Kaplan's Pond Town Hall Meeting
Good evening, everyone. If we can just take our seats, we'd like to begin.
Thank you everyone. Thank you all for coming this evening. My name is Bryan Healy. I'm the village manager here in Croton On Hudson. And our meeting tonight is being broadcast on our cable channel as well as livestream for those who are not able to be here in person tonight. So the agenda for this evening is I'm going to go through a brief PowerPoint just explaining the history of Kaplan's Pond and how the village came to acquire it and the steps that we have undertaken since we acquired it in the early nineteen nineties. And then we will have a public comment session. The same rules that we follow in our board meetings will apply to our public comment session this evening, each speaker states their name and address and gets five minutes to speak. And you are more than welcome to ask any questions that you would like, make any comments that you would like. We will hold all our answers and responses until everyone has spoken and then we'll be addressing all the questions and comments that come out of that public comment. Period. Before we start with PowerPoint, I just would like to have our two guests introduce themselves. So John and Hillary, if you wanna just hit the button on the mic, that will turn it green and then you'll be on.
My name's John Tucci. I'm the founder and president of, Ever Blue Lakes, and we've done the aeration on Duck Pond for many years. And it brought the proposal to the table for pond for aeration.
And I'm Hillary. I'm the horticulture and environmental science manager at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Westchester County. We're over in Elmford.
Great. Thank you both very much. Okay. So firstly, the village acquired Kaplan's Pond in 1991 from a private developer. A longtime resident will probably remember them, the Alberts. And we also acquired the wetlands immediately to the north of the pond known as the Bessemer Trust at approximately the same time. In 1992, a small portion of the property was sold to an adjacent landowner. That's the small area in, a teal color there. And this sale seems to have caused the online tax map viewer to show the incorrect owner for the actual parcel of the pond. However, the deed the property deeds have confirmed that the village is the owner of the of the pond and the adjacent wetlands. It was noted at the time of acquisition that Kaplan's Pond was home to endangered and threatened species of birds and plants as well as a freshwater marsh. As early as 1994, residents were contacting the village to voice their concern about the water quality at Kaplan's Pond. Correspondence mainly from residents in the immediate vicinity has continued to this day, And the main concerns deal with the algae growth on the pond. The algae at Kaplan's Pond is filamentous algae, which thrives in warm, shallow, nutrient rich, and stagnant water, and this is the environment that Kaplan's Pond currently exists.
In 2008, the village board at the time considered contracting with a company to chemically treat the pond. The resolution to approve such work was tabled after opposition surfaced at the board meeting. And since that time, the village board has taken other steps to improve the aesthetics and health of the pond. This includes the rehabilitation of the dam and the addition of a new spillway and the treatment and eradication of invasive species along and in the pond. And today, Kaplan's Pond serves as part of the village's storm water detention system. Water levels are lowered in advance of large storms to create storage during the storm, and then that in turn reduces the amount of water sent to the downstream water course. In 2022, a resident suggested that the village look into the installation of aerators at the pond to help with the regular algae growth. Aeration is not unknown to the village. As John stated, we've had an aerator at Duck Pond on Bungalow Road for a number of years. And in 2024, the cost of the aeration system was included in the village's annual budget. Total cost for installation was $3,800, and the annual system maintenance cost was $7,275. The cost for maintaining the system at Duck Pond, which is a smaller water body, is $1,950.
And this picture here, which I apologize, it may be a little difficult to see, this was the proposal of the aerators. There were 10 spots that were going to have the the aerators in the pond. And the aeration system that is proposed for Kaplan's Pond would be a quieter system than currently exists at Duck Pond. The proposed system has a quiet motor which is encased with padding to muffle any ambient noise, and there is no fan required to continuously operate this system. The motor box and electrical panel would be screened with plantings to reduce visibility by anyone walking or driving by the pond. Okay. That was our brief history. And with that, we'll open it up to public comments. So
I live at Pen at the very dead end of Penfield Avenue. I'm sure you're familiar. That's the house that's right behind the Duck Pond ball field. Probably, my husband knows the DPW team very, very well because he worked with them closely to do a lot of work on actual duck pond from keeping the stream clear that flows into the water in the duck pond to opening up the various traps and helping to get rid of a lot of debris. So there's a lot of work that goes into keeping duck pond looking good that my husband does alongside DPW, and I just think that's something important to know that it's a lot more than just aerators. So you might wanna start, like, a pond association where you work together to you know, it's not always just an aerator. You you may actually need to work together and, you know, think about where the water's coming from and what, you know, traps you might need to lift up. And if they're the water's really low, is it because, for instance, we have not had a lot of rain recently? If you've seen the golf course recently, it's beautiful. They seem to have, you know, plenty of water. And so I think just think about why is the pond level lower? Where's the water supposed to be coming from? Is there something else that's draining that source of water? Thank you so much.
