The state may be broke, but not so broke that it’s ignoring the condition of Bare Hill Pond. For years the pond has been on the state Department of Environmental Protection’s list of critically endangered water bodies, and recently the DEP awarded Harvard the first part of a $584,950 grant to build a series of engineered retention ponds and swales to manage and treat the flow of stormwater running into the northeast edge of the pond from the watershed around the town center.
According to Bare Hill Pond Watershed Management Committee member Bill Johnson, the state grant will cover approximately 60 percent of the stormwater management project’s cost, while the town will come up with the rest. Even so, the pond committee will require only a level-funded budget of $33,500 in each of the next three fiscal years to support this project, Johnson told the Finance Committee last week. Aside from that, the bulk of the town’s $405,858 contribution will be composed of services already provided by the Department of Public Works, such as street sweeping and muck removal; Community Preservation Committee (CPC) funds; and reimbursable volunteer services.
The CPC will sponsor an Annual Town Meeting warrant article seeking approval for a $119,000 award to the pond committee in fiscal year 2010 for the project, Johnson said. Of that amount, $40,000 would be spent for pond excavation work if the DPW is unable to do it. The DPW is short-handed due to recent budget cuts, and Director Rich Nota has said that his department will not be able to do as much work on special projects for other departments as it has in the past.
The grant money will be spent over the next three years. That stormwater flow carries not only eroded sediment, but also road salt and automobile seepage from parking lots and roadways and effluence from leaking septic systems, Johnson said. He said it’s a major source of contamination. However, he continued, controlling and treating the stormwater flow in that area will not be enough to move the pond off the endangered list. Still, it’s a crucial addition to the pond committee’s arsenal of weapons, which now includes aquatic weed-pulls, mechanical weed harvesting, and the deep drawdowns of the pond carried out in the past few years.
