The West Tisbury selectmen said this week they will move ahead with a comprehensive watershed study for the Mill Pond, putting the question of whether to dredge the historic pond on hold — at least for now.
The fate of the pond and whether to dredge it has been the subject of heated discussion in town for the past year.
The Mill Pond and its upstream cousins: Mill, Priester, Crocker, Fisher (also known as Woods), plus two or more smaller ponds, each with dams, are eco-gems strung together by a silver chain — the Mill Brook.
West Tisbury selectmen this week called for a comprehensive study of the Mill Pond watershed before any decisions are made about dredging the historic pond.
At their meeting Wednesday, the selectmen asked the Mill Pond committee to draft a warrant article for a special town meeting in November that would include details of the scope of work needed to study the watershed system. The watershed includes Mill Pond, Mill Brook, Tiasquam River, Priester’s Pond and Scotchman’s Lane.
The West Tisbury selectmen and town conservation commission on Wednesday differed briefly over a proposal to create a committee to oversee the cleanup of Mill Pond, the popular 2.5-acre waterway next to the town police station.
After receiving a petition from residents last year urging the appointment of a special committee to study Mill Pond and recommend changes, selectmen pushed for the creation of the panel and even started to recruit potential members, including several residents with backgrounds researching ponds and watersheds.
To dredge or not to dredge? That is the question currently being bandied about in West Tisbury.
A specially-appointed research committee has split over whether to dredge Mill Pond, the historic man-made pond that graces the entrance to town on the Edgartown-West Tisbury Road adjacent to the police station. Two of the committee members, Bob Woodruff and Craig Saunders, believe that dredging is necessary to prevent the pond from drying up and disappearing forever.
More than 50 people crowded into the reading room at the West Tisbury Public Library on Saturday to hear Beth Lambert, river restoration program coordinator for the state Division of Ecological Restoration, discuss the state’s policy of dam destruction as a way of restoring natural stream ecology.
The discussion presented last Saturday by Beth Lambert, the river restoration program coordinator for the commonwealth’s Division of Ecological Restoration offered a new perspective and other possibilities for us to consider. I want to thank Prudy Burt and the West Tisbury Library staff for hosting this talk. After listening, there appear to be more options available to the town that are worthy of discussion.
The town of West Tisbury has begun a discussion about what, if anything, should be done to maintain the Mill Pond, a man-made impoundment of the Mill Brook in the center of West Tisbury. So far, the discussion has focused mainly on dredging the pond again; the pond was last dredged in 1970.
Opinions on the future of Mill Pond and the future of Mill Brook were more varied than the options at a Saturday afternoon forum held at the West Tisbury Library. The townspeople and others who packed the meeting room kept coming back to a central point: The pond and the brook that feeds it are among the town’s most valued resources and worthy of concern and some kind of action.
Without any action, experts say the pond will continue to choke as more and more sediment and organic materials continue to arrive and fill it.
Over 50 people turned out to hear Michael Hopper, president of the Sea Run Brook Trout Coalition, talk about the successes and lessons learned from stream restoration efforts at Red Brook in Wareham, and the Quashnet River in Falmouth, and how those could be considered in the discussion about our own Mill Pond/Mill Brook. The program was taped by MVTV and will air daily for the next three weeks. Additionally, a DVD of Michael’s presentation is in circulation at the West Tisbury Library.