Hello. Hi, everybody. Thanks for coming. My name is Dan Cummings. I live at 3 Ashman Lane in Croton, and I found out about this project the first time when a structure appeared out of nowhere. And I said to my neighbors, does anybody know what this is? Why is there a structure here? So I I got all negative answers. No. We have no idea. We thought it was a sign and not a sign from god, a sign for informational topics about the pond, perhaps. But Bryan was there? But, no, it turned out that the that the structure was an l the the base of an electrical panel, and the beginning process of discovering that we were gonna get a motor in our park. And that's pretty much where where I am right now, that we are looking at putting a motor in a park, a quiet park. I I spent many days, many nights over the summer measuring with, admittedly, an amateur decibel meter. 34 decibels is the baseline with my measurements. That's the lowest. And you know what was making that noise? Crickets. That's the kind of property that that is. It's not Duck Pond. It's not there's no highway next to it. There's no, you know, there's no ongoing noise except for the occasional airplane or owl hooting. I'm concerned about this process because it looks more like a sales pitch than a actually genuinely considered science based informational session. So I kinda wanna rewind everything and go back to the beginning. First is who owns the property? Great. Village owns this property. We can go from there. Second, what's the zoning on this? The zoning, I read it as zoning r A three, and that's recreation use only. And the way I read it, and experts can verify this, check my work on it, that there's a
requirement that if you're gonna build something like an electrical panel structure, it has to go before the board. So I guess you consider that my first question. So my I have a bunch of questions here. I'm gonna try and get them all in my five minutes. I have two two and a half minutes left. How do we define a healthy pond? And so that's for the experts. Water quality, wildlife, but also the human experience of being there, being in a quiet space, and being soothed and in in involved in an environment that's not, not, you know, brought to a to an industrial level. I I I actually visited the Tarrytown site where where your site is, where the statement was made, the the what was it? Aerator is about the volume of an old dishwasher. That was that was the statement from the previous meeting. Who wants a dishwasher in a pond? That's my next question. So science based, let's look at what what ecological indicators should be measured to establish a baseline before we do some intervention. What does it look like? Is it green? Okay. Ponds are green. How green? Are there dead fish? Are there other dead animals? What do we know about the pond right now? And so far, I didn't see any information about data collection or any baseline information.
Since algae growth is nutrient driven, do we know the main nutrient sources for Kaplan's pond? What would a proper study look like? How soon could it give us data? Are there strategies for addressing nutrient inputs like stormwater runoff, golf course, leaf litter, all the inputs that make the for the baseline for this filamentous algae to grow? Algae just doesn't just grow. It it needs things flowing towards it so it can it can live. In pond management, what's considered a first step? What is a last resort, and where does aeration fit into that spectrum? And where when aeration has been used in other communities, what justified it, and do we see that same situation here? And finally, how can a pond health program include both scientific monitoring and public participation? Thank you very much.
Okay. I'm Rick Salmon, Susan Salmon. I've lived at 2 Fox Road right on the pond since for forty years. We love living here. I tell people if I was a gazillionaire, I wouldn't move because I love it here so much. So anyway, I'm a photographer, and they say that a picture is worth a thousand words. So I brought a couple of pictures. So this is and I'm gonna leave these, Brian, in case you guys wanna frame these or auction or auction them off. Anyway, this is a picture of Kaplan's Pond taken on September 1. Okay? I'll autograph these if you want. So the question is why the heck do we need the aerators? I mean, we we were down there. We had a nice little get together of the pond. Someone mentioned a group taking out taking care of the pond. We used to have a pond association. So Sorry. So we're more than happy to do that. Anyway, we figured out unscientifically that the that the duckweed covered maybe three or 4% of the pond. Check out this picture taken on May 8. Where's the duckweed? Where's the stuff? See, pictures are worth a thousand words. And correct me if I'm wrong. I think I heard somewhere that the aerators are not guaranteed to work. Is that correct? Oh, we're gonna answer later. So this is I ride my bike around the reservoir. Here's an example of an aerator not working. Okay? Just unscientific. I know we don't have any facts about anything. Okay? Here's a this was taken up in Canada. Another example of an aerator not working. Okay. That's that. Then another question I have is, there could be 10 aerators? I saw that picture there. A proposal. A proposal. Right. So we live on the pond, and every morning I go out there in the spring, and we see these beautiful
