April 21, 2026 – Surface Water Quality Committee – Video & Transcript
April 21, 2026 - Surface Water Quality Committee
We need to have a roll call announcement of our presence, so I will start.
Tom Klem, present.
Tom Largy, present.
Larry Kiernan, present.
Do you have both of us? No, I didn't get you, Steve. Steve Garone, present. Okay, got you. You are now officially on the record. Well, everybody, thank you. I was going to say, I hope everyone's enjoying the warm weather, but it's been hot some days, cold the others. Warm weather? Well, I was going to say, last week it was warm. Yeah, it was. I was out on White's Pond rowing a boat this afternoon. It was pretty chilly out there.
So, hope everyone's enjoying and being, you know, on your toes. I didn't catch anything, but that's all right. Didn't catch a cold, I hope. Yeah. There goes a dad joke. All right, let's start first with the minutes from last time. I sent those around a week or so ago. I will, unless there are any comments, I will make a motion to approve the minutes from our March 10th meeting. I second that.
All right. And then let's go around the room to vote on that. Tom Larkey, aye. Sorry, Tom. Tom Flam, aye. Steve Garone, aye. Larry, aye. Perfect. It's unanimous. Okay, so the minutes from March 10th are approved. All right. The agenda is not so... So, big this week. There's one item for Dudley and a few for Heard. And the items for Heard Pond are basically just updates on these two contracts we have been talking about. One is for the hand harvesting of water chestnuts, the annual pulling of the weeds on Heard Pond. And then the second one is for the ClearCast application. And so, both of these. So, the ClearCast application, that went through the town fine. That was for under $10,000. And you'll recall that anything that's going to cost more than $10,000 has to go through an RFP process. So, Kelsey is the assistant town manager. She's been in and out of the office. I asked her for an update. She told me she would, maybe almost a month ago, a few weeks anyways, that she had received for ClearCast the quote from Solitude. She was routing it on the town side, and she was going to send it for signatures. And she told me she would give me an update. I didn't get an update. I asked her yesterday for an update for this meeting, and she was out of the office until today. So, I have no news other than to say that we received the quote from Solitude, and it's presumably working its way through the process. Whether it's stuck on the town side or the Solitude side, I don't know. But that one, at least, you know, once the contract is in place, excuse me, we can make plans for the herbicide application. Water chestnuts, a bit tricky. Larry, you just joined the committee, but Tom and Steve will certainly know that we, for the water chestnut harvesting, we always go in for a contract that's just under that $10,000 barrier. But we always know there are always extra days of service that we need. And there's this provision that if a contract is under $10,000, you can contract with your vendor for that work. And they can add. You can add up to 25% of additional work. We've taken advantage of that. But last year, Kelsey was saying, you know, it's been a couple of years since we've gone through this process. We should go through it again. And especially since, you know, she's caught on that we always spend more than $10,000 a year. So, I was forthright and say, you know, it's going to cost us more than $10,000, thus triggering the RFP process. And so, I drafted language for the RFP. We had done something similar five or so years ago for Dudley Pond. And so, Tom Largy had gotten the contract from Solitude. So, I basically adapted that language for this RFP. Don't know if it's going out this week. I know Kelsey was talking about the 24th. But again, I have no updates. So, we are, she did say that when it goes out, it could be for up to three years. And Tom, I did let Jeff Castellani know so we can prepare accordingly. I saw that email. Yeah. So, if we, and so hopefully he'll say, you know, let us know that he's looking out for it and he'll respond to it. There's a whole bunch of paperwork that any vendor would need to have. Hopefully, Solitude has it in place. But hopefully, we go through a little bit of pain this time around and know how Solitude locked in for the next three years. So, but we're waiting on that one. It's got to go through the RFP process. And I believe that has to be out there for two weeks once it's posted. And then so on, you can engage. So, it's going to be down to the 1%. We did this for Dudley. I forgot what it was. The last time it was for Dudley Pond, excuse me. It was quite a process getting this on the town side, getting it in a form they liked, and then waiting the two weeks. So, we're just going to have to ride it out. I can't tell you how immensely grateful I am that Tom Klem is handling all of that. Times have changed. Years ago, because I've been on the committee for 26, 27 years. We were just asked for a contract. We'd have a meeting. Everybody would sign it. I hand it into the town. Job done. It's much, much harder now. And as a whole, as far as I could tell, a whole town structure, administrative structure around this. I don't know. They say it's regulations.
Regulations. It's transparency. Don't thank me yet, Tom. We've got until July to get this thing in place. Yeah. Assuming that Jeff is going to be the only and or winning bidder, they can plan accordingly. But, yeah, don't thank me yet. We've got a couple months away. And that work gets done in August? No. Tom, they do the July as the earliest. Yeah, yeah. The water chest, Larry, generally. And we've been working on it. We've been working on it for many, many years. As I've mentioned before, before 2000, most of the pond was 100% monoculture of water chest. And it's a sad, difficult story. We thought we had it licked 10, 12 years ago. We didn't. But generally, they start showing in early to mid-June. By late June, I do a survey. Okay. And by the way, you know, I've taken Tom Klem out on the pond a couple of times. Either of you, Larry or Steve, are welcome to come out in the pond with me sometime. That would be great. I did read the report from last year. You went in mid-June. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, so we can discuss that later. But the water chests would start coming up. And then they have, it's just a remarkable progression from late June, early July. And they mature by mid-August. And they start dropping seeds. And the water chests are, you know, these rosettes. And then they send out a, I was going to say a tentacle, not a tentacle. But it appears that way to me. But a shoot. And then another rosette. And then another rosette. And it happens in a few weeks' time. So there's a very, very discreet time slot. They're either harvested before the seeds are ripe or mature. Or last year or so, just this last year, the clear-cast herbicide has to also be done, be applied at the right time. And Herd Pond, there's a particular issue. And it may be in the report, but I forget. But the problem is that there's an issue of the boundary with the Great Meadows. I saw that far western, southwestern corner or something. Yeah, right. Yeah. So I had. I had a photo. Tom Klem and I went out in August. And, you know, it was very clear that there was a green boundary of untreated plants. The problem with that is, is that there's a concept of something called the seed bank. And those seeds are in the sediment for, you know, the science many years ago said seven years, then 10 to 12, 15. It could be decades. But unfortunately. Unfortunately, that strip until we get that straightened out, if that ever happens, is just going to keep feeding seeds into the pond. Yeah. And Tom Clem is, because we're doing an RFP, will the amount be more than 10,000? Or what's the issue there? Well, no. So now. So we typically spend about $12,000 a year. So it'll be about a $12,000 contract. So it triggers that 10,000. And one thing I want to confirm with Kelsey, if it's going to be for three years, I assume they would have to, it would be a $36,000 contract. But I'll find out from Kelsey before this goes out. But that's a minor point. But anyways, annually, it's about $12,000. Yeah. What? You know, what the hand pulling has involved over the years is that in the open water areas and also various shoreline areas like lily pads and such, you go in and some kind of craft, canoe, kayak, small boat, and pull them. And then the problem is that this southwest cove area, they're so pernicious. And that hand pulling is just out of the question. So actually, over the last several years, the hand pullers have asked for extra days so they could go in there. And the reality is it doesn't work. Tom, Tom Klem and I have been in, you know, a couple of times with my boat. He can attest that it's a tough, tough job. If I were many years younger. And wanted to be out there all day for a couple of days, I could do it. But it's just too hard. Yeah, it'd be a lot more productive. And solitude has an issue just getting crews. That's one factor. The timing, you know, getting them there before the seeds drop. The boats are now canoes. So there's all kinds of other headwinds that that solitude faces that, you know, for $12,000, you seem to get a little bit less. Every year. But it's not like there's a lot of people who are willing to, who are able to go out there and do it. And there are volunteers to do it. So we do the best we can. Yeah, well, until COVID, solitude had their own crew of college and high school kids. And but, you know what, they had a hard time recruiting them. These kids are just off on other things. And that's all. That's all. That's all there is to it. So anyway, well, that's enough said about that. Yeah. And maybe there's a segue there. We'll talk about this with Stephen Dudley Pond next. But maybe there's other kinds of volunteer organizations we can work with. But we'll see. So anyways, that's what's going on with those contracts. I'll keep emailing, calling Kelsey occasionally, keeping the solitude guys updated, and then move those along. So hopefully more productive, positive news. Next time we meet. That was it on Heard. The only other item that we had was Dudley Pond and water chemistry testing. And the question, the action last time was with Ben Weatherwell taking a job in the private sector. Is there a volunteer, some other professional we can get to take on the water chemistry part? And Steve, I don't know if you've had a chance to follow up on that or have any updates. I wish I did. Tom. Tom. Tom. Tom evidently sent me some contact information about a month ago, which, Tom, I couldn't find it. Okay. Well, it wasn't really contact information. You know, what's happened is that for OARS, there was just about a complete turnover of staff from a few years ago. And most of them are part-timers. They have a water chemistry person. They're a guy, but, you know, you dial and actually the water chemistry is one, but all you can do is leave a message. It's very hard to get somebody there. Which I did. Okay. That was yesterday. So I don't have a response yet. Yeah. Yeah. I can keep calling them. The other thing I was thinking about doing, you know, I would have thought that I would have had her answer from this the last time we worked with Ben. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I may just reach out to Ben again and see if he knows anybody. He will probably recommend that, you know, I get the meter and do it myself. He gave me some instruction, but, you know, you got to, you got to, you got to do it hands on and know what you're doing. I think we, we kind of defaulted at the last meeting if we had to, to just doing the part that I can do with the labs. Yeah. which would give us enough information for some of it. And we may have to fall back on that, but I'll continue to pursue it. We usually do the spring one in May. So May is getting really close, obviously. Occasionally it was done in June. So we may have a little bit of time to work that. But right now I don't have an answer. So what I would ask Steve is, we do have, we always do the lab testing. So if you're able to collect the water sample for that and do the SECI, I would just leave it at that because the rest of it is, that's where you need the meter. And then we, as we talked about last time, we don't really use that information. Yeah, we publish it, but you're right. We don't really use it. And I think, you know, it's got value in terms of trends, but you're measuring temperatures and pHs and things like that, which I don't really use. I guess may have some meaning, but I think all that kind of wraps up into the measurements that we actually do with the water samples. And that's really what's important. So I agree with you. And that'll be our fallback. But I'll continue to try to figure out whether we can find somebody to help us with that. With the, sorry, Steve.
