Woody Trask
Water quality monitoring was conducted by Woody Trask and Michael Heskanen from June to October. To briefly summarize, it was a very good year and much better than 2023, especially regarding clarity and color. This can be attributed to fewer heavy rain events in 2024 than in 2023, and therefore fewer nutrients washing into the pond. It was also a very warm year, with July’s water temperature of 84.4 degrees being the highest recorded for July in the last 15 years. The high July temperature raised the average temperature for the year to 76.6 degrees, which is also a 15-year record. Algae blooms are often the result of high temperatures. Fortunately, none were observed, possibly because the phosphorus levels were too low to initiate a bloom. All other tested properties (pH, alkalinity and conductivity) were all historically normal.
The pond was officially “ice in” on December 23, 2024, and officially “ice out” on April 13, 2025. The pond was more than three quarters of the way ice out about a week before that, but the north end tenaciously held on to its ice until the 13th, which happens to be the historical average for ice out.
Testing begins again in June. Let’s hope ’25 will be as good as ’24.