natural Canada geese landing on the pond. Landing landing on the pond. Maybe that's a good thing. Landing on the pond. With 10 aerators, with five aerators, with three aerators, how are these beautiful geese gonna take off and land Vanner? Land on the pond? Here's another picture of the geese taking off from the pond. Not the greatest picture. This is an iPhone picture. So, you know, my fellow residents and I have said that this is really such a special ecosystem. What the heck is are these aerators gonna do to the pond in addition to all the all the the things that points that Dan made? This picture was taken on October eighteenth last year. Any duckweed? Any any anything? Nothing. So again, I'll autograph these. And then, again, I just I wanna say, and I have talked about the Beaver Dam. There's a beaver dam in the Arboretum. If you go up to the Beaver Dam, go to the the the the the the Boardwalk there, right when it changes from the wood to the the fake wood, you see the Beaver Dam. So this is a terrible picture even though I'm probably it was so busy. Here's a picture of the Beaver Dam in the town. I called you, and the downtown came up the next day or two days later, and they, they cut a hole in it. Then the next day, the beaver dam was back. So and John Corwin, my friend, who's, involved with the Boy Scouts resident here too, lives by the duck pond, has his own duck pond. You know, he was saying that he was up there today. It stinks up there because so much water is, like, trapped up there. And all that water my guess there's thousands of gallons of water up there, then I'm not going to the, not going to the pond. Oh, I got one minute left. Great. So we've lived here forty years. I've never seen a dead fish, a dead turtle, a dead bird, a dead frog. I have seen dead lanternflies in the pond recently, but I've never seen a dead animal in the pond. So about the aerators, I guess we wanna know, are they underwater or above water? Because that, I think, would make a difference. When we talked to Brian, we talked about carp. We didn't talk about aerators. We talked about adding carp, and we talked about chemicals. And then the other question I have for the aerator people is, how does the depth
of the pond I know you know the surface area, but how does the depth affect the pond? And what is the depth? I'd like to know the depth. Actually, I do know the depth. So I'd to know if the other people know the depth.
Can we just do a show of hands? I mean, is everybody here is anyone here that wants to speak in favor of putting the aeration in? Okay. I mean, I can make this a very short meeting. We did not solicit this the village to put an aeration system in Kaplan's Pond. We were asked to develop a design at the village's request to do something to improve the condition of the pond. We were not paid to do a scientific study on the pond. We were asked to provide an opportunity. I had put in more bottom diffused aeration systems and managed more than anybody in the country and maybe anybody in the world. This project is less than a rounding error in my business and in my effective mission to help restore lakes and ponds through natural techniques and sustainable technologies. I have no interest in putting a few thousand dollar device into a pond that the people who live around it don't want. End of meeting as far as I'm concerned. What about the duck pond? End of meeting. Aerators at the duck pond? You can take those out if you want as well. I have no I have no you know, it's it's not the the original post of that Ask Bryan. He works for Pete Harkham for the environmental in Westchester. You know when he moonlights that as a mayor?
But he probably would know that we have that huge wetland that's above Kaplan's that we could use to clean
the pond water, filter it. Right? Well, I have no you know? Yeah. Perfect. You know, that do there's meant I will say this about the beaver dam. Beavers are nature's engineer for cleaning water. So if That's another good point. Water up above is being held back by a beaver dam and there's odor there, yeah, that's an issue in that the water that that the what the beavers are holding back needs more treatment than they can provide. But getting rid of beavers in a beaver dam is probably the worst thing you can do for water quality. He's already left because of the golf course uses all the water.
Is there some deal with the golf course, Brian? Yeah. I I really yeah. Folks. Look. I'm not I'm not here to make a few thousand dollars against the community. No. But there's no water coming out of the Okay. We need to put some water back in here, John. If you wanna leave, you can go, and we'll listen everybody that would like to speak. So you're not gonna do the aeration? And we can reduce some in the duck pond? If they because they're not strategic right now. Why would I wanna be on a project that nobody wants? Well, they do help cosmetically
We're not because the town one on one conversation. Okay? Well, he need him. No. I'm saying, if you're gonna leave We need him.
Please don't leave. We need you to continue at the duck pond. Are you just abandoning? No. But I don't wanna put a new system in the county. That Brian just called you up and didn't ask you to do the scientific study. Our mayor has got he's more busy with Westchester. Excuse me. He's this is not I'm I apologize. Okay. So it was your job? Are you taking credit? I I just okay. It's my job. Okay? So Okay. I'm sorry. Alright. Well, you just enough time. I just wanted to make it clear
that and I'll stay. I mean, I'll build civil. I get a little bit defensive sometimes because, you know, I'm passionate about what I do. I just wanted to be clear that I did not I'm not selling anything to the village. I didn't promote this project in any way, shape, or form. I've done the design for free. I've made several visits on my expense and my time to do the planning for this. Okay? I've not been paid a dime to do this, at the village's request because and I had no idea what the people around the pond thought. Now in terms of the condition of the pond, yes. It is it is if you're happy with what the condition is, you can just maintain it and what and do some things, and hopefully it will get better or stay the way that it is. But it is an impaired pond that could use some help. No water body can be healthy without dissolved oxygen. You've got a muck layer built up on the bottom of the pond that is that is anoxic. It's why you can get odors coming off of that sediment and off the pond for occasionally. So that's why an aeration is is is indicated, but it's not a panacea.
