07/27/2000 CONSERVATION COMMISSION Minutes

Home Browse Search

27 July 2000 Page 4. good place for them to live. Subsequent to treatment, as they recover some of that habitat, it will be a good place for them. Mr. Smith stated their position right now is that MEPA is not triggered. They have talked with the Mate and that is their feeling at southeast region, Mr. Sherman asked if IEP at the southeast region told there that, or MPA told you that? Mr. Smith stated both. He talked with the Director of the MA program and he has talked with southeast region and the various criteria that trigger MEPA is not at this time. The MEPA process would not allow them to meet this window of opportunity in September. Mr. Smith Mated the key challenges, inactivation, and proper dosage of the inactivent, maintain pH in the pond and what they have identified as the deep application is. a good thing. They will sample the adjoining areas to see what is there, s suggested by Mr. Sherman. e asked r. Brian Howes to say something about the baseline information, the health of the pond, the data collected last year. Dr. Howes distributed material and stated it was related to the Commission's decision on the Notice of Intent; it is a reference document. They are involved in habitat restoration. They started the project in 1993 and 2000 so the statements he makes are based upon historic data and on high frequency sampling every two weeks in 1999 and every three weeks starting in March 2000. The plume is from the old treatment facility, now closed. The nitrogen plume is dying away. The load into this pond of nitrogen is dropping. Phosphorus moves much slower, that plume will continue to discharge to the pond for a long period of time. The issue is that you will start seeing a system enriched with phosphorus and impoverished with nitrogen. Blue- green algae blooms are a problem in Cape ponds. At issue here is that during the winter there is plenty of oxygen but by June there is no oxygen in the bottom water and that will exist until fall turnover. Over time, this will move up a bit but even year it goes anoxic at the same depth. The result is a buildup of phosphorus. The problem is when the system turas over in the fall with the wind, which causes the big blooms. That is what they are going to get rid of. The idea is to strip all of this out and bury it in the sediment. The eutrophic state of the pond is shown in table. Ashurmet Pond is Meso-Eutrophic.' The entire volume of the hypohmnion becomes anoxic during summer and herefore is devoid of higher animal and plant life.