Monitors Take Final Samplings Of Season At Santuit Pond

Kenneth Molloy measures the water temperature in Santuit Pond at different depths. Photographs by BRIAN KEHRL/ENTERPRISE

MASHPEE- The noxious smell is gone, but the bright green algae is still thick in much of Santuit Pond.
Six weeks after two volunteer water quality samplers first encountered a horrid smell and an iridescent blue gelatinous substance mixed in with the more familiar thick green algae in the southern end of the pond, the two were out on the pond again on Wednesday morning this week.
Edward A. Baker, president of the Mashpee Environmental Coalition, and Kenneth Molloy, a Cotuit resident, found the water to still be a relatively warm 59 degrees Fahrenheit and visibility to be approximately two feet, just above the state sanitary standard for swimming.
The town is considering a $51,500 study of why the pond has degraded so much in recent years, though many local scientists and laymen alike have said they believe the cause is phosphorous, a nutrient that spurs algal growth in freshwater much like nitrogen does in saltwater. Phosphorous could be coming from septic systems, road runoff, the nearby cranberry bogs, or a variety of other sources, such as regeneration from the sediment built up on the pond’s bottom.
The water quality tests taken by Mr. Baker and Mr. Molloy, part of an ongoing pond monitoring effort with support from a team of volunteers, MEC, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School of Marine Science and Technology, and the Cape Cod Commission, were the last for the year. The two men have been out once a month since spring.
Data to compare this year, in which a massive, potentially toxic algal bloom drew townwide attention to the long-suffering pond, to the previous six years in which Mr. Baker and Mr. Molloy have been keeping tabs on the pond were not immediately available.
But the trip, the landscape, and the experiences on a brisk, bright October morning, illustrate much of the history of the 172-acre pond and its current condition.
Even before reaching the town boat ramp off Timberlane Drive, Lantern Lane runs straight downhill toward the pond. Stormwater from the road runs directly off the road, through a small piece of town-owned land washed out with sand and gravel and into the pond, possibly contributing nutrients from runoff.
Then to the boat ramp, into Mr. Baker’s 11.5-foot aluminum boat, with a four-horsepower motor. A few tries and the engine starts, headed north, clockwise around the shore of the pond, and the first sight to see is the entryway to a small parcel of cranberry bogs, a series of which historically ringed the bog. The north-side bogs, known to Mr. Baker and Mr. Molloy as the Baker bogs (in reference to the owners, who are no relation to Mr. Baker), consist of about 24 acres.
Mr. Molloy noted that dozens and dozens of chemicals are applied to the berries.
The water is green, the wake green. Innumerable tiny flecks of deep green material are suspended in the water. Mr. Baker said it looks like paint. In some places it has been blown by the wind to look like zebra stripes. In other, more protected areas, the green swirls look like tie-dye.
Turning left, heading down the eastern bank, there are some homes visible back in the woods still dense with leaves. The Santuit Pond Estates association beach, a small sandy opening accessed by a long set of stairs down through the woods, used to be busy, Mr. Baker said. “But I never see anyone swimming there lately.”
Further down along the eastern shore are the Chopchague bogs, near which the two monitors found the nasty-smelling and blue substance last month. The water there looks like it does in much of the rest of the pond.
Mr. Molloy said it is amazing that what they saw could disappear so fast. Mr. Baker said it just takes some winds and rain to break it up.
Mr. Baker pointed out where the bogs take in water and let it out to the pond, a full exchange powered in part by a propane-fired pump.
Mr. Molloy said Mr. Baker thinks the bogs are a large part of the problem.
Most of the other bogs were down along the southern rim of the pond, which is now part of the Santuit Pond Preserve, a vast expanse of land reaching down to Route 130, along the Santuit River, that is jointly owned by Mashpee, Barnstable, and the state.
The outlets to two of the old bogs have been filled in with earthen berms.
The fish ladder at the head of the Santuit River, where Mr. Molloy spots a few juvenile herring headed down the river in their fall migration, was rebuilt not long ago and appears in good shape. Nearby is an old gated dam that served yet more bogs, and is leaking gallons upon gallons of water out into the abandoned old bogs. Out of the boat, spying the bogs, it appears to be a duck paradise.
The southern third of the pond is entirely undeveloped.

Edward Baker, a volunteer water quality monitor, at the dam on the south side of Santuit Pond.

Mr. Baker steers the boat up to where the water will be tested, the deepest spot in the pond, and hopefully the same location every time. Mr. Molloy is the navigator.
As they find the spot and drop anchor, Mr. Molloy takes out the equipment and explains that the two have been trained by the University of Massachusetts to take the readings. Visibility is measured by dropping a black and white checkered disc, known as a Secchi disc, down and measuring where it disappears and reappears: 0.7 meters and .62 meters, respectively. The temperature is taken at various depths. There is a lot of oxygen, as the algae is using the bright sun for photosynthesis, adding oxygen to the water. Phosphorous and chlorophyll, a measurement for the amount of plant life in the water, will be tested in a laboratory later.
The anchor comes back up, and there are no weeds stuck to it, a change from the past, Mr. Baker said. When the water is clear in “arctic ponds” such as the Santuit, grasses and weeds can grow on the sandy bottom. In a natural balance, there is enough phosphorous to feed the plants but little extra.
When too much phosphorous is added to the water, however, it enables algae, like the small green flecks, to grow in larger amounts, Mr. Baker said. The algae, in turn, shade the sun from the other plants, which suffer or completely die off. Without the plants using up some phosphorous, there is more left for algae, so there is more algae, he said. It is a vicious cycle.
Mr. Molloy, who lives near the Santuit River downstream from the pond, recalls an old group of activists that fought to get the preserve purchased. “Keep Unspoiled Santuit Pond,” or KUSP, he thinks it might have been called. He wonders about reinvigorating it.
With the anchor up and headed north toward Briant’s Neck and on the western edge of the pond, a pair of what Mr. Baker said look like juvenile swans fly over to check things out, dragging their feet along the water like brakes to slow themselves down, and landing just a dozen feet away. No sooner have they landed, though, than Mr. Molloy spots a single adult headed over. He is squawking, his head down in a threatening position. The two little ones retreat. Mr. Baker counts 11 swans out on the water. “Fertilizer machines,” he calls them.
Heading north toward Briant’s Neck, there are many old houses right up against the water, some just a few feet off the bank.
Some residents have hypothesized that the septic systems or cesspools of those homes may also be major contributors to the phosphorous problem.
Mashpee Health Agent Glen E. Harrington has said previously that he does not know of any homes in the Briant’s Neck area, where some of the homes closest to the water are located, that have failed septic systems or cesspools. But the water table is high around much of the pond, which Mr. Harrington said could be impacting the septic systems in the area.
Headed back to the landing, Mr. Molloy points out that there is no one else out on the water. It is a beautiful fall morning, about 9:15, and the pond is vacant. There is a lot less fishing now then there used to be, he said. The conventional wisdom is that algae does not hurt fish much. But with the ecosystem thrown so far off kilter, it is hard to imagine they can thrive, he said.
Mr. Molloy describes a cleanup effort that has begun on Lovell’s Pond in Barnstable. It has just started, so there are no results yet, he said. It was less expensive than first thought. He said he is hopeful.
Arriving back at the landing, the two take stock of their findings, and pack up to head to Moody Pond, the town’s most improved pond, where they will repeat their monitoring.