On Hudson, New York. I live near the duck pond, so I deal with the duck pond every day, and that's probably have you noticed how well the aerators have been working at the duck pond? Yeah. They both perform. That's because of me and my sons and the boy scout troop from Ossining, troop forty nine. But troop twenty eight in Croton's getting better, so we hopefully, they could help out because they do a lot of small work. Because it's very hard for the town. They what really needs to be done is the drains need to be kept clean. Rick, Salmon, and I Rick's been doing up at Kaplan's, and I've been doing down at the Duck Pond. Right now, Kaplan's doesn't have water flow because there's no water coming out of the golf course above, So there's no water even with the Beaver Dam, but we gotta move the Beaver Dam because once it rains, we need that water to go into Kaplan's because before Kaplan's is that wetlands, and that's filled with duckweed. So as that washes into the pond, and then we needed to go over the final drain out at the end. And right now, that has, boards in it. I guess, Brian, you you're the one, not Brian Pugh, the mayor who seems to be absent. So, there's boards there that we can take out. They're about four inches. Take that out. All that duckweed's gonna drain out.
What do you say? This is not we're taking the comments. We'll answer at the end of day. Okay. Thank you.
Anything else? Oh, I got three minutes. I can keep talking about Croton? Oh, we can't talk about the duck pond at all? Alright. You said the voice can't speak. Oh, yeah. And there's other ways too to make a a gate. Hi.
I'm Susan Sam and I live at 2 Fox Road right on the pond for forty years. We love the pond, but we have observed over forty years that the condition of the pond is getting very weedy in the spring. I mean, it's true. So over forty years, we've seen that. So Rick had those beautiful pictures there. He didn't have the picture in like May where it's like really doesn't look good at all. So that's my observation. My question is, what other things could we do? For instance, dredging. That makes sense to me. If I had something, why wouldn't I? I'm a gardener. Why wouldn't I pull the weeds out, and then I would have a better chance at things not growing so quickly? So I'd like that if we could talk about maybe other ways, including dredging, to improve the condition of the pond. Thank you.
Hi. I'm Barbara Hart. I live on 44 Loudounsbury Road. I just wanna say that I think a couple of unfortunate things have happened in this dialogue, and many fortunate things have happened. I I think that the area neighbors didn't feel consulted. I think the undertaking was done in an earnest effort to be responsive. I then have found the town officials and you, Brian, and you I'm sorry. I've forgotten your name. Responsive. I am so admiring of my neighbor's advocacy on this. And Brian and the other board of trustee people and the legislators for the county have all been coming to the pond, and they all expressed their own love for the pond. So I think people are really acting in goodwill and trying to be extremely responsive. And I know that Brian Pugh works his took us off. I think of all of the dinners that he misses every day because he's at some meeting and attending to something. So I just I am not sure why we've gotten into anything at Harmonen. I think that we're reaching the conclusion of it's not going to happen, and maybe we're all gonna come together. And we've all found out that we really are a community, both a small community and a larger community. And I wanna thank you for your respectful way that you've handled. And we're all a little edgy about it, and we we love it. We love like, we talk about that we live in paradise. We get the arboretum. We get the pond, and we have lovely neighbors. So I cherish where I live just as Susan and Rick do and Dan does. So hi. How are you? I'm doing good. I'm so and we cherish your generosity at all times, Anton. Appreciate that. But the one thing nobody's considered is
according to Sir, if you could just This is Anton Wilson. Forgive me. Yes. According to the county clerk and the DiSant maps, I own. So one of the first issues before before we get into air rage and before we go into all the You missed a little bit? They're not gonna do it. Yes. Well, that that's Just so you know. Excellent. Because I was I I I think there are other alternatives. And and, of course, the village would have to take into account the fact that on on the record, I own the pond. And I am for everything positive for the pond. And I also think we talked about the base of it, anybody wants to come up and see it. This is pictures of of the pond drained, so you see what's actually on the bottom and and how much vegetation vegetation is is there. There. So I think that if we ever address this in the future, what you need is more information in terms of of the type of of ways to mitigate the problem of algae. And I appreciate your having this meeting and that I could add my 2¢ in there. And I'm looking forward to whatever the village does. I'm a big supporter, and I'm big major benefactor for the Arboretum, which is named for my wife.
or you're on my side. Whatever. But thank you. Thank you. Thank you, mister Wilson. And I'd be happy to talk to you after the end of the meeting because we had some information in the PowerPoint that I think would be helpful.
