The Chilmark Pond Foundation received approvals last week to place an ultrasonic buoy in the pond in an effort to beat back cyanobacteria blooms from forming.

Its scientific name is Codium fragile, but for many beachcombers across the Island the invasive macroalgae goes by a more ominous title: dead man’s fingers.

A person who went crabbing in Chilmark Pond was sickened by what appears to be a neurotoxin from blue/green algae blooms in the water, according to Chilmark health officials.

It’s been bad news for shellfishing on Martha’s Vineyard and beyond in recent days, from a state-ordered closure to the discovery last week of a heavy algae bloom in the Tisbury Great Pond.

The summer season is coming to another end, and with it, the increasing evidence of an ominous threat to our historic landmark.

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.