It’s fairly normal to see a big, shimmering red mass bobbing up and down on the Vineyard Haven side of the Lagoon. It normally isn’t a boat.
Lagoon Pond is in trouble. Island residents heard a familiar story on Wednesday from representatives of the Massachusetts Estuaries Project about another degraded coastal pond on the Island, but town officials say that they are determined to find a solution.
Lagoon Woes Seen Years Ago
1987 Report on Water Quality Found Problems ‘Particularly
During the Summer Months'; Recommended Dredging
A comprehensive study documented water quality problems in the
Lagoon Pond 16 years ago, but the recommendations from the study -
including a dredging program - were never carried out because of a
lack of funding.
The director of the Martha's Vineyard Shellfish Group said yesterday that nearly four million healthy juvenile shellfish under culture at his Lagoon Pond hatchery have died in the last three weeks because of extremely poor water quality in the pond.
The deteriorating water quality has not affected mature shellfish and there is no danger to humans who eat shellfish from the pond.
Leaching nitrogen from residential households remains the
single biggest threat to the water quality of Lagoon Pond,
according to a recently completed water quality study. In a
report delivered to the Lagoon Pond Association, its author
found significant increases in nitrates entering the pond. The
report is based on a series of water samplings conducted last
summer.
Bruce Poole of SP Engineering Inc.