Good evening, everyone. My name is Jeff Weber. I'm here with my wife tonight. We live at 6 Ashman Lane in Croton On Hudson. I'd like to thank everyone for attending tonight. I'd like to echo Barbara's concern, you know, a little disappointed that no public there was no public input before starting work on a mechanical solution. What I don't think has been addressed is what the root cause of the algae blooms are. And from my time fishing there for fourteen years, there there's a plant, curly pondweed, that grows up as soon as the ice starts to melt. It grows rapidly to the surface. You can you can't fish there anymore until mid mid end of June, July. And I think when that breaks down, is that what causes the algae? I mean, we're we're not concerned about duckweed, I don't think, because that's that's a natural process in the pond. So the root cause of the algae, I think, is this curly leaf pondweed.
So I think that needs to be addressed first maybe. I'm I I I don't know. As far as wildlife, for fourteen years there, I have seen wood ducks raise families, great blue herons fish better than I do there, but I've never seen dead fish there. In fact, this past week, I've caught my personal best largemouth bass there, crappie. You know, there's all kinds of fish in there. But I think the root cause needs to be determined first before we can progress any further. I do have pictures as Anton does of when the pond is drained, if that would help identify what is exactly growing there. But from things that I've brought home and identified, it's this curly leaf pondweed that just grows so rapidly and then breaks down. I mean, it is a beautiful place the way it is to reflect. It's very quiet. It's a nice respite for us. We live on the golf course, and everyone knows that they're you know, they don't have to abide by
town noise laws because they're a business. So I I like going down there to get away from it all. I think to start, we need to identify what's actually causing the algae bloom, and it's like I said, I have photos. If anyone's interested, I can bring them to the village. So that's that's what I that's all I have to say. Yeah.
I could I could add 2 more cents. So in addition to what's what's on the bottom and finding out the root the root cause of it, I think, is really important. When I I was the one who initiated keeping Caplan's Pond as as a refuge for for all Crotonites. And I it was owned by private realtors, and they had already gotten approval for a building site. They already did their perk test, and I had a first right of refusal on land. So I stepped in and was able to leverage that with the Albert brothers to make an arrangement whereby some of it got parceled off. I had to buy some of it to make it happen because I didn't want to see a private house there with a chain link fence around the whole pond. So that was something I did. Now to to deal with the Albert brothers on that, I had to come up with a report on the on the flora and fauna. So I hired Hudsonia. They're they're a wonderful group up in Poughkeepsie, I think. It's where Bart College is. And so I had Hudsonia come in. I spent a week here, can't find the report, but it was a multi page report, which I'm still looking for. But they found wonderful stuff. They listed all kinds of species of plants, animals, the blue heron, people that were birds that were nesting. So I think that that's what we just need is more information from real professionals, not from people who were trying to sell you something, from people whose core business is basically evaluating the
land and what's there. It wasn't his fault. He just asked for the equipment. It wasn't his
Yeah. They haven't checked even parts familiar on the amount of oxygen anymore. Yeah. Mister Wilson, I have a copy of that Hudsonia report. I'll be happy to give it to you. Thank you. Yes.
If there's if there's no one else with public comment, we can start having a discussion here. Anyone? Anyone else? Okay. No.
Well, I'll just share some information that may be helpful as you look at alternatives. So ponds do have lakes and ponds have a life cycle. Ponds do and lakes do eventually turn into meadows. But what we try to inform everybody that we come in into contact with is that process doesn't happen particularly fast, or it doesn't happen in nature particularly fast. So I have property on a lake in Michigan that's 13,000 years old. And for twelve thousand nine hundred and fifty years, that lake barely changed at all in terms of its health status, in terms of its nutrient content, in terms of its of its, weed and algae growth. In the fifth in fifty years, that pond aged more than that lake aged more than in the previous twelve thousand nine hundred and fifty. And so our activities, around the the the the watershed of a water body are are what driving accelerated aging and death of ponds and lakes. So the first problem solve is new inputs coming into the system, which you've talked about. I think that's you've the the village does some good work already, and you can always do more because it's very difficult to stop all of those inputs. A pond like Kaplan's in a developed area, the second source of problem is the sediment at the bottom of the pond. So ponds and lakes are like farm fields with water on top. The more fertile the soil, the more growth of of the things that you don't want you get. So the problem with curly leaf pond weed and algae, two of the dominant forms in that pond is that nothing likes to eat them. So they grow. In the case of curly leaf pond weed, which is also called June weed, at least in Minnesota, they call it June weed because it grows early in the spring. And in June, it dies, releases it nutrients, and then something else takes up the niche. So it is quite
