Swimmers at the Bare Hill Pond waterfront this summer may have found a more pleasant landing when they jumped off the dock than in previous seasons. According to the Bare Hill Pond Watershed Management Committee, 5,200 cubic yards of peat—containing about 260 pounds of the pollutant phosphorus—were removed from the swimming area in a project completed last winter. Minus the muck, said pond committee member Tom Gormley, the depth of the swimming area increased an average of 2.5 to 3 feet.
Now that the freshly dredged swimming area has gone through one summer, the team behind the project, which includes the pond committee, the Parks and Recreation Commission, the Conservation Commission, and the Department of Public Works, considers it a success, Gormley said.
“We knew that would be good for various reasons,” he said. “The weeds were growing in the beach area, and that made swimming kind of a pain. What was enabling the weeds to grow was that multiple feet of very rich soil had just been built up below the peat moss, so getting rid of that would help keep the weeds down.”
In addition to the layer of peat, the excavation project also involved removing a “benthic barrier,” a mesh cover installed in 1984 to suppress weeds.
“[The barrier] started to get a little torn up. The weeds were actually growing right through it,” Gormley said. “And as it was getting torn and tangled a little bit, it was actually becoming a safety risk. You could get your feet caught in that.”
After a summer of swimming, people are ready for reviews of the beach, Gormley said, and they’re mostly positive. Members of the pond committee set up an informational session at the beach one day this summer, he said, and they spoke to a number of swimmers.
“We were happily surprised to find out that they were, number one, pretty aware of some of the activities we were doing,” he said. “…And they were pretty positive about what we were doing, and they noticed the difference in the beach…Overall, it was a very positive outing for us, more than we anticipated.”
The excavation project is now done, Gormley said, and the beach should be free and clear of weeds for “a number of years,” he said.
“If there’s one lesson learned it’s that we could potentially expand to other areas [in the pond],” he said. “This seems to work very well.”
The limiting factor would be cost. The beach excavation contractor, CRC Company of Quincy, charged $150,000 for its services. Of that, $73,750 was paid for with Community Preservation Act funding and the rest with grant money from the state Department of Environmental Protection.
“But, given the state match we get towards CPA funding, the actual taxpayer contribution was significantly less than the $73,750,” Gormley said. “It’s hard to say what the actual net cost to taxpayers was because we don’t apply volunteer match reimbursement funds we get in return for pond-related volunteers’ hours to specific projects like the excavation, but rather across all the project work we’re doing.”
Drawdown
The annual drawdown of the pond, another measure to reduce the number of invasive weeds, is scheduled to begin later this month. With input from the Conservation Committee and the Bare Hill Rowing Association, the pond committee unanimously voted in its July meeting to begin the drawdown no earlier than Sept. 24, and reach maximum depths of 1 foot by Oct. 1, 2 feet by Oct. 15, 2.5 feet by Oct. 24, and 6 feet by Nov. 30, or the first hard freeze.
“Last year we did the deepest drawdown we’ve ever done—6.5 or 7 feet, I think—in order to do [the excavation]. This year we’re going to limit it to 6 feet, which means we can start a little bit later, we can go a little slower. And that will help the rowing, because they can keep practicing through October,” Gormley said.
The pond committee has no plans to stop doing the drawdown each year, he said.
“The drawdowns will continue because they do help,” Gormley said. “It’s pretty scientifically proven. We’ll continue to monitor that. And it doesn’t hurt.”
The committee is careful to make sure the water expelled from the pond doesn’t damage the wetlands where it empties.
“That continues to show no effect,” he said.
