Hawley Pond Becomes A Mud Puddle

By Andrew Gorosko

Hawley Pond, a picturesque duck pond located near the southern end of the Ram Pasture, normally shimmers in the sun, as mallards and Canada geese swim lazily on its surface.

For the past few days, however, the compact pond has looked less like the prototypical duck pond and more like a vast expanse of chocolate pudding riddled with tiny braided rivulets of trickling water.

The occasional enterprising duck or goose, which lands atop the muddy mass, searches for snacks embedded in the glop.

Since last week, the town has been “dewatering” Hawley Pond.

Nagy Brothers Construction Company, Inc, of Monroe, opened a drain in the pond, allowing its turbid watery contents to flow downstream. The town is paying Nagy about $60,000 to dredge the pond, clearing it of its muck.

Before the firm can remove the pond muck, the accumulated sediments must dry sufficiently to let power equipment operate within the shallow basin.

Town Public Works Director Fred Hurley points out that the town is only cleaning out Hawley Pond, not making it larger. The town secured a wetlands permit from the Conservation Commission in October 2000 to do the work at Hawley Pond and at three other local ponds.

At best, a cleaned Hawley Pond will only be several feet deep, Mr Hurley said, adding he expects Nagy to remove approximately 5,000 cubic yards of sediments from the pond while dredging it. The pondbed will be recontoured to create shallow slopes, so that anyone who enters the pond, or falls into it when it is full of water, will not have a difficult time in getting out.

The area to be dredged measures about 52,500 square feet, or about 1.2 acres. It includes some wetland vegetation standing just north of the area that has been open water during recent years.

Mr Hurley said people expressed surprise after Nagy drained the pond, having expected that the pond was deeper. Much of the silt material that has entered the pond is road sand, which washed into storm sewers and then found its way into streams and eventually into the pond.

After the richly organic material is excavated from the pond, it will be dried and then shipped to the town public works department, where it will be mixed with other earth materials in the manufacture of a synthetic topsoil, Mr Hurley said. The town road crew uses the manufactured topsoil for earthen fill in different spots around town. The fertile material supports plant growth.

Weather Conditions

Weather will largely determine how soon the pond dredging can be accomplished, Mr Hurley said. He said he expects it will take several weeks for the pond muck to dry sufficiently to be worked by machinery. Wind, persistent sunshine, and a lack of rain would expedite the pond’s dredging.

The town would like to refill Hawley Pond with water this winter after it is dredged. Mr Hurley said he hopes the dredging is completed by the end of December.

In regrading the pond bottom, the town will reestablish the waterbody’s original contours, meaning a shallowly sloped basin on a clay/stone bed. An amount of muck will be left on the pondbed to allow aquatic vegetation to reestablish itself. Erosion and sedimentation control measures will be taken to limit siltation downstream of the pond, and hay bales and filter fencing will be used to curb sediment travel.

 C. Stephen Driver, the town’s conservation official, said the town handles the maintenance of about 40 local ponds, cleaning out silted material, as needed, to keep the local stormwater drainage system working properly.

Mr Driver said he has been working with Mr Hurley and Town Engineer Ronald Bolmer to determine how the dredging work at Hawley Pond can best be accomplished and how the dredged material will be transported.

While dredging is underway, the flow of the stream that feeds the pond will be diverted through piping to keep the area under excavation relatively dry and also to limit erosion and sedimentation problems downstream, Mr Driver said.

The best time of year for pond dredging is June through January, based on weather conditions, he said.