likely, that the algae growth is a response to the release of nutrients once the curly leaf dies. You can treat curly leaf with herbicides. You can make your own judgment as to whether you want those products put into the waters of your community, that's up up up to you. But the bigger problem from my point of view of of chemical herbicide treatment is that when you kill that biomass with chemicals, all you're doing is building increasing the fertility of the compost pile at the bottom of the lake. The reason why we were asked to provide an alternative, this alternative for the pond was simply because it has worked well along with everything else that's been done around Duck Pond. It has worked well at Duck Pond. So I think the thought process was well. This works. Let's you know, these guys have been working on Duck Pond for ten years. They've kinda dealt with us well. Let's have them help. That's how the that came about. The reason why we favor aeration as a as a very early step in the recovery of an impaired water body is that without getting dissolved oxygen, not into the water. That's in a shallow pond like Kaplan's with algae growth. You probably have lots of oxygen in the water. Where you're out of oxygen is in the sediment and at the sediment water interface. And that's de facto by the nature that you're building that muck pile, that organic muck pile on the bottom. The only way to break that down or the best way to break that down is to deliver oxygen to the bottom continuously so that natural aerobic or oxygen needing or loving bacteria can can have the environment they need to literally eat the dead plant material at the bottom of the lake to grow more bacteria. These bacteria are healthy for an aquatic system and form the base of an aquatic of the aquatic food chain. So in short, while
nothing likes to eat curdle leaf pond weed or, or filamentous algae, every lots of things like to eat bacteria that consumes that organic at the bottom of the pond, insect larva, zooplankton. Diatoms have a symbiotic relationship with these beneficial bacteria. So you're basically converting that waste product of compost at the bottom of the pond into food for fish over time. So there's not been an environment that we've ever worked in where that has not been improved ecologically by aeration. However, there are I've got the scars and the hairline to prove it. There are cases where aeration alone is not is not adequate to do the job, like in the pictures that the gentleman showed. So in terms of I think the decisions we made that that the the community is not ready now or may never be ready for a mechanical solution of aeration for this pond. So my advice is focus relentlessly on the watershed, know that there's not much you can do about what's already in the pond. You can dredge it if you, one, can get a permit for it, and two, if you can fund it to probably upon that size would be 200,000 to $300,000 to dredge it. Now the only other problem I have with dredging, it is a great way to reset an aquatic system that's got a lot of muck. However, dredging is a onetime solution to a continuous problem. So the minute that dredge leaves that environment, you're starting the cycle over again. You need to be aware of that, because if you're gonna make an investment like that, definitely you wanna be sure that you've got the watershed issues under control and sedimentation issues under control. Otherwise, another five, ten years down the road, you'll be talking about spending another couple 100,000 or more, or by that time, 1,000,000 on dredging the pond again. So that's
hopefully some information that's useful. So is the aeration having to dredge We're not this is not this is not questions from the audience time. Thank you. Okay. Hillary, do you want to I'm sorry. Turn this off. Yeah. So I will say that coming from extension,
I am more on the science behind things, and I like to bridge the gap between the university and Westchester County. I will say that hearing all of you saying that you would like a little bit more science involved about what's going on. And Brian and I have talked with New York State Sea Grant, and that is a program that specifically is with Cornell and specifically deals with lakes, ponds, all that kind of stuff. So that might be an avenue that we can work with together to try to get them into get a better picture for everyone involved.
Great. That's great. Thank you. And, you know, one of the questions we had was nutrient sources that are going into the pond. Right? So we've talked about, you know, their leaves and, you know, lawn fertilizers. This is also an area that is not on sewer. It they have septics. You know, that could be a potential source. Right? Is there anything that maybe you could add to that?
I and you have stress as well, but fertilizer is a big source, be it homeowners or industry or farmers, not much in Westchester. But fertilizer is a really big source for what's coming in and causing the eutrophication in these ponds.
Great. Let let's wait until we get through the questions. Yep. Okay. Let's see. What else? And, you know, one of the questions we had was, you know, with the aerator, if we were to go in that direction, would the system be underwater or above water?
And then for the depth of the pond, I don't know if we have a either an estimate or an act an exact measurement of the depth.
We did go out on it once. My recollection I don't have the but my recollection is about six feet deep at its deepest. Correct. At
at high time. Right. Right. Right. Which is Yeah. Right now, Anton has a depth meter. So we went out, and it's right now, it's about five feet to about six feet in the middle. It's about three feet at the ends. Okay. So we don't go down too much.
Yeah. And as we were just talking about, you know, dredging is something that we have been talking about. That would be a long term goal. Right? As John was saying, it is there is a hefty cost to it. And we would need to know that it wouldn't be it would have to be a worthwhile effort. Right? We wouldn't wanna have to come back in five years and have to do it over again and spend another $300,000 on it. But, you know, that is an idea that we have certainly heard from a lot of members of the community. And so it is something that we have, you know, started to look at as a possible long term solution. Do have any any comment on dredging, Hillary? No. Okay.
