Friends of Conservation breath fresh air into high school’s pond

MT PLEASANT — The man-made pond at Mt. Pleasant High School underwent the instillation of a $5,000 aeration system, over the summer.

Despite this hefty price tag, Mt. Pleasant Community School District Superintendent John Henriksen only had to approve a contribution of $500 from the district to complete the project.

The Friends of Conservation in Henry County donated $2,500 and headed up the project organization, while local business made up the remaining difference with discounts and donations.

According to Jim (Sodie) Alderson Friends of Conservation in Henry County is a nonprofit organization that gives money to groups that have conservation needs in the county, and the high school pond has been a particular interest to Alderson.

As a former Biology teacher at the school, he is particularly familiar with the uses the school has found for the pond.

According to Alderson, when the pond was first created by the Nation Guard, it was made with a zero depth entry in an attempt to lower risks of drowning as students collected water samples for water classes.

Unfortunately, this caused a large amount of cat tails and algae to grow around the edges and make the pond useless for sample collecting and fishing.

The issue has since been resolved with the assistance of Jim Kinney digging out the sides with a track hoe, and now it is used for cardboard boat experiments, water sampling, and fishing.

This aeration project, though, was not implemented to resolve a problem, but rather as a preventative measure.

“Lots of people won’t notice a problem in their ponds until it’s too late,” BES representative Matt Flemming mentioned. “It takes a long time for a pond to get into that bad shape. It’s going to take as long or longer to fix the problem.”

Nate Seberg and his company BES Water Solutions provided their expert knowledge of water treatment and prevention as well as the actual aerator, hoses and diffusers. Many of these materials were donations made by BES to the project.

The high school pond will be better maintained thanks to this aeration system, though the differences will not be easily noticed.

Alderson hypothesized that students collecting water samples for classes will be the first to notice the difference.

Because the pond is located next to a parking lot, a lot of the runoff that comes into the pond contains contaminates from vehicles and the runoff commonly enters the pond at a higher temperature. Both of these are a detriment to the health of the pond.

“These higher temperatures mean less oxygen,” BES representative Randy Seberg said.

According to Flemming, the aeration system “adds oxygen to the water for the health of the water and the fish. It also provides a mixing recirculation of nutrients.”

Mt. Pleasant Electric participated in this preventative project by digging the trenching for wiring and providing their expertise as need with a discounted labor and material cost as donation to the project.

Unbeknownst to Alderson, the trenching work was made possible with the donation of the use of equipment from Quality Equipment, Inc., because companies in the Mt. Pleasant area are always quick and ready to help the community whenever possible.

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com