With the water samples and testing we have done, what action do they take on Dudley? What action does? Like, is there actionable things to do once we get the samples? Like, do we treat the water or do something different or? In recent years, there has been no action. The readings have been fairly consistent year to year. And season to season.
When we publish the report, we go back a number of years and show the data from a number of years ago. The strange thing that I've observed in the last couple of times that I've done it. And Norm always, Tom, Clem, Norm always gives me feedback on this because I try to incorporate numbers that were measured down at the, lowest depth, the deepest part of the pond. And he kind of rejects them and says, you know, they're off the map. They don't really matter. Well, if you do that, there isn't really a lot of variation in what we measure from year to year. So. Well, yeah, I was gonna say, I've been on the committee for over 25 years. And the net is that Dudley Pond, year after year, the water quality has been, I would say, has been outstanding. It's been outstanding. It's been outstanding. It's been outstanding. It's been outstanding. It's been outstanding. It's been outstanding. It's been outstanding. It's been outstanding. With excellent clarity, 14, 16 feet of clarity, unlike Heard Pond.
You know, I've been fishing it several times recently, thinking, oh, there's no clarity beyond one or two feet. I don't know what the difference is, but it's very useful to have a benchmark. Now, historically on Dudley Pond, and the reason the surface is so clear, and the reason the surface water quality committee was created was a severe milfoil problem back into the 90s. And the milfoil, you know, has been controlled over the years, largely with chemical means. And then, you know, in recent years, tape grass, which is not an invasive, except it's an invasive. When it takes over the pond, it's a natural, you know, North American plant. The fish love it, the ducks love it, but it takes over the pond. So you might say the weeds have been the observable things over the years, whereas it's very useful to have a benchmark of what's going on in the pond over the years. Yeah, and it is useful, and we'll do that. You brought up a point about milfoil. You brought up a point about milfoil. You brought up a point about milfoil. About milfoil, though, and Tom, you know, we in this committee have taken the data that we have and determined that we probably wouldn't need a milfoil treatment next year. I think, based on what I hear, that the DPA folks might push back on that somewhat. Well, that's not going to happen at this point anyways, because you've got to get all the contracts in place and everything else. You know, maybe they will. Maybe they will push back. We're not really in a position for that now. The report, so we had the survey done by ARC. Right. Well, I guess the post one is the one that matters. They didn't see much in the way of milfoil. Alison LeClair, who is really the local expert on the pond, saw the data. I recall that she didn't really see any concern. So when you say the DPA folks will push back, you're talking about ads. Yeah. You're talking about Alison as she had a change of heart or others. I thought Alison was surprised to hear that conclusion. Okay. Well, she had seen the information I had. It was anecdotal at the time. It was before the report. She didn't seem too concerned about it. I didn't hear anything once the report was circulated from ARC. So at this point, you know, it's April. We did this in Memorial Day. So it's not likely to happen. Now. And I wouldn't recommend getting a late jump. So and for what it's worth, I mean, this is also anecdotal, right? The first time was 2019. We did it in 23. So from a four year cycle, it'll be next year. But so we'll see what folks have to say. I think it's be kind of late. There won't be the budget for it to get the wheel turning now. But we'll hear with the meeting, the DPA meeting next weekend. Right. So, yes, well, we'll hear more then. Are you going, by the way? Yeah. I'll be in town. Yeah. I can. I can be there at the beginning, but I have a conflict having to do with some political stuff I'm doing. I'll stay as long as I can, but it's good to know you'll be there. Yeah, I do. When I was thinking about the water testing, though, and thinking about the possibility that we may only do part of it. Do you have any data on? Yeah. Yeah. How much we usually spend on the lab part versus the Ben part? Well, the total budget for the year is about $5,000, because I recall that for Ben's part, he charges us about $1,000 twice a year. And then the lab is also about $1,000 twice a year. So that's over $4,000 less than five. So if we just talk about the lab part, it'll be $2,500. Okay. All right. All right. So that's, you know, if we don't get to do that part, that's a savings. Yeah. It's a couple thousand. It's not, you know, tens of thousands. But it is a savings. That's a lot of money. Yeah. Well, and who knows how much it'll, you know, will, how much more it might be next year? We'll see. I just want to come back to Larry's question, you talk about actionable data. So with the data that we use, the chlorophyll, Secchi depth, and phosphorus are each used to calculate trophic state index. So three different ways of calculating it. So that's really, I guess it's not an action, but that's really what we're monitoring on the pond. Because when this all began in part, not only the weeds, but Dudley Pond was on the edge or maybe already slightly eutrophic. So they want to begin monitoring weeds, doing other treatments to cut back on that. And so the pond now is mesotrophic, which is one grade better than being eutrophic, but it's kind of been hovering there, I guess, the past 10, 15 years. So it's maintaining that status, but these three data points and these TSI calculations are what we would rely on to say, hey, the pond is, you know, tipping over into a eutrophic state from a mesotrophic state. Yep. Right. And is that done for other ponds or just Dudley? It all was done for Dudley, and again, just because of the way Dudley was decades ago before all this began. So it's never been done for herd. Yeah. And when Carol was here. Yeah. She raised the point too, like, why don't we get a baseline for Lake Kachichewit and for Herd Pond? And we didn't do that, doesn't mean it couldn't be done, but for the same reason we have this baseline that's now historical data set for Dudley, should we begin doing the same thing for Lake Kachichewit and Herd Pond? It's an open question, but it was originally done on Dudley because there was a situation requiring some data to take action on in terms of weed management and so on. Does the state do anything for Kachichewit? They for the state park, yes, but not North Pond, which is in Wayland. Are they, I haven't been in the South Pond, are they basically similar or are they very different? Well, I know there's a lot. There's a lot of weed management. They do. There's a lot of weed management in the Middle Pond, where the state park is, that's where they focus their efforts. Now, do we have those same plants in North Pond? We perhaps do, but it's not, and there's recreation there too, right? That's where the town beach is, but I'm not aware of any overgrowth of any certain kind of plants. Well, North Pond has been treated in years past, quite a few years ago, surface water quality contributed. The state was doing something and surface water quality or the town of Wayland contributed 10,000 for North Pond. The ponds are different in a way. South Pond, which is out of our purview entirely, is shallower, very weedy. Middle Pond, a little smaller. Some shallow parts. Some very deep parts. North Pond, which generally when I fish is North Pond. Some very deep parts. There aren't really any issues there. But then town of Wayland at the beach over the years, the park and rec has from time to time taken on weed control there. I think I'm correct in that, Tom. So, yeah, and there are weeds in Lake Kachitra, but they may be in North Pond, if they're not in the residential areas, if they're in some of the, or as you come down, I think Route 30, looking ahead, there's quite a cove area, which I happen to know is shallow and weedy, but nobody lives there. Nobody swims there. Yeah. No complaints. Yeah. Yeah. So... Is there a... The test we do for Dudley, just so I understand the three tests that determine the rating, how much money and time is that? So for the three, well, the second depth is just a person going out in the pond with the test, but for the chlorophyll and the phosphorus, so those two tests, that's what Steve was asking about earlier. So we send those to the lab and that's $1,000 for the two tests. So we, twice a year, we collect those samples, they go to the lab, we get those test results back and it's $1,000. So that's $2,000 to have those tests done twice a year. So if we did it for any other pond, it would be times two or times three, depending on how many bodies we wanted to get. Right. And in terms of Steve's time or anyone in Wayland's time, they just scoop out the water and send it? So let me just give you some detail. There are two parts of it, as Tom said. There's the water samples that we collect and we send to the lab, and that involves the lab bringing me... The bottles, and some of them have a chemical in it, so be careful with that. I have the collection machine, I call it, which