WAILUA — The water in Morgan’s Pond at Lydgate Park have been the subject of many comments since it reopened in June 2011.
Tommy Noyes of the Friends of Kamalani Playground and Lydgate has heard some of those comments. On Saturday, coinciding with Make A Difference Day where nearly a hundred volunteers converged for an annual sprucing up of the park, Noyes was juggling between work being done at the Kamalani Playground and activity taking place in Morgan’s Pond.
“This is our fifth week of cleaning the pond,” Noyes said. “We’ll continue to do this until the water gets to the state where the county can come in with their plan to clear the remainder of the submerged vegetative accumulation.”
He said volunteers are welcome to join the effort on Saturday mornings, usually starting at 8:30 a.m. and working for a couple of hours.
“This has been amazing,” Noyes said. “Mark Hubbard has been here working in the water since 6:30 this morning, and he’s still going at it. We’ve had the Kaua‘i High School Key Club helping during the early phases. Today, they are doing the major portion of applying oil to Kamalani Playground, but some are here along with the Boys and Girls Club Leadership team.”
Utilizing a makeshift wire basket equipped with flotation material, volunteers scour the bottom and scoop up handfuls of water-logged vegetative material, which has settled to the bottom of the popular swimming pond.
On a picnic table situated near a roll-off Dumpster, an aquarium containing a sample of water from Morgan’s Pond clearly illustrated the sediment and accumulation of vegetative debris peppered with numerous brine shrimp.
Noyes used a swim fin to graphically demonstrate what happens to the sediment layer when snorkelers’ fins get too close to the vegetative accumulation — the water turns “black.”
“It’s stinky, hard work, but people have been coming to help,” Noyes said, a Key Club member echoing the “stinky” part while hauling a load to the trash bin. “The county has been very helpful, providing a roll-off (Dumpster) where the debris can be deposited, and taking it away.”
Lenny Rapozo, the county’s director of the Department of Parks and Recreation, is aware of the problem and has been monitoring the situation, along with the state’s Department of Health, which continues to monitor the water quality.
“We are actively working to find solutions to the turbidity problem in the Lydgate ponds,” Rapozo said in a county release. “Last month, the county’s consultant, Oceanit, took samples of the water in the pond, which included the slurry, or leaf-like material which appears to be part of the problem.”
During the test, Rapozo said Oceanit engineers utilized a trash pump with a filter to see if the pump would be effective in removing the debris.
“The results were not what we had hoped for,” Rapozo said. “But we gained valuable information and will be moving forward with a different system — a hydraulic suction dredger, or mud pump — to see if that will work.”
Oceanit claims the hydraulic suction dredger has the capacity to grind, cut, and remove slurry, which contains 50 percent solids and materials roughly 5 inches in diameter.
This system is known to provide the cleanest and least obtrusive method for sediment removal without damaging the sensitive environment, the release states.
Volunteers interested in being part of the cleaning process for Morgan’s Pond can show up on Saturday morning beginning at 8:30 a.m.
• Dennis Fujimoto, photographer and staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 253) or dfujimoto@ thegardenisland.com.
