soil testing/analysis

[gudkarma]

farmers,

i have an issue with an asshole neighbor that's been dumping highly chloronated (pool) water, by purging his filter 15 to 20 minutes twice a week, into my side yard.

the water collects around my garage area where i have a 33 year old, unqiue looking, mountain holly.

this is our first year in the house, i had been doing more work inside than outside... until this spring / summer.

in the spring, and after a super harsh winter, i noticed the mountain holly appeared to be heavily diseased & stressed - with dead spots in the canopy and nearly every leaf having brown, circular, spots.

working in landscaping as a teen, and having a cousin who owns a tree remoaval & tree care company, we assumed (not knowing about the chlorine dumping) the tree had a fungus ...and treated with some general fungicide he's qualified to use in his line of work.

no luck... and the spots on the leaves are worse than ever.

as well, there is an unusual amount of mosquitos in said area.

and, the inside of my garage is way too humid all the time.

this week, i finally caught my asshole neighbor dumping his pool water into my yard & called the code office. of course, this dick lied to the code officer.

i want to have the soil in this area tested to prove my theory ...that this dick has been dumping on the (my) property for years.

after googling & selecting a few of the first labs to come up, i am having no luck with responses.

anybody know a lab that can do this for me?

or other suggestions?

thanks in advance.

 

[Misterdirt]

The chlorinated pool water is probably making the soil too basic, and it also may be killing beneficial microorganisms, including mycorrhizal fungi. Most hollies like acidic soils, and I believe all develop mycorrhizal relationships with fungi.

Take some soil samples from around your yard, especially samples under acid-loving plants, and send them in to a lab for pH and buffer pH. Take a separate sample for the side yard in question. This will give you the proof, but it might not be enough if you want to take the guy to court. You'd probably need a soil scientist who will put together "chain of custody" documentation for the samples if you wanted to use the evidence in a court of law.

This may not be worth your time and money, only you can determine that. Setting up some video surveillance might be a lot cheaper.

But I think for the sake of saving the holly, doing the soil tests will let you figure out how to remediate the soil, once the dickhead stops dumping pool water.