is just basically a glass tube. We measure in three spots and there are four measurements because one of the spots is at the deepest part of the pond. So we do surface there and we do near the bottom. So there are four measurements. So I go out on my boat... And I collect those. I put them in the right bottles, I label the bottles, I fill out the forms. The next day the lab comes and picks them up. Some of the samples have to be in their hands in less than 24 hours. So everything has to be timed. And then they send us back the results attached to an email and I write the report. So it's a little bit of time, but it's not a big deal. Yeah. The second part of it involves a meter that this fellow, Ben Wetherill, that we mentioned earlier, we used to hire him to use that meter and go out and measure a few other parameters that in terms of the important information that Tom Klem talked about, they don't really play a role. They're just kind of, you know, we monitor this stuff over time and that was done by Ben. But he no longer works for the company he used to work for. He can't really do it anymore. So either we have to get our own meter, get trained up on it and use it, or we can rent a meter and I can go out and use it after I learn how to use it. Or we find somebody else who could do what Ben did. Right. But just doing the two tests, phosphorus and what else? Chlorophyll. Chlorophyll. Yeah. Pardon my ignorance, but I can go out to my lawn, stick a meter in the ground. It'll tell me the pH. Is it really that hard to get an accurate reading for phosphorus and chlorophyll out of the tube of water? So the phosphorus measurement I know is a chemical test. That's what Steve was talking about. Yeah. But isn't this like basic science? Yeah. I mean, I'm not a scientist, so- I am, but I'm not a chemist. So I'm an electrical engineer by training, so I don't- Yeah. So I know you can do, like for a home aquarium, you can do phosphorus and nitrogen reading. Right. But- Yeah, I think- Not accurate enough. I think it's important. I mean, I'm being intuitive here. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's important to me that if we are really monitoring over time, we want to use the same equipment, the same lab, and the same technique. Was that the right thing to do at the beginning? I have no idea. But we'll- Well, if the cost is prohibited from doing, it'd be if we could get semi-accurate data or reasonably accurate data, and the answer may be you can't. But if you could, you- Yeah. But you could have that for mill pond, herd pond, if someone was doing it regularly, and it was a home-based science test type thing. I'm just curious. It's a great question. I don't have the chemical expertise to answer that. Yeah. I think as an action to look into that, because I see where you're coming from, Larry, and you could say, well, to do this across all these ponds is, even in the town budget, it's pretty negligible. But as Steve pointed out, there is some choreography involved, and if you have multiple ponds, that's more of somebody's time. It's more- Well, I'm retired, and I've got a kayak, so I could go off, but if it could be done by a layperson who had some training, that's- Yeah. Let me- That's kind of in my- No. I'll take- I'm interested in this stuff. I'll take a look into it. I think you should, Tom. But I also think that if you have ideas, Larry, on how to do that, it might make sense when I go out in May or June to come out with me and say what I'm doing. Yeah. I'd like to. Yeah. And see if we get similar results. Yeah. Oh, good call. That's a good baseline to work from. Yeah. I think that's a great idea. Yeah. I don't know what your technique would be, but- I have no idea. Yeah. But it's a good- Thank you, Larry, for bringing that up, because, yeah, it's good to revisit this stuff, right? And not just rely on something that we've been doing just because we've been doing it that way, and especially if we're going to do this for other ponds, if there's another way. Again, all we want to see is continuity over time. So if we do find, let's say, a cheaper alternative, whatever that baseline is, is I'm going to keep using that test. Yeah. That's our baseline, like you were saying. So let me look at some other options. The other ponds, the Mill Pond is 1.7 acres, and I don't know, when it comes to water, and when you have a major precipitation event. Yeah. I think the water gets turned over pretty quickly in the pond, whereas it rarely does in Dudley Pond, is much, much, much different. By the way, I go around the ponds, even now fishing, it's early in the season, I got a nice fish and herd, I've got nothing in Mill Pond, but I have noticed that, and I've wondered about this, seems to be a border of duckweed, that green weed, and I thought, huh, it's awfully early in the season for that, but maybe it survives. Herd Pond is far different. The depth there is about eight feet, and it's just not the same kind of water body that Dudley is, connected to the Sudbury River at high water and so forth. So our emphasis is more the weeds. Fishing, by the way, is outstanding, and Herd Pond, I saw, there's a fellow who lives right on Pelham Island Road that got his largest bass ever out of the pond, he gets hundreds of fish every year. I spotted a bald eagle swooped down on a pair of mallards last week, which I thought was, they got away. Wow. They got away. But anyway, I'm, you know, from the point of view of Herd Pond, I think apparently the oxygen is pretty good. It's very eutrophic, there's no doubt of that. I doubt there's got to be much to turn it around. It's just keep the weeds in control so that people can, you know, pursue recreation on the pond. But, anyway, that's... Just one side note, I was doing, going through the information Carol sent me, and I came across an article online from 2019 that Mike Lowry wrote on Mill Pond, it's like, a five-page article with pictures back in 1890 on the old mill, and what's the funny part was, my son wrestled in high school, and Gary Chase, who was a previous wrestling manager, his son wrestles coaches now, but was the park and rec guy who cleared the ice and measured the ice. And lost a vehicle in the pond. Yeah, yeah, that was legendary. Legendary. And then Shep's, from Shep's Auto, you had a whole bunch of, it was just very interesting to read how much skating used to go on back before the 80s. Just fun to see the community around any pond. Yeah, I agree. Well, several years ago, there was quite an intense winter, and DPW went and installed lights on the pond. It used to be lighted years ago, and that was abandoned after the Jeep went through the water. About 12 years ago, I had a couple of bouts of what was called hydro raking on the pond, and some of the... One of the things they came up with were some wires and such having to do with the lighting there for years before. So in the case of Mill Pond, a few years ago, DPW, Tom Holder, had a tree company, one of these companies with these tremendous cranes. And they came by the Mill Pond. And pulled out several trees, which was kind of a neat thing to do. Otherwise, those trees are just going to keep falling in there endlessly. Yeah. Although there is, you're certainly familiar with the turtle log. Yeah. I pointed out that could never come out. That would be bad. Yeah. Sorry. I mean, speaking of reports, have you seen any of the reports that have been published? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any reports that we generated from the data that we get on Dudley Pond? I looked at Mike Lowry's data, and I frankly didn't understand it. Well, the latest reports regarding the analyses that we were talking about here are up on our website. Oh. All right. I went through this. Just taking a look. It would give you an understanding. Yeah. It would give you an understanding of what we're measuring and how we're interpreting the data. I did look at that briefly before the last meeting, but that's a good point. I'll go through and review the last two or so. Yeah. Two things I wanted to ask. Tom Larger, you mentioned some years ago, the Service Water Quality Committee made a contribution to the state when they were doing work on North Pond. Was that for a chemical treatment? Was that weed management? What was that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just weed management? What was that? It was a chemical treatment, I'd say. I believe it was. Yeah. Do you recall the year or just about the approximate time? Oh, way more than 10 years. Awfully hard to say. Okay. 10 to 15 years anyway. Yeah. All right. I'll take a look. Wasn't the other comment, not a question. So, Larry, to your point, I'll look into the test, like I said, but again, this was all begun in Dudley Pond because there was a problem. if we were to go down a course of action and just get baseline readings for herd and mill and North pond, you know, it's going to be cognizant that this is just baseline data collection and we don't want to get a, an aberrant result one year and now sort of go into this, like we need to do something, you know, for, so just to keep that in mind, that it was done on Dudley pond because there was a reason. So, but let's keep the idea open. Let me see what there is by way of other tests that maybe are not as intensive as what Steve has to do or expensive for that matter. And see if it's the kind of thing that we could keep more close to home and less expensive, but I'll, I'll take that as an action for myself.
