesticides and water quality, or contact your local cooperative extension office.

California’s waterways are being polluted by home and garden pesticides and fertilizers. Problems occur when people dump garden chemicals down drains or when chemical residues are washed into gutters, storm drains, and streams by rain, garden watering, or cleaning up with the garden hose. Garden chemicals not only threaten aquatic life, they can also affect the quality of our drinking water. Follow these tips to keep our rivers, creeks, and oceans clean.

What Can You Do To Protect Water Quality?

  • Limit your use of pesticides. Use nonchemical methods or least-toxic pesticides wherever possible. Ask a UC Master Gardener for help with pest problems.
  • Avoid using pyrethroid insecticides. These products, including bifenthrin, cypermethrin, and permethrin, are among the most toxic to aquatic animals.
  • Control ants by reducing food sources, excluding them from homes, and using baits in containers, instead of spraying. Don’t use insecticides for lawn insects unless you are sure you have a problem.
  • Cut back on fertilizer. More is not better. Actively growing turf, flowering shrubs, and some annuals and fruit trees require regular feeding, but ornamental trees do not. Use a mulching mower to recycle lawn clippings and reduce your fertilizer applications.
  • Use slow-release fertilizers, including composted organic fertilizers, which are less likely to move into water. Be sure to measure and apply them according to label directions.
  • Don’t let fertilizer or pesticides get onto hard surfaces like sidewalks or driveways. Sweep any material that accidentally lands on hard surfaces back onto lawn.
  • Dispose of garden chemicals correctly. Never sweep, hose off, or pour leftover pesticides or fertilizers into drains or gutters. Dispose of unused products at your local household hazardous waste site.

Call 1-800-CLEANUP (1-800-253-2687) for a site near you!

Reduce Runoff by Making Your Landscape Water Efficient!

  • Reduce your landscape’s need for water. Choose water-efficient plants and garden designs.
  • Minimize runoff by using mulches in beds and permeable materials for walkways and driveways. Aerate and add organic matter such as compost to heavy or compacted soils. Install terraces or other features on slopes to keep water on-site.
  • Check and maintain your irrigation system so water does not run off your landscape onto hard surfaces and into gutters.
  • Improve watering efficiency and distribution by using equipment such as drip irrigation, soaker hoses, and “smart” irrigation controllers and rotor heads.

water quality


Minimize the use of pesticides that pollute our waterways. Use nonchemical alternatives or less toxic pesticide products whenever possible. Read product labels carefully and follow instructions on proper use, storage, and disposal.

What you use in your landscape affects our rivers and oceans!


Statewide IPM Program, Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of California
All contents copyright © 2008 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

For noncommercial purposes only, any Web site may link directly to this page. FOR ALL OTHER USES or more information, read Legal Notices. Unfortunately, we cannot provide individual solutions to specific pest problems. See How to manage pests, or in the U.S., contact your local Cooperative Extension office for assistance. /QT/waterqualitycard.html revised: April 14, 2008. Contact webmaster.