LOCAL

Tiverton's Stafford Pond to get a lot cleaner: 'You’re going to think you’re in the Caribbean'

By Marcia Pobzeznik
Daily News correspondent

TIVERTON — It was “horrible” last year, Steve Vallot said of not being able to swim in Stafford Pond because of the blue green algae blooms. So he welcomes any stop-gap measure that will help lead to a return to normal for those living on the shores of the pond.

A new treatment of the pond began Wednesday and is expected to be completed by June 16, weather permitting. It should control the algae blooms for up to 20 years, or 12 years at the least and is also expected to make the water so clear for a time that it may look like the crystal clear water of the Caribbean, according to scientist Ken Wagner, who is overseeing the project.

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Wagner, a certified lake manager with a Ph.D., met with some pond residents at an outdoor meeting at the Stone Bridge water treatment plant Tuesday night to explain the “phosphorus inactivation” treatment. Stafford Pond is the second body of water in the state to undergo the treatment that has been completed at numerous ponds and lakes in Massachusetts, especially those on Cape Cod. He’s treated lakes in other New England states as well since 1995.

“It should make a huge difference for a number of years to come,” said Wagner. “If it goes really well, you’re going to think you’re in the Caribbean."

Residents were invited to a meeting at the Stone Bridge water treatment plant June 1 to hear about the treatment from scientist Ken Wagner who is overseeing the treatment project.

There’s an estimated  2.1 billion gallons of water in the pond, Wagner said, and it will be treated with 180,000 gallons of liquid aluminum sulfate and sodium aluminate. The 116,000 pounds of aluminum in the liquids will bind the phosphorus in the bottom muck so it can’t feed the algae.

The 476-acre pond is both a drinking water supply and recreational body of water that has a state-owned boat ramp on its eastern shore that attracts numerous fishermen every season. The pond is dotted with homes, many of them former summer cottages-turned-year-round residences.

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A little more than half of the pond, or 256 acres where depths are between 15 feet and the maximum 26 feet, will be treated. That’s where most of the muck is, said Wagner.

The amount of phosphorus in the muck has been accumulating for years, said Wagner, who did a study of the pond in 1996 for the Stone Bridge water department that resulted in some changes at a dairy farm, storm water controls on Stafford Road and attempts at more stringent development standards.

"It didn’t suddenly go bad. It was a gradual march to this,” Wagner said of the condition of the water.

Controlling algae blooms has been a regular part of the job since water plant Superintendent Carl Destremps started working at the plant 29 years ago. The algae clogs the filters of the plant and produces a swampy taste and odor, said Destremps.

Some 800,000 gallons of drinking water are pumped out of the pond every day in the summer, and 500,000 gallons in winter.

“It seems to be getting worse,” Destremps said of the algae blooms. “I think it has to do with climate change.”

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Wagner said climate change is a big factor because the water is warmer for longer, giving algae the conditions it needs to thrive. “Extra heat is promoting the type of algae you don’t want,” Wagner said.

While the best treatment would be to dredge the bottom, it would be prohibitively expensive. Inactivating the phosphorus with aluminum is “the cheapest and easiest one to do. We haven’t had a problem in 21 years,” Wagner said of some initial problems with fish dying.

“I’ve been talking about this for four or five years,” Destremps said of the treatment Wagner is overseeing. Destremps had been using copper sulfate to kill algae blooms, but he said it was “like throwing money away,” because he had to do it continually. Copper sulfate was purchased by the ton.

This treatment costs $600,000. The district got a $235,000 grant from the Department of Environmental Management for the treatment, Destremps said.

A barge equipped with tanks that hold sodium aluminate and aluminum sulfate began treating Stafford Pond Wednesday to reduce blue green algae blooms for years to come.

A barge equipped with plastic tanks that hold 2,000 gallons of the liquids will ply the water on weekdays over the next two weeks until all 10 sectors, each measuring some 25 acres, are treated.

The two liquids are not mixed but sprayed underwater at a depth of about 8 feet, by what looks like a 10-foot-long sprinkler at the back of the barge. The two liquids form a white cloud in the water, said Wagner. “It looks like a snowstorm under water,” he said.

The barge moves at 3 to 4 mph when full. Global Positioning System lets the operators know where they are in the pond, said Dominic Meringold, an environmental engineer who is a project manager for Solitude Lake Management that is doing the treatment. 

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He and Garrett Hooper, a seasonal aquatic specialist, had done three runs by noon on Wednesday. Each took about 45 minutes before they docked to refill the tanks again.

The displays and dials on the barge track the path of the barge so the operator knows which areas have been treated and which ones still need to be treated.

“Usually 20 years is the best we can hope for,” Meringold said of how long the treatment works before it has to be repeated.

Resident Marie Adamowski said she swam in the pond every day last summer, even though there were warnings not to because of the algae.

“Summer’s too short not to go swimming,” she said, adding that she made sure to shower soon after and didn’t have any adverse effects from the algae.

“Some years it’s bad, other years it’s not,” she said.

Vallot and his neighbor Mike Carbone are hoping the treatment solves the problem for years to come.