Okay. And then, yeah, I mean, I think just the comments about when the when the pond seems to be the worst is in the spring. Right? I mean, that's when we seem to see the most conditions right now. It's it looks great as we saw from the pictures, but the springtime and early summer seems to be the worst. Yeah. Let's see. And then, you know, I I don't know if the answer to this question is that each pond is different. But in terms you know, there was a question on pond management. You know, but what would be, like, the first step as opposed to the last resort for pond management?
Yeah. Dredging is basically the last resort. The first steps, ideally, you know, the way I'd put that is $1 spent on prevention generally delivers 5 to $10 of benefit, on late condition. So watershed work, in theory, is the best place for dollars. In practice, it can be difficult because, you know, there's a lot of stakeholders involved. It's hard to get golf courses or even in your case, you've got a wetland that you you can very do very little to change that wetland under the laws of New York State, which is in some ways a good thing, in some ways a bad thing. You know, that's above my pay grade. So the first step is always look to the watershed mitigation first. The second step, and we are biased, I will admit that, is remediating the compost pile that's built up on the bottom of the water body because that those are your two food sources. New stuff coming in and the stuff that's already fertile, literally comp you know, the best word I can come up with for it is compost. And we all know that if you wanna grow great tomatoes, put some compost on them. Right? If you wanna grow great lee lake weeds and algae, put a big compost pile at the bottom of your lake or pond.
And always using kind of like an integrated management system. So you're not just focusing on just one thing. You are have some mechanical control. You have, you know, some biological control of some sort. And as a last resort, if needed, a pesticide, but using it using things as a team, you could say, to get the most out of it. That's a great point. Thank
you. And, you know, just as it was brought up by one of the the commenters, you know, the golf course that is located near this area operates under an environmental management plan, and they have a consultant that is required to report to the village on an annual basis the levels of testing. I'm sorry. The levels of
are below their baselines every year. So we're sorry. Do you have something to say? Well, yeah, I would comment on that. And that is to say because I've seen this. If Kaplan's is getting water directly from the golf course in one way or another, and if that and that some of that probably does filter through a wetland Yep. Which is a good thing. But I can tell you, if the golf course was a serious abuser, you'd probably see a lot worse conditions in caplets, in my experience. So if they are hitting their if they have because a lot of states, there's not those kinds of guidelines or regulations for golf courses. They can do pretty much whatever they want. And if you see a pond downstream of a golf course that's doing pretty much whatever they want, they don't just look bad in May.
And there's the DEC does have a law in New York State saying you cannot apply fertilizer in certain times in the month from November until April. It's early spring, so that you can't have that nitrogen runoff and go into wastewater or anything like that. So, you know, making sure people in the area, businesses, all that are following that DEC law is definitely helpful too.
Yeah. And I would again, I'm and I I get sensitive to it because, you know, I felt like I was being targeted with this. But I can tell you for sure that what doesn't work in a lake and pond community is going out to try to find the single villain to point the finger at and blame. Number one, there almost never is just one single villain. And number two, it just creates more, dissonance in the community. It's not productive. So I I don't want you to think that I've said anything to say. I you know, I I if if you think the golf course is still a problem, my recommendation would be to sit down with them as partners and learn about what they're doing and, you know, find out what their programs are and then work together to figure out, well, is there ways that we can, you know, ways that we can do even better than what we're doing versus it's them that's polluting our pond. It's all of us in reality that's polluting our pond.
Yeah. Oh, yep. That's fine. Yeah. Since you haven't spoken before, that's fine. Hi.
I'm John Green. I'm with my wife, We live in 5 Lowndesbury. Love the pond. Question one, what if we do nothing? Like, what five years what's the forecast on the pond?
if the ultimately, the we learn more about the science and there's some shared understanding that putting the aeration machine in at the bottom of the pond is a is the right next step, would this be a temporary measure, or would it be a permanent measure? And we talk in in in talking about kind of, like, the dredging piece around how you're resetting, but then it's not a long term solution. What is the is air is this machine the long term solution? And if so, you're is it just permanently there forever and we're just oiling it? Or, like, I don't know. Does that mean we're just stuck with a machine at the bottom of the pond forever? That's my second question. And my third question is, like, is there some kind of, filtration system that could be put I'm assuming that the pond gets its source, gets its water source both from the wetland, but I I'm assuming they're also it's spring fed as well? Slightly. Slightly? Okay. Is there some way to to filter the inputs so that we can stop is a filter. So Right. But, like, before
So let's start from you know? Yeah. So let's so the first question was, what if we do nothing? What is the five year forecast?