And also a Dudley pond. I forwarded an email that I got from Mike Lowry this morning, which was a purported algal bloom, algal bloom on the pond. And I don't know if you had a chance to look at that. I don't know if you can make that. It was just a couple hours ago because, because I Mike sent it this morning. I logged in from work. It's about four o'clock or so. And, and Mike just sent a picture saying, you know, should the service water quality committee be concerned when there's an algal bloom that looks like Illinois. Yeah. I saw, I saw that briefly. I, I looked at it for a brief second. So I thought, Oh boy, it's cold and chilly. The water's very cold. Why would there be an algal bloom this, this, this, you know, this time of year, but yeah, I don't know. I, I, I merely saw it. Yeah. And it came from Mike. I assume he would know, but you're right. It is early in the year. And I think there's a, certainly a heightened concern of people around the Dudley pond area for algal bloom. So I think there might be a little bit of like a jump scare kind of thing, but anyway, I just sent that along because I didn't know what to make of it, but you guys should all see it too. So, yeah, I, I think I think Mike and I discovered that together. He put his pontoon boat in the other day and I was helping him. And, you know, we both, I looked at it and I said, what, what is that? And he was like, yeah, that's, that's kind of weird. He didn't, at the time he didn't think it was anything really scary, but he might've rethought that. Okay. Before he wrote that, I didn't see the email by the way, but I will take a look. Yeah. Again, it was only a little while ago, but I, that I saw it and so forwarded it to you. Okay. So, you know, the only actions are well, so Steve, you'll look into seeing if we can find a volunteer to do, the waterworks. I'll follow up on those heard pond contracts. I'll look into the water chemistry testing, but that was really that was really all on the agenda for today, unless anybody has any
one items for awareness. We talked about this a couple of meetings ago. Do we have openings on the committee right now? Oh, there there isn't, there is an opening and there is. So, so. So. So Steve, I think maybe you, so for the committee to know, so we're replacing Carol's seat and it should be, that's a good point. I notified the town, so that should be public. There's a woman on the DPA, Melissa Roberts, who's expressive interest. That's why I mentioned it. And I think I mentioned her several months ago. And just for everybody else's information, she is working with the DPA and with Energize Wayland, which I'm also a member of, to try to get grants to get some money to do weed management in the town. So she's very smart. She's very knowledgeable on what's going on in our lakes. I'd like to see her join our committee. I floated the idea with her a few months ago and she seemed receptive. And I'm in the process of setting up a meeting with her, not necessarily to talk about that, but to get an update on what's going on with her grant work, which of course she'll talk about at the DPA meeting on Sunday. But I would like to see her apply. So Steve, why don't I continue talking to her? Because I've met with her at least once about this. She is interested, but she's told me, and this is last month, that she's taking a new role somewhere that she wants to get established in that. So she didn't mention late April. So we're just about in late April. So I'll follow up with her. But she did express interest. She just told me that she couldn't think about doing it until later this month. So I'll follow up with her on that one. All right. So she's aware. But yeah. We are looking to get that fifth seat filled. And so Melissa's expressed interest. So let me follow up with her on that one. All righty. The last item then will be to set our next meeting for May. And I know that, see, the week of the 11th, I can't be available. But there's the week of the 18th, which would be about a month away. So Steve, what looks good for you later in May? There's the 18th, the 25th. It could be Memorial Day, but we could meet Tuesday or Wednesday of that week, unless people are away. You said the week of the 18th? The 18th or the week of the 25th. But the 18th would be my first choice if that time period works. And it could be Tuesday or Wednesday. Okay. If we did it Tuesday the 19th, that would work. Larry, Tom? No, fine with me. All right. Let's lock it down. So Tuesday, May 19th will be our next meeting.
Excellent. Okay. I did a quick look on Amazon. And they have, like, where are you going to start? They have pond-based pond tests for 7-in-1 pond water testing kit.
They do. Now, how accurate, you know, I have no idea. But I do imagine that folks have ponds and want to manage them, you know, for fishing or whatever. So, FYI. We could do that. Well, again, I would suggest you read one of the reports. I will also send you, I'm not sure these are posted, the reports that, Ben and the lab send me, where I get my numbers. Oh, that'd be good. I'm looking at the Dudley Pond report from last year. Well, what's the date? The date should be right. December 15th, 2025.
Wouldn't be published in December. It would be either May or June or October. Well, is that the date you put on it when you wrote it? Yeah, it says on Sunday, October 15th. Yeah, okay. But it's, the top is dated December 15th. Oh, I, maybe they posted it in December. Yeah. But yeah, October 5th sounds right. So, if you take a look at that, and I can send you the data reports that were sent to me that I used to generate that report. And maybe you can then take a look at what Amazon is offering. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, that's a good point too, because we talked about the chlorophyll was the third test. But if we're just talking about getting baselines for other ponds, we don't necessarily need to do chlorophyll. We can do a Secchi or a phosphorus. Again, it's just to get some, do some baseline tracking. So, it doesn't need to be the same three tests. Again, the Dudley Pond situation was different. But let me get some information that I can present next week, including the Amazon phosphorus kit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just for my edification, it says they have ranges, parts per billion, what they're measured at. But the TSI range from 0 to 44, 30 to 44, is that the key number that it sums to? That seems... I'm going to throw tickets at you over here. I have to look at the equations again. Because my recollection now is that TSI can go up to quite high, much higher than that. Because we're around right now for Dudley, we're in the 50 to 60 range. Right. It says 15 to 60. It varies by day. Oh, so it says TSI range 0 to 44 for October 25. Oh, you're talking about Steve's report. Yeah. Yes.
I'd have to look at that again. Yeah. It's very hard to pull the report apart in this venue. And it might be... You have to look. I think I have to look at it again because I'm not... Because I know there's a range in there. Because you have the top... Yeah, it has to do... If you look further in the report, there is a chart that shows... It's kind of a multicolored chart that shows... Yeah. You know, how the... How the numbers align and how that number is determined. Oh, right. Whether it's mesotropic or eurotrophic. All right. Yep.
Good. Yeah. I'll look at that. I don't want to do a real list. You know how to reach me? Yeah. So what else we got, Tom? No, that was it. We have the date for May 19th. So all we have now is me making a motion to adjourn at 7.54 p.m. And somebody's seconding it. And it's all voting. Unanimously to get out of here. All right. So I made the motion. Steve seconded. Let's go around the virtual room. Tom Klem, aye. Tom Largy, aye. Steve Garone, aye. Byron Tiernan, yes. All right. That's it. Thanks, gentlemen. Talk to you in May. Thank you.
