South Portland’s stormwater program coordinator, Fred Dillon, points out a shoreline area at Hinckley Park that will be restored to combat persistent algae blooms in the pond. Drew Johnson / The Forecaster
A shoreline restoration project is expected to mitigate the damage from the hazardous algae blooms that have plagued South Portland’s Hinckley Pond for the past three years and lessen the impact of future outbreaks.
The city’s Parks & Rec and Water Resource Protection departments will start the two-week restoration and revegetation project late this summer to repair a 100-foot stretch of shoreline at Hinckley Park.
Kristina Ertzner and Fred Dillon check out a stream from the pond where a future cleanup project may take place. Drew Johnson / The Forecaster
Meanwhile, a private company, BlueWorld Environmental, has launched a fundraising campaign for a toxic algae remediation pilot project at the park. If fully funded at $15,000, BlueWorld says it will use a total of 170 carbon reef bags in both the upper and lower ponds to help identify and filter out the toxins in Hinckley Pond.
The park is a popular dog-walking spot, and algae blooms caused by the toxins are particularly dangerous for dogs and wildlife, said South Portland Conservation Manager Kristina Ertzner. While the blooms have been minor in scale, they can be fatal for dogs that ingest even a small amount of algae, she said.
The city’s $18,000 restoration project, $8,000 of which will be paid by a DEP grant, targets an area clearly damaged by runoff. Originally a narrow trail with plants separating it from the pond, it is now mostly open space that allows runoff containing contaminated soil to easily flow into the water.
“The DEP identifies soil as the number one pollutant to Maine surface water,” city Stormwater Program Coordinator Fred Dillon said at Hinckley Park last week. “The phosphorous attached to the soil is usually thought to be the driver.”
Causes for soil contamination at Hinckley, Dillon said, could be dog and wildlife waste, nearby septic systems, storm runoff, or a combination of the three.
Revegetating the area, Dillon said, will help filter runoff and mitigate future algae blooms.
“We’ll get in here with some city staff, volunteers probably, and then stick some plants in,” he said. “We also have to keep dogs and people off of it. We’re going to come up with some kind of temporary fencing.”
If the project is successful, according to Ertzner and Dillon, it will be expanded to other key areas along the pond’s shoreline.
Algae has spawned at Hinckley Pond in South Portland for three straight years, and there is reason to believe it will bloom again this summer. Contributed / Kristina Ertzner
“It’s an overused metaphor,” Dillon said. “But it’s death by a thousand cuts and we’re trying to heal by a thousand Band-Aids.”
BlueWorld Environmental plans to take a damage-control approach as well.
“BlueWorld is looking to use biochar, which is organic wood-ash and different organic, carbon-based products, that they can put into a mesh bag,” Ertzner said. “They said it takes 64 days for the bacteria to build up in these carbon bags and then, as water passes through it, that bacteria in the carbon filters out the water.”
Ertzner expects that the bags will pull out E. coli, phosphorus and other “excess nutrients.”
The reef bag project would have to be done when there is no ice on the ponds and would take two months to complete.
Because it is a pilot project, BlueWorld cannot receive funding from the city or state. Since March, its gofundme effort has raised just $380 of the $15,000 needed.
BlueWorld representatives did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Forecaster.
The restoration project will be conducted along this stretch of Hinckley Pond’s shoreline. To the left is where the path will continue to be, while the rest of the soil is to be revegetated. Drew Johnson / The Forecaster
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