I think it does make sense to get some data on the you know, some more data on the pond if if like. I'm not an alarmist. The pond has been in relatively stable condition for a while. So while I think it will get it's likely to get worse in five years, it's not you know, it may not get a lot worse. So I think the threat to watch out for that is becoming more prevalent in lakes and ponds is blue green algae versus filamentous, which is a fairly there as as the as people are waking up to it, it's it's becoming more and more, identified that blue green living around a water body with habitual blue green algae blooms is a is a serious human health hazard, both for neurological, problems and, respiratory. So that would be if I were watching the pond, if it starts to shift to blue green algae dominant, which is green paint or bright green water versus, you know, clumpy algae on the surface, I would raise the alarm bells as residents around the pond because that is not a environmental condition that you would wanna go down to a quiet pond and contemplate around because you'll be breathing you you might be breathing in toxins at the same time, quite literally. So, that's kind of how I would answer the question. The pond will not get better, on its own
without help, but it may not get much worse. So next question, and then I Sure. You can respond. So
learning if, you know, we learn more about the let's say, the scientific inquiries determine that aeration is a a good choice here. You know, would aeration be a temporary solution that the machine could come out, or then would it just be there on a permanent basis?
Duck pond has been aerated for go over ten years now. Yeah. I if we took those aerators out, duck pond would get a lot worse a lot more quickly. And we kinda saw that this summer when we had When they went down for a while. Yeah. So my my unfortunate answer to that or the best answer I can give you to that is nobody dislikes aeration systems more than I do because I gotta take care of them. So the answer to that is you would probably need to aerate that water body until something better and less mechanical is that that that is proven comes around. But the reason why aeration is so fundamental is that the oxygen demand in our water bodies, given rising temperatures, giving increased flow of fertilizers and and waste products to these and chemicals off roads to these lakes, the demand for oxygen that that pond needs to stay healthy is going up. And nature cannot meet that demand on its own. It needs if the demand is higher than the supply than the natural supply, so it needs help. So when somebody invents a smaller, quieter, better way maybe and and my stuff is not very loud, but let's just it's not silent either. Until someone invents a silent way to add oxygen to an impaired water body,
you're looking at aeration as a long term, if not permanent solution. Especially the bottom of the lake is where you're gonna have that muck, that sediment, what's causing the smell and everything. That's especially what the bubbler's why having it down at the bottom and coming through is important.
Great. And then the last question was about, potentially filtering the inputs into the into the, pond. That
is an interesting that is an inch and filtering him back through the wetland is is an interesting concept, which could be tried. I would have there's a couple of of I mean, the devil's always in the details. Pumping water is expensive energetically, so your your cost, what it would cost the the machine that you would need to pump might be more energy intensive and in some ways, maybe maybe maybe not louder. I don't know. But putting the infrastructure in to set up a pumping system to pump that water back up to the wetlands could should be investigated, but you may find out that it's more costly and more difficult than you think possibly. The second concern I would have is that well, it actually, I would do some science in the wetland because our wetlands are tending to be overloaded because they've been overtaxed as filters for a long time. And so it'd be a very interesting and important question to answer as to whether or not recharging that wetland with water from the pond, would that actually improve the health and make the wetland, if you will, younger and help it be a better wetland, or would it, further tax that wetland and make it less effective as a wetland? That's a scientific question that probably could be answered, but is not a no brainer, you know, is not a no brainer to say, oh, of course, more water into the wetland will help it. That's not clear. You'd have to answer that question first, I believe.
Right now, it's pond weed. And we have these blocks at the dam. We could lift out a four inch block, but we need the town to tell the people downstream so that their you know, the stream is clogged because it's been dry. You know, the the water's right at the dam level. So all the pond duck or Duckweed is just all backed up. In the in in Caplan's? Or Caplan's. And now it's come down out of the swamp.
Yeah. Well, you're just sending the problem down the down the road. We're gonna send it out to the Hudson.
But we just need the people to know that there's gonna be a big gush of water coming down the stream.
Yeah. Yes. How does that affect the pond as we up and down the level of the water? Because I think even a duck pond, they can lower the gate and raise it. I noticed when when So leaf gets big enough Mister Corwin? To help in patches algae.
We'll be we'll be happy ex better deal with it. I will talk to you soon. We'll be we'll be happy to to talk to you after the meeting if you'd like. You know, would everybody everybody's had a chance to speak that wanted to speak, so we're gonna we're gonna close the meeting. We'll be happy to talk to you afterwards. Okay? So but I just wanted to thank everyone for coming and for sharing their thoughts. And I believe most of you had emailed me over the summer, so I should have your email addresses. If you did not and wanna make sure that you get updates on this, please feel free to just come see me after the meeting, and I'll write your email address down so you can get the updates. We have a project page on the website where the recording from this video this meeting will be posted as well as any other documents that are, you know, germane to this. And, you know, just thank you again for for coming. You know, this was as one commenter said, you know, we wanted to hear from people. You know, we felt based off of, you know, comments that we received that this would be a benefit for the pond, you know, and it's it's always important to hear what what the residents think. And so just thank you for coming. Thank you. Yep.