Do you have both of us? No, I didn't get you, Steve. Steve Garone, present. Okay, got you. You are now officially on the record. Well, everybody, thank you. I was going to say, I hope everyone's enjoying the warm weather, but it's been hot some days, cold the others. Warm weather? Well, I was going to say, last week it was warm. Yeah, it was. I was out on White's Pond rowing a boat this afternoon. It was pretty chilly out there.
So, hope everyone's enjoying and being, you know, on your toes. I didn't catch anything, but that's all right. Didn't catch a cold, I hope. Yeah. There goes a dad joke. All right, let's start first with the minutes from last time. I sent those around a week or so ago. I will, unless there are any comments, I will make a motion to approve the minutes from our March 10th meeting. I second that.
All right. And then let's go around the room to vote on that. Tom Larkey, aye. Sorry, Tom. Tom Flam, aye. Steve Garone, aye. Larry, aye. Perfect. It's unanimous. Okay, so the minutes from March 10th are approved. All right. The agenda is not so... So, big this week. There's one item for Dudley and a few for Heard. And the items for Heard Pond are basically just updates on these two contracts we have been talking about. One is for the hand harvesting of water chestnuts, the annual pulling of the weeds on Heard Pond. And then the second one is for the ClearCast application. And so, both of these. So, the ClearCast application, that went through the town fine. That was for under $10,000. And you'll recall that anything that's going to cost more than $10,000 has to go through an RFP process. So, Kelsey is the assistant town manager. She's been in and out of the office. I asked her for an update. She told me she would, maybe almost a month ago, a few weeks anyways, that she had received for ClearCast the quote from Solitude. She was routing it on the town side, and she was going to send it for signatures. And she told me she would give me an update. I didn't get an update. I asked her yesterday for an update for this meeting, and she was out of the office until today. So, I have no news other than to say that we received the quote from Solitude, and it's presumably working its way through the process. Whether it's stuck on the town side or the Solitude side, I don't know. But that one, at least, you know, once the contract is in place, excuse me, we can make plans for the herbicide application. Water chestnuts, a bit tricky. Larry, you just joined the committee, but Tom and Steve will certainly know that we, for the water chestnut harvesting, we always go in for a contract that's just under that $10,000 barrier. But we always know there are always extra days of service that we need. And there's this provision that if a contract is under $10,000, you can contract with your vendor for that work. And they can add. You can add up to 25% of additional work. We've taken advantage of that. But last year, Kelsey was saying, you know, it's been a couple of years since we've gone through this process. We should go through it again. And especially since, you know, she's caught on that we always spend more than $10,000 a year. So, I was forthright and say, you know, it's going to cost us more than $10,000, thus triggering the RFP process. And so, I drafted language for the RFP. We had done something similar five or so years ago for Dudley Pond. And so, Tom Largy had gotten the contract from Solitude. So, I basically adapted that language for this RFP. Don't know if it's going out this week. I know Kelsey was talking about the 24th. But again, I have no updates. So, we are, she did say that when it goes out, it could be for up to three years. And Tom, I did let Jeff Castellani know so we can prepare accordingly. I saw that email. Yeah. So, if we, and so hopefully he'll say, you know, let us know that he's looking out for it and he'll respond to it. There's a whole bunch of paperwork that any vendor would need to have. Hopefully, Solitude has it in place. But hopefully, we go through a little bit of pain this time around and know how Solitude locked in for the next three years. So, but we're waiting on that one. It's got to go through the RFP process. And I believe that has to be out there for two weeks once it's posted. And then so on, you can engage. So, it's going to be down to the 1%. We did this for Dudley. I forgot what it was. The last time it was for Dudley Pond, excuse me. It was quite a process getting this on the town side, getting it in a form they liked, and then waiting the two weeks. So, we're just going to have to ride it out. I can't tell you how immensely grateful I am that Tom Klem is handling all of that. Times have changed. Years ago, because I've been on the committee for 26, 27 years. We were just asked for a contract. We'd have a meeting. Everybody would sign it. I hand it into the town. Job done. It's much, much harder now. And as a whole, as far as I could tell, a whole town structure, administrative structure around this. I don't know. They say it's regulations.
Regulations. It's transparency. Don't thank me yet, Tom. We've got until July to get this thing in place. Yeah. Assuming that Jeff is going to be the only and or winning bidder, they can plan accordingly. But, yeah, don't thank me yet. We've got a couple months away. And that work gets done in August? No. Tom, they do the July as the earliest. Yeah, yeah. The water chest, Larry, generally. And we've been working on it. We've been working on it for many, many years. As I've mentioned before, before 2000, most of the pond was 100% monoculture of water chest. And it's a sad, difficult story. We thought we had it licked 10, 12 years ago. We didn't. But generally, they start showing in early to mid-June. By late June, I do a survey. Okay. And by the way, you know, I've taken Tom Klem out on the pond a couple of times. Either of you, Larry or Steve, are welcome to come out in the pond with me sometime. That would be great. I did read the report from last year. You went in mid-June. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, so we can discuss that later. But the water chests would start coming up. And then they have, it's just a remarkable progression from late June, early July. And they mature by mid-August. And they start dropping seeds. And the water chests are, you know, these rosettes. And then they send out a, I was going to say a tentacle, not a tentacle. But it appears that way to me. But a shoot. And then another rosette. And then another rosette. And it happens in a few weeks' time. So there's a very, very discreet time slot. They're either harvested before the seeds are ripe or mature. Or last year or so, just this last year, the clear-cast herbicide has to also be done, be applied at the right time. And Herd Pond, there's a particular issue. And it may be in the report, but I forget. But the problem is that there's an issue of the boundary with the Great Meadows. I saw that far western, southwestern corner or something. Yeah, right. Yeah. So I had. I had a photo. Tom Klem and I went out in August. And, you know, it was very clear that there was a green boundary of untreated plants. The problem with that is, is that there's a concept of something called the seed bank. And those seeds are in the sediment for, you know, the science many years ago said seven years, then 10 to 12, 15. It could be decades. But unfortunately. Unfortunately, that strip until we get that straightened out, if that ever happens, is just going to keep feeding seeds into the pond. Yeah. And Tom Clem is, because we're doing an RFP, will the amount be more than 10,000? Or what's the issue there? Well, no. So now. So we typically spend about $12,000 a year. So it'll be about a $12,000 contract. So it triggers that 10,000. And one thing I want to confirm with Kelsey, if it's going to be for three years, I assume they would have to, it would be a $36,000 contract. But I'll find out from Kelsey before this goes out. But that's a minor point. But anyways, annually, it's about $12,000. Yeah. What? You know, what the hand pulling has involved over the years is that in the open water areas and also various shoreline areas like lily pads and such, you go in and some kind of craft, canoe, kayak, small boat, and pull them. And then the problem is that this southwest cove area, they're so pernicious. And that hand pulling is just out of the question. So actually, over the last several years, the hand pullers have asked for extra days so they could go in there. And the reality is it doesn't work. Tom, Tom Klem and I have been in, you know, a couple of times with my boat. He can attest that it's a tough, tough job. If I were many years younger. And wanted to be out there all day for a couple of days, I could do it. But it's just too hard. Yeah, it'd be a lot more productive. And solitude has an issue just getting crews. That's one factor. The timing, you know, getting them there before the seeds drop. The boats are now canoes. So there's all kinds of other headwinds that that solitude faces that, you know, for $12,000, you seem to get a little bit less. Every year. But it's not like there's a lot of people who are willing to, who are able to go out there and do it. And there are volunteers to do it. So we do the best we can. Yeah, well, until COVID, solitude had their own crew of college and high school kids. And but, you know what, they had a hard time recruiting them. These kids are just off on other things. And that's all. That's all. That's all there is to it. So anyway, well, that's enough said about that. Yeah. And maybe there's a segue there. We'll talk about this with Stephen Dudley Pond next. But maybe there's other kinds of volunteer organizations we can work with. But we'll see. So anyways, that's what's going on with those contracts. I'll keep emailing, calling Kelsey occasionally, keeping the solitude guys updated, and then move those along. So hopefully more productive, positive news. Next time we meet. That was it on Heard. The only other item that we had was Dudley Pond and water chemistry testing. And the question, the action last time was with Ben Weatherwell taking a job in the private sector. Is there a volunteer, some other professional we can get to take on the water chemistry part? And Steve, I don't know if you've had a chance to follow up on that or have any updates. I wish I did. Tom. Tom. Tom. Tom evidently sent me some contact information about a month ago, which, Tom, I couldn't find it. Okay. Well, it wasn't really contact information. You know, what's happened is that for OARS, there was just about a complete turnover of staff from a few years ago. And most of them are part-timers. They have a water chemistry person. They're a guy, but, you know, you dial and actually the water chemistry is one, but all you can do is leave a message. It's very hard to get somebody there. Which I did. Okay. That was yesterday. So I don't have a response yet. Yeah. Yeah. I can keep calling them. The other thing I was thinking about doing, you know, I would have thought that I would have had her answer from this the last time we worked with Ben. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I may just reach out to Ben again and see if he knows anybody. He will probably recommend that, you know, I get the meter and do it myself. He gave me some instruction, but, you know, you got to, you got to, you got to do it hands on and know what you're doing. I think we, we kind of defaulted at the last meeting if we had to, to just doing the part that I can do with the labs. Yeah. which would give us enough information for some of it. And we may have to fall back on that, but I'll continue to pursue it. We usually do the spring one in May. So May is getting really close, obviously. Occasionally it was done in June. So we may have a little bit of time to work that. But right now I don't have an answer. So what I would ask Steve is, we do have, we always do the lab testing. So if you're able to collect the water sample for that and do the SECI, I would just leave it at that because the rest of it is, that's where you need the meter. And then we, as we talked about last time, we don't really use that information. Yeah, we publish it, but you're right. We don't really use it. And I think, you know, it's got value in terms of trends, but you're measuring temperatures and pHs and things like that, which I don't really use. I guess may have some meaning, but I think all that kind of wraps up into the measurements that we actually do with the water samples. And that's really what's important. So I agree with you. And that'll be our fallback. But I'll continue to try to figure out whether we can find somebody to help us with that. With the, sorry, Steve.
