Town Will Vote Whether or Not to Have the
Sun Clean the Water
By T.J. Clemente
In Water Mill, a group under
the leadership of Steve Abramson, called the “Friends of Lake
Nowedonah” hopes to restore Mill Pond, the lovely pond at
the west end of town, to its former state — a clean pond where
you could take a swim on a hot summer’s night. In recent years,
geese droppings and runoff have changed the status of the pond.
Now thick unpleasant layers of algae have formed on the surface.
To solve this problem, the residents, through Mr. Abramson’s
organization, brought in Bruce Richards, the local representative
of an environmental company called SolarBee, to evaluate what could
be done.
In 1988, SolarBee became the first
company to manufacture a solar powered device that in fresh water
lakes can reduce stagnation, remove odors and deal with algae problems.
By the year 2004, 600 of these solar powered devices were being
deployed throughout the country. The solar power cells can run the
SolarBee for twenty-four hours without any sunlight after being
fully charged. The device floats on top of the pond while it draws
water up from below the surface, through an intake hose, and spreads
it across the surface in a near-laminar long distance flow pattern.
The patented intake system allows a specific depth to be treated
without a risk of disturbing the sediment. Some SolarBee units circulate
as much as 10,000 gallons per minute. Even though this unit is fully
powered by solar cells, the proposed SolarBee’s to be used
on Mill Pond are not to be that large.
On December 18, at their next meeting,
the Southampton Town Trustees must decide for or against use of
the circulators. They must decide if letting this project proceed
is in the town’s best interest. If approved, Mr. Abramson
reported said, the Friends of Lake Nowedonah, would raise the funds
needed to clean up the pond. Donations will actively be sought from
residents in the immediate area. Mr. Abramson says the group expects
to rent up to four of the circulators initially. If happy with the
results, the Trustees would entertain the possibility of purchasing
four SolarBees for around $160,000. There is even the possibility
of using the SolarBee on other ponds. Having a healthy eco-system
in all of the ponds is a nice goal. With the recent increased number
of geese droppings and the toxic results of those droppings, action
is needed to prevent all ponds from becoming dead. The action to
be taken on Mill Pond will be a test to see if the local ponds can
be managed successfully with this new technology. Hopefully if all
works as planned by next summer, once again, Mill Pond will be a
place where one could take a quick summer night’s swim in
safety. The thick unpleasant and damaging algae will have been eliminated.
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