Friends of Morses Pond

 

Pond Meeting with Town Boards

Monday June 6, 2005

8:00pm

Great Hall, Town Hall

 

This is a meeting with the Morses Pond Ad Hoc Committee, Wellesley Cancer Prevention Project, Board of Public Works and the Board of Health. The agenda is to discuss Morses Pond management, which will include discussions on herbicides.

 

This is an important meeting for the Friends of Morses Pond given the recent focus and publicity on the potential use of herbicides as part of the Management Plan. The groups at this Monday night meeting are particularly sensitive to the use of herbicides in the Pond.  Having a good turnout will help send the message that people are actively interested in the pursuit of solutions to prevent Morses Pond from declining and in developing a viable long-term management program.

This month, there are two important meetings, the June 6th meeting at 8:00 pm and a Public Hearing on June 16th at 7:30pm.  We are asking people to do their best to attend both meetings, to be held at Town Hall.

Many residents have witnessed the pond decline over the years. Morses Pond is a man-made pond and all ponds do have natural cycles where they are created, plant nutrients increase and eventually the pond fills in and dies. The aging process, called eutrophication, has been accelerated by human activities. If the process continues at its current rate, the Pond will become a wetland, and its decline not reversible. After the pond regress to the point of becoming a wetland zone by Massachusetts law then nothing can be done to bring the pond back to open water status. It has been estimated (by Dr Wagner’s recent study) that in 20 years, we’ll lose the value of the northern basin if no action is taken. 

Residents have worked hard over the past decades to generate interest in improving and protecting Morses Pond for the Town, with less-than-optimal results. Now is the opportune time to change those results. There is growing concern about the neglect of the pond and the effect of increasing algae on the water quality, and there is a potential new revenue source through the Community Preservation Act.

 

If only a few people attend these meetings, it will send the message that people aren’t interested in the Pond.

 

Ideally, we’ll have a strong showing at the June 6th meeting and an even stronger showing at the June 16th meeting.  Please make every effort to join us.

 

For more information on Morses Pond, please contact one of the FOMP officers via http://www.morsespond.org, where you can also subscribe to fomp@morsespond.org.