With the water samples and testing we have done, what action do they take on Dudley? What action does? Like, is there actionable things to do once we get the samples? Like, do we treat the water or do something different or? In recent years, there has been no action. The readings have been fairly consistent year to year. And season to season.
When we publish the report, we go back a number of years and show the data from a number of years ago. The strange thing that I've observed in the last couple of times that I've done it. And Norm always, Tom, Clem, Norm always gives me feedback on this because I try to incorporate numbers that were measured down at the, lowest depth, the deepest part of the pond. And he kind of rejects them and says, you know, they're off the map. They don't really matter. Well, if you do that, there isn't really a lot of variation in what we measure from year to year. So. Well, yeah, I was gonna say, I've been on the committee for over 25 years. And the net is that Dudley Pond, year after year, the water quality has been, I would say, has been outstanding. It's been outstanding. It's been outstanding. It's been outstanding. It's been outstanding. It's been outstanding. It's been outstanding. It's been outstanding. It's been outstanding. With excellent clarity, 14, 16 feet of clarity, unlike Heard Pond.
You know, I've been fishing it several times recently, thinking, oh, there's no clarity beyond one or two feet. I don't know what the difference is, but it's very useful to have a benchmark. Now, historically on Dudley Pond, and the reason the surface is so clear, and the reason the surface water quality committee was created was a severe milfoil problem back into the 90s. And the milfoil, you know, has been controlled over the years, largely with chemical means. And then, you know, in recent years, tape grass, which is not an invasive, except it's an invasive. When it takes over the pond, it's a natural, you know, North American plant. The fish love it, the ducks love it, but it takes over the pond. So you might say the weeds have been the observable things over the years, whereas it's very useful to have a benchmark of what's going on in the pond over the years. Yeah, and it is useful, and we'll do that. You brought up a point about milfoil. You brought up a point about milfoil. You brought up a point about milfoil. About milfoil, though, and Tom, you know, we in this committee have taken the data that we have and determined that we probably wouldn't need a milfoil treatment next year. I think, based on what I hear, that the DPA folks might push back on that somewhat. Well, that's not going to happen at this point anyways, because you've got to get all the contracts in place and everything else. You know, maybe they will. Maybe they will push back. We're not really in a position for that now. The report, so we had the survey done by ARC. Right. Well, I guess the post one is the one that matters. They didn't see much in the way of milfoil. Alison LeClair, who is really the local expert on the pond, saw the data. I recall that she didn't really see any concern. So when you say the DPA folks will push back, you're talking about ads. Yeah. You're talking about Alison as she had a change of heart or others. I thought Alison was surprised to hear that conclusion. Okay. Well, she had seen the information I had. It was anecdotal at the time. It was before the report. She didn't seem too concerned about it. I didn't hear anything once the report was circulated from ARC. So at this point, you know, it's April. We did this in Memorial Day. So it's not likely to happen. Now. And I wouldn't recommend getting a late jump. So and for what it's worth, I mean, this is also anecdotal, right? The first time was 2019. We did it in 23. So from a four year cycle, it'll be next year. But so we'll see what folks have to say. I think it's be kind of late. There won't be the budget for it to get the wheel turning now. But we'll hear with the meeting, the DPA meeting next weekend. Right. So, yes, well, we'll hear more then. Are you going, by the way? Yeah. I'll be in town. Yeah. I can. I can be there at the beginning, but I have a conflict having to do with some political stuff I'm doing. I'll stay as long as I can, but it's good to know you'll be there. Yeah, I do. When I was thinking about the water testing, though, and thinking about the possibility that we may only do part of it. Do you have any data on? Yeah. Yeah. How much we usually spend on the lab part versus the Ben part? Well, the total budget for the year is about $5,000, because I recall that for Ben's part, he charges us about $1,000 twice a year. And then the lab is also about $1,000 twice a year. So that's over $4,000 less than five. So if we just talk about the lab part, it'll be $2,500. Okay. All right. All right. So that's, you know, if we don't get to do that part, that's a savings. Yeah. It's a couple thousand. It's not, you know, tens of thousands. But it is a savings. That's a lot of money. Yeah. Well, and who knows how much it'll, you know, will, how much more it might be next year? We'll see. I just want to come back to Larry's question, you talk about actionable data. So with the data that we use, the chlorophyll, Secchi depth, and phosphorus are each used to calculate trophic state index. So three different ways of calculating it. So that's really, I guess it's not an action, but that's really what we're monitoring on the pond. Because when this all began in part, not only the weeds, but Dudley Pond was on the edge or maybe already slightly eutrophic. So they want to begin monitoring weeds, doing other treatments to cut back on that. And so the pond now is mesotrophic, which is one grade better than being eutrophic, but it's kind of been hovering there, I guess, the past 10, 15 years. So it's maintaining that status, but these three data points and these TSI calculations are what we would rely on to say, hey, the pond is, you know, tipping over into a eutrophic state from a mesotrophic state. Yep. Right. And is that done for other ponds or just Dudley? It all was done for Dudley, and again, just because of the way Dudley was decades ago before all this began. So it's never been done for herd. Yeah. And when Carol was here. Yeah. She raised the point too, like, why don't we get a baseline for Lake Kachichewit and for Herd Pond? And we didn't do that, doesn't mean it couldn't be done, but for the same reason we have this baseline that's now historical data set for Dudley, should we begin doing the same thing for Lake Kachichewit and Herd Pond? It's an open question, but it was originally done on Dudley because there was a situation requiring some data to take action on in terms of weed management and so on. Does the state do anything for Kachichewit? They for the state park, yes, but not North Pond, which is in Wayland. Are they, I haven't been in the South Pond, are they basically similar or are they very different? Well, I know there's a lot. There's a lot of weed management. They do. There's a lot of weed management in the Middle Pond, where the state park is, that's where they focus their efforts. Now, do we have those same plants in North Pond? We perhaps do, but it's not, and there's recreation there too, right? That's where the town beach is, but I'm not aware of any overgrowth of any certain kind of plants. Well, North Pond has been treated in years past, quite a few years ago, surface water quality contributed. The state was doing something and surface water quality or the town of Wayland contributed 10,000 for North Pond. The ponds are different in a way. South Pond, which is out of our purview entirely, is shallower, very weedy. Middle Pond, a little smaller. Some shallow parts. Some very deep parts. North Pond, which generally when I fish is North Pond. Some very deep parts. There aren't really any issues there. But then town of Wayland at the beach over the years, the park and rec has from time to time taken on weed control there. I think I'm correct in that, Tom. So, yeah, and there are weeds in Lake Kachitra, but they may be in North Pond, if they're not in the residential areas, if they're in some of the, or as you come down, I think Route 30, looking ahead, there's quite a cove area, which I happen to know is shallow and weedy, but nobody lives there. Nobody swims there. Yeah. No complaints. Yeah. Yeah. So... Is there a... The test we do for Dudley, just so I understand the three tests that determine the rating, how much money and time is that? So for the three, well, the second depth is just a person going out in the pond with the test, but for the chlorophyll and the phosphorus, so those two tests, that's what Steve was asking about earlier. So we send those to the lab and that's $1,000 for the two tests. So we, twice a year, we collect those samples, they go to the lab, we get those test results back and it's $1,000. So that's $2,000 to have those tests done twice a year. So if we did it for any other pond, it would be times two or times three, depending on how many bodies we wanted to get. Right. And in terms of Steve's time or anyone in Wayland's time, they just scoop out the water and send it? So let me just give you some detail. There are two parts of it, as Tom said. There's the water samples that we collect and we send to the lab, and that involves the lab bringing me... The bottles, and some of them have a chemical in it, so be careful with that. I have the collection machine, I call it, which