Signs of clean up coming

By Kate Benway
HippoPress.com

Art Grindle wants to get residents involved in the clean-up of Manchester's ponds.

Head of the city's Manchester urban ponds restoration program, Grindle hopes to increase public awareness of the pollutants that can wind up in local waterways.

"One of the major parts of the program is education and outreach, we want to inform residents about the issues around the ponds and let them know that they can help make things better," Grindle said.

The program will mark the watersheds-the area of dry land where run-off drains into a nearby pond-with signs at more than half a dozen area waterways.

"No one is isolated, everyone is in the watershed," Grindle said. "The signs will be placed on streets that happen to fall across watershed boundaries to raise awareness."

Staring Oct. 29, signs will go up at Crystal Lake as well as Dorrs, Maxwell, McQuesten, Nutts, Pine Island and Stevens ponds.

Grindle said some ponds contain more pollution than others but that the "soupy, pea-green color" of the water of some city ponds is due to the foreign nutrients seeping through the watersheds. Substances such as lawn fertilizers that have made their way into the ponds have cause algae to bloom for up to three seasons in some ponds.

"If we see an algae bloom for more than a few days, it's cause for alarm, but some of the worst ponds have sustained algae blooms from spring to fall," Grindle said. "The more nutrients feeding the ponds through the watersheds, the worse it is."

He hopes that by teaching people about how that land around water source can affect the water itself, Manchester ponds will see a drop in pollution levels.

"If the people in the area of the ponds can get behind the idea and build long term support for our conservation efforts, we can turn things around," Grindle said.

Residents can help out my keeping land clearing to a minimum, keeping roads and paths leading to the ponds curved to reduce erosion, keeping fertilizer away from the shores of the ponds and by not feeding ducks.

The pond project has a five-year budget of about $1 million and the goal of restoring the seven city ponds. Preservation societies have worked with city officials on projects such as gathering information about the current state of the ponds.

Kate Benway can be reached at hippo@hippopress.com