Seth’s Pond in West Tisbury has been closed until further notice due to high levels of bacteria, health agent John Powers announced Tuesday.
The freshwater pond was re-tested today, Mr. Powers said; it will be reopened pending the return of clean water samples.
This is the second time the popular swimming pond off Lambert’s Cove Road has been closed this season. In June the pond was briefly closed when a water sample showed high levels of enterococcus bacteria.
Part of the Tisbury Great Pond is about to become an oyster reef, thanks to a project sponsored by The Nature Conservancy and the towns of Chilmark and West Tisbury.
The propagation projects calls for putting down 100 cubic yards of sea clam shells as culch and then planting 250,000 juvenile oysters.
A dozen volunteers gathered at the Lagoon Pond last Saturday morning to do something no one could recall being done on the Vineyard. They came to harvest floating mats of algae in Mud Creek in Vineyard Haven. It was both an experiment and a beginning for an expanding effort to manage and improve the water quality in coastal ponds.
While nitrogen-rich water can be a boon to plants, it has led to declining water quality and pond health and the disappearance of eelgrass beds. One way to combat the problem, the Lagoon Pond Association says, is to save and reuse nutrient-rich rainwater, thereby preventing it from draining into our ponds.
In an effort to lower nitrogen amounts in Sengekontacket Pond, Edgartown and Oak Bluffs are embarking on a yearly project to grow oysters in the Major’s Cove area of the pond.
In Edgartown, shellfish constable Paul Bagnall told selectmen Tuesday that the shellfish committee is proposing spending $24,000 on 250,000 oyster seed for the pond. The original plan was to spend $48,500 on 500,000 oysters, but the amount was reduced because of the number of articles submitted for town meeting.
A floating raft of plants and flowers bobs atop a pond, quietly removing excess nitrogen.
This is the surface of an aquatic restorer — one of John Todd’s many alternative clean water solutions he described to shellfish constables, harbor masters and others at the Tisbury senior center Thursday evening, in a talk hosted by Tisbury Waterways Inc.
A pair of quahauggers stood waist-deep in Sengekontacket Pond early Thursday morning, the late August sun glinting off the calm water as they raked hardshell clams, perhaps a basketful for their dinner. The pond has been open to summer shellfishing this year for the first time since 2007.
Septic discharge from the Bridge housing project could pose a
problem for neighboring wells, the Martha's Vineyard Commission
water quality planner said last week.
A new round of private well tests in an Edgartown neighborhood this week intensified the mystery for Island officials working to pinpoint the source of groundwater contamination spreading through the West Tisbury Road subdivision.
"It's too much of a puzzle, too many unknowns at this point," said Matthew Poole, Edgartown health agent, noting that now 20 per cent of the homes tested have water unsafe for drinking.
Edgartown, Oak Bluffs, Vineyard Haven and West Tisbury town officials received their marching orders this month - recommendations for steps these Island towns should take to protect and enhance public water supplies in order to keep pace with future development.