is just basically a glass tube. We measure in three spots and there are four measurements because one of the spots is at the deepest part of the pond. So we do surface there and we do near the bottom. So there are four measurements. So I go out on my boat... And I collect those. I put them in the right bottles, I label the bottles, I fill out the forms. The next day the lab comes and picks them up. Some of the samples have to be in their hands in less than 24 hours. So everything has to be timed. And then they send us back the results attached to an email and I write the report. So it's a little bit of time, but it's not a big deal. Yeah. The second part of it involves a meter that this fellow, Ben Wetherill, that we mentioned earlier, we used to hire him to use that meter and go out and measure a few other parameters that in terms of the important information that Tom Klem talked about, they don't really play a role. They're just kind of, you know, we monitor this stuff over time and that was done by Ben. But he no longer works for the company he used to work for. He can't really do it anymore. So either we have to get our own meter, get trained up on it and use it, or we can rent a meter and I can go out and use it after I learn how to use it. Or we find somebody else who could do what Ben did. Right. But just doing the two tests, phosphorus and what else? Chlorophyll. Chlorophyll. Yeah. Pardon my ignorance, but I can go out to my lawn, stick a meter in the ground. It'll tell me the pH. Is it really that hard to get an accurate reading for phosphorus and chlorophyll out of the tube of water? So the phosphorus measurement I know is a chemical test. That's what Steve was talking about. Yeah. But isn't this like basic science? Yeah. I mean, I'm not a scientist, so- I am, but I'm not a chemist. So I'm an electrical engineer by training, so I don't- Yeah. So I know you can do, like for a home aquarium, you can do phosphorus and nitrogen reading. Right. But- Yeah, I think- Not accurate enough. I think it's important. I mean, I'm being intuitive here. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's important to me that if we are really monitoring over time, we want to use the same equipment, the same lab, and the same technique. Was that the right thing to do at the beginning? I have no idea. But we'll- Well, if the cost is prohibited from doing, it'd be if we could get semi-accurate data or reasonably accurate data, and the answer may be you can't. But if you could, you- Yeah. But you could have that for mill pond, herd pond, if someone was doing it regularly, and it was a home-based science test type thing. I'm just curious. It's a great question. I don't have the chemical expertise to answer that. Yeah. I think as an action to look into that, because I see where you're coming from, Larry, and you could say, well, to do this across all these ponds is, even in the town budget, it's pretty negligible. But as Steve pointed out, there is some choreography involved, and if you have multiple ponds, that's more of somebody's time. It's more- Well, I'm retired, and I've got a kayak, so I could go off, but if it could be done by a layperson who had some training, that's- Yeah. Let me- That's kind of in my- No. I'll take- I'm interested in this stuff. I'll take a look into it. I think you should, Tom. But I also think that if you have ideas, Larry, on how to do that, it might make sense when I go out in May or June to come out with me and say what I'm doing. Yeah. I'd like to. Yeah. And see if we get similar results. Yeah. Oh, good call. That's a good baseline to work from. Yeah. I think that's a great idea. Yeah. I don't know what your technique would be, but- I have no idea. Yeah. But it's a good- Thank you, Larry, for bringing that up, because, yeah, it's good to revisit this stuff, right? And not just rely on something that we've been doing just because we've been doing it that way, and especially if we're going to do this for other ponds, if there's another way. Again, all we want to see is continuity over time. So if we do find, let's say, a cheaper alternative, whatever that baseline is, is I'm going to keep using that test. Yeah. That's our baseline, like you were saying. So let me look at some other options. The other ponds, the Mill Pond is 1.7 acres, and I don't know, when it comes to water, and when you have a major precipitation event. Yeah. I think the water gets turned over pretty quickly in the pond, whereas it rarely does in Dudley Pond, is much, much, much different. By the way, I go around the ponds, even now fishing, it's early in the season, I got a nice fish and herd, I've got nothing in Mill Pond, but I have noticed that, and I've wondered about this, seems to be a border of duckweed, that green weed, and I thought, huh, it's awfully early in the season for that, but maybe it survives. Herd Pond is far different. The depth there is about eight feet, and it's just not the same kind of water body that Dudley is, connected to the Sudbury River at high water and so forth. So our emphasis is more the weeds. Fishing, by the way, is outstanding, and Herd Pond, I saw, there's a fellow who lives right on Pelham Island Road that got his largest bass ever out of the pond, he gets hundreds of fish every year. I spotted a bald eagle swooped down on a pair of mallards last week, which I thought was, they got away. Wow. They got away. But anyway, I'm, you know, from the point of view of Herd Pond, I think apparently the oxygen is pretty good. It's very eutrophic, there's no doubt of that. I doubt there's got to be much to turn it around. It's just keep the weeds in control so that people can, you know, pursue recreation on the pond. But, anyway, that's... Just one side note, I was doing, going through the information Carol sent me, and I came across an article online from 2019 that Mike Lowry wrote on Mill Pond, it's like, a five-page article with pictures back in 1890 on the old mill, and what's the funny part was, my son wrestled in high school, and Gary Chase, who was a previous wrestling manager, his son wrestles coaches now, but was the park and rec guy who cleared the ice and measured the ice. And lost a vehicle in the pond. Yeah, yeah, that was legendary. Legendary. And then Shep's, from Shep's Auto, you had a whole bunch of, it was just very interesting to read how much skating used to go on back before the 80s. Just fun to see the community around any pond. Yeah, I agree. Well, several years ago, there was quite an intense winter, and DPW went and installed lights on the pond. It used to be lighted years ago, and that was abandoned after the Jeep went through the water. About 12 years ago, I had a couple of bouts of what was called hydro raking on the pond, and some of the... One of the things they came up with were some wires and such having to do with the lighting there for years before. So in the case of Mill Pond, a few years ago, DPW, Tom Holder, had a tree company, one of these companies with these tremendous cranes. And they came by the Mill Pond. And pulled out several trees, which was kind of a neat thing to do. Otherwise, those trees are just going to keep falling in there endlessly. Yeah. Although there is, you're certainly familiar with the turtle log. Yeah. I pointed out that could never come out. That would be bad. Yeah. Sorry. I mean, speaking of reports, have you seen any of the reports that have been published? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any reports that we generated from the data that we get on Dudley Pond? I looked at Mike Lowry's data, and I frankly didn't understand it. Well, the latest reports regarding the analyses that we were talking about here are up on our website. Oh. All right. I went through this. Just taking a look. It would give you an understanding. Yeah. It would give you an understanding of what we're measuring and how we're interpreting the data. I did look at that briefly before the last meeting, but that's a good point. I'll go through and review the last two or so. Yeah. Two things I wanted to ask. Tom Larger, you mentioned some years ago, the Service Water Quality Committee made a contribution to the state when they were doing work on North Pond. Was that for a chemical treatment? Was that weed management? What was that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just weed management? What was that? It was a chemical treatment, I'd say. I believe it was. Yeah. Do you recall the year or just about the approximate time? Oh, way more than 10 years. Awfully hard to say. Okay. 10 to 15 years anyway. Yeah. All right. I'll take a look. Wasn't the other comment, not a question. So, Larry, to your point, I'll look into the test, like I said, but again, this was all begun in Dudley Pond because there was a problem. if we were to go down a course of action and just get baseline readings for herd and mill and North pond, you know, it's going to be cognizant that this is just baseline data collection and we don't want to get a, an aberrant result one year and now sort of go into this, like we need to do something, you know, for, so just to keep that in mind, that it was done on Dudley pond because there was a reason. So, but let's keep the idea open. Let me see what there is by way of other tests that maybe are not as intensive as what Steve has to do or expensive for that matter. And see if it's the kind of thing that we could keep more close to home and less expensive, but I'll, I'll take that as an action for myself.
