Anyone see how nasty the pond is getting? This park and pond should be a feature for the City and Five Points, but right now it's an eyesore. Who do we need to contact?
I was just talking about this with some friends not too long ago. I have some experience with fish keeping and was trying to explain to them how easy it would be to clear up that water. The biggest hurdle would be fixing the island in the middle, but it could be done and better maintained with the proper plants and some stones.... If anyone knows who to contact about doing this / getting some funding I'd be glad to get a group together to make that pond water / island pretty.
^^perhaps start an organization like they have for Memorial Park, Friends of Memorial Park I believe they are called. Raise funds to be dedicated to the park.
Didn't they just fix this a few years back?
The problem is that it's basically a concrete pool - which is very hard to maintain from an ecological standpoint - am I mistaken (I'm no expert on this, but concrete pools + standing water usually = cesspool)
TO negate said issue (if my initial assumption is correct) - why not drain it, take out the concrete bottom, and 'revert' it back to a regular, natural pond? If this bottom is soil, like any other natural pond, problems fixed, no?
If it is concrete you could keep it pretty much crystal clear year round with the right equipment and some maintenance. Though I doubt it is concrete considering there's an island with palm trees in the center. A pretty basic filtration/aeration system could at least keep it semi-clear and prevent the scum off the surface. With the right mix of plants you could keep the nitrates/nitrites down too in order to maintain a small fish population (koi, brim, etc).
Yes they went through this in 2011. See Duck Pond at Riverside Park thread.
I think they even swapped out the ducks, right?
The new Director of Parks, Daryl Jacobs, is getting proposals from the engineers and landscape architects at Prosser,Inc. on how to remake the pond and island so that it stays clean and clear. There is several hundred thousand dollars in the budget over the next four years just for Riverside Park.
Thank you Councilman Love!
They have already received some input from the neighborhood about what would be acceptable changes and what would not. Enclosing the pond to keep birds out and eliminating the island are non-starters.
Luckily, the Prossers consultants are the engineers for the Jacksonville Zoo so they know how to keep a pond full of wildlife clean in spite of the biological load.
Ongoing maintenance seems to be the biggest challange in the design. The methods used at the zoo seem to be pretty maintenance intensive which is a problem for the Parks Dept.
We should have some detailed proposals in a couple of months.
Quote from: jaxjaguar on June 28, 2014, 04:05:27 PM
I was just talking about this with some friends not too long ago. I have some experience with fish keeping and was trying to explain to them how easy it would be to clear up that water. The biggest hurdle would be fixing the island in the middle, but it could be done and better maintained with the proper plants and some stones.... If anyone knows who to contact about doing this / getting some funding I'd be glad to get a group together to make that pond water / island pretty.
They tried with koi and some people threw goldfish in. They just keep getting eaten by the heron and cormorants that hang out. It's like a buffet for them.
The variety of wading birds that use that island and pond is just amazing. The White Ibis come in by the hundreds in the winter time to roost at night. I have seen Roseate Spoonbills, Great Egrets, Great Blue Egrets, Yellow Crowned Night Herons, Black Crowned Night Herons, Little Green Herons, Cattle Egrets, and Little Blue Herons on and around the island. The Little Blue Herons actually nest there and in other trees in the park every year.
Watched a Red-Tailed Hawk snatch a young Little Blue Heron right out of the top of a palm tree at what looked to be just under the speed of sound. Sounded like a baseball hitting a glove.
I was at the pond back in May with some friends visiting from South Florida. It was a disgusting mess. I hope something can be done to keep this pond clean in the future. Sad to let it be in that state.
But yeah, it's freaking nasty right now. You can smell it rounding the corner on to Margaret from Post.... ugh... if it stays like that any longer I can't imagine it's all that great for the waterfowl as it's getting downright stagnant.