Edgartown Great Pond

dredge

Dredge Report: Nessie Makes a Splash

Nessie is her name. A new dredge for the Edgartown Great Pond was launched on Wednesday afternoon before a crowd of 50 friends and riparian owners around the pond. Nessie will begin her work in November by dredging the bottom and helping to improve circulation in the pond. The first project will involve removing a sandbar that has built up in the pond near the site where it is opened to the sea. Dredging the area is expected to make future openings to the sea stay open for longer periods of time. Other dredging projects will follow.

Nessie Headed to Edgartown Great Pond

Nessie is not a sea monster but a portable cutterhead dredge, acquired by the Great Pond Foundation to increase the effectiveness of the Edgartown Great Pond’s openings to the sea, which are essential in improving the water quality and health of the pond.

Great Ponds, Great Places

“Oh, The Places You Will Go!”

Dr. Seuss was prophetic (and likely his words and works always will be). I have been lucky to have been able to go to many wild and wonderful places both near andfar. The places that inspire me most are always close to water.

video

The Great Chase: Opening of the Pond Attracts Herring, Bass and Fishermen

Paul Bagnall has seen many cuts, the trenches of sand dug to connect pond and ocean, but they’re all a little different.

As shellfish constable Mr. Bagnall oversees the opening of Edgartown Great Pond between three and five times a year. The opening resalinates the pond, purges nutrients and allows shellfish to thrive. It also fills the pond with herring and striped bass, much to the delight of local fishermen.

Blooming Algae in Edgartown Great Pond

Tracing the Problem

The algal bloom in Edgartown Great Pond has prompted much well-justified discussion and concern.The following is intended to provide a little additional detail on prospective solutions to improve the health of the pond.

Green and Ominous

Green and Ominous

The Edgartown Great Pond is in trouble, its brackish waters out of balance and at the outer limit of their capacity to carry nitrogen. This is a well-known fact, thoroughly documented in the Massachusetts Estuaries Project draft report for the pond which was obtained by this newspaper, published on its Web site and written about a year ago this summer.

algae

Great Pond Algae Bloom Cause for Serious Study

Experts are mystified by the bloom of an unknown type of algae this summer on the Edgartown Great Pond that has covered acres of the pond’s surface, choking out light to eelgrass beds and then sinking onto shellfish beds.

A sample of the algae was sent this week to the Smithsonian Institution after attempts to positively identify it through records at the Polly Hill Arboretum and through the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution were inconclusive.

Costly Sewering Seen As Great Pond Solution

Edgartown wastewater authorities believe a plan to sewer hundreds of homes in the watershed of the Edgartown Great Pond can achieve the 30 per cent reduction in nitrogen pollution required to restore it to health.

A draft report of the Massachusetts Estuaries Project, obtained and published by the Gazette last week, finds the Great Pond’s water quality is significantly affected by heavy nitrogen loading. The biggest single contributor to the problem is household septic systems, the report found.

Restoring Great Salt Pond

Restoring Great Salt Pond

The draft Massachusetts Estuaries Project report on the Edgartown Great Pond obtained by the Gazette last week is required reading for all who live on the Vineyard. The conclusions of the report may be obvious, but no less startling on an Island with a long history of strictly protecting its pristine environment, and they extend well beyond the sandy perimeters of the Edgartown Great Pond: encroaching development and nitrogen escaping from septic systems are polluting Island ponds.

Edgartown Great Pond

Edgartown Great Pond Perilously Near Nitrogen Limits, Estuaries Study Finds

If the Edgartown Great Pond is to be restored to environmental health, town authorities must find a way to cut nitrogen pollution coming from household septic systems by at least 30 per cent, according to a comprehensive scientific study of the pond’s water quality.

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