And also a Dudley pond. I forwarded an email that I got from Mike Lowry this morning, which was a purported algal bloom, algal bloom on the pond. And I don't know if you had a chance to look at that. I don't know if you can make that. It was just a couple hours ago because, because I Mike sent it this morning. I logged in from work. It's about four o'clock or so. And, and Mike just sent a picture saying, you know, should the service water quality committee be concerned when there's an algal bloom that looks like Illinois. Yeah. I saw, I saw that briefly. I, I looked at it for a brief second. So I thought, Oh boy, it's cold and chilly. The water's very cold. Why would there be an algal bloom this, this, this, you know, this time of year, but yeah, I don't know. I, I, I merely saw it. Yeah. And it came from Mike. I assume he would know, but you're right. It is early in the year. And I think there's a, certainly a heightened concern of people around the Dudley pond area for algal bloom. So I think there might be a little bit of like a jump scare kind of thing, but anyway, I just sent that along because I didn't know what to make of it, but you guys should all see it too. So, yeah, I, I think I think Mike and I discovered that together. He put his pontoon boat in the other day and I was helping him. And, you know, we both, I looked at it and I said, what, what is that? And he was like, yeah, that's, that's kind of weird. He didn't, at the time he didn't think it was anything really scary, but he might've rethought that. Okay. Before he wrote that, I didn't see the email by the way, but I will take a look. Yeah. Again, it was only a little while ago, but I, that I saw it and so forwarded it to you. Okay. So, you know, the only actions are well, so Steve, you'll look into seeing if we can find a volunteer to do, the waterworks. I'll follow up on those heard pond contracts. I'll look into the water chemistry testing, but that was really that was really all on the agenda for today, unless anybody has any
one items for awareness. We talked about this a couple of meetings ago. Do we have openings on the committee right now? Oh, there there isn't, there is an opening and there is. So, so. So. So Steve, I think maybe you, so for the committee to know, so we're replacing Carol's seat and it should be, that's a good point. I notified the town, so that should be public. There's a woman on the DPA, Melissa Roberts, who's expressive interest. That's why I mentioned it. And I think I mentioned her several months ago. And just for everybody else's information, she is working with the DPA and with Energize Wayland, which I'm also a member of, to try to get grants to get some money to do weed management in the town. So she's very smart. She's very knowledgeable on what's going on in our lakes. I'd like to see her join our committee. I floated the idea with her a few months ago and she seemed receptive. And I'm in the process of setting up a meeting with her, not necessarily to talk about that, but to get an update on what's going on with her grant work, which of course she'll talk about at the DPA meeting on Sunday. But I would like to see her apply. So Steve, why don't I continue talking to her? Because I've met with her at least once about this. She is interested, but she's told me, and this is last month, that she's taking a new role somewhere that she wants to get established in that. So she didn't mention late April. So we're just about in late April. So I'll follow up with her. But she did express interest. She just told me that she couldn't think about doing it until later this month. So I'll follow up with her on that one. All right. So she's aware. But yeah. We are looking to get that fifth seat filled. And so Melissa's expressed interest. So let me follow up with her on that one. All righty. The last item then will be to set our next meeting for May. And I know that, see, the week of the 11th, I can't be available. But there's the week of the 18th, which would be about a month away. So Steve, what looks good for you later in May? There's the 18th, the 25th. It could be Memorial Day, but we could meet Tuesday or Wednesday of that week, unless people are away. You said the week of the 18th? The 18th or the week of the 25th. But the 18th would be my first choice if that time period works. And it could be Tuesday or Wednesday. Okay. If we did it Tuesday the 19th, that would work. Larry, Tom? No, fine with me. All right. Let's lock it down. So Tuesday, May 19th will be our next meeting.
Excellent. Okay. I did a quick look on Amazon. And they have, like, where are you going to start? They have pond-based pond tests for 7-in-1 pond water testing kit.
They do. Now, how accurate, you know, I have no idea. But I do imagine that folks have ponds and want to manage them, you know, for fishing or whatever. So, FYI. We could do that. Well, again, I would suggest you read one of the reports. I will also send you, I'm not sure these are posted, the reports that, Ben and the lab send me, where I get my numbers. Oh, that'd be good. I'm looking at the Dudley Pond report from last year. Well, what's the date? The date should be right. December 15th, 2025.
Wouldn't be published in December. It would be either May or June or October. Well, is that the date you put on it when you wrote it? Yeah, it says on Sunday, October 15th. Yeah, okay. But it's, the top is dated December 15th. Oh, I, maybe they posted it in December. Yeah. But yeah, October 5th sounds right. So, if you take a look at that, and I can send you the data reports that were sent to me that I used to generate that report. And maybe you can then take a look at what Amazon is offering. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, that's a good point too, because we talked about the chlorophyll was the third test. But if we're just talking about getting baselines for other ponds, we don't necessarily need to do chlorophyll. We can do a Secchi or a phosphorus. Again, it's just to get some, do some baseline tracking. So, it doesn't need to be the same three tests. Again, the Dudley Pond situation was different. But let me get some information that I can present next week, including the Amazon phosphorus kit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just for my edification, it says they have ranges, parts per billion, what they're measured at. But the TSI range from 0 to 44, 30 to 44, is that the key number that it sums to? That seems... I'm going to throw tickets at you over here. I have to look at the equations again. Because my recollection now is that TSI can go up to quite high, much higher than that. Because we're around right now for Dudley, we're in the 50 to 60 range. Right. It says 15 to 60. It varies by day. Oh, so it says TSI range 0 to 44 for October 25. Oh, you're talking about Steve's report. Yeah. Yes.
I'd have to look at that again. Yeah. It's very hard to pull the report apart in this venue. And it might be... You have to look. I think I have to look at it again because I'm not... Because I know there's a range in there. Because you have the top... Yeah, it has to do... If you look further in the report, there is a chart that shows... It's kind of a multicolored chart that shows... Yeah. You know, how the... How the numbers align and how that number is determined. Oh, right. Whether it's mesotropic or eurotrophic. All right. Yep.
Good. Yeah. I'll look at that. I don't want to do a real list. You know how to reach me? Yeah. So what else we got, Tom? No, that was it. We have the date for May 19th. So all we have now is me making a motion to adjourn at 7.54 p.m. And somebody's seconding it. And it's all voting. Unanimously to get out of here. All right. So I made the motion. Steve seconded. Let's go around the virtual room. Tom Klem, aye. Tom Largy, aye. Steve Garone, aye. Byron Tiernan, yes. All right. That's it. Thanks, gentlemen. Talk to you in May. Thank you.