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A state fishery biologist said this week that site work for the Nassau Grove housing development is muddying the waters of Red Mill Pond and could jeopardize the future of the pond.
“They’re using Red Mill Pond as a stormwater retention basin,” said Roy Miller, a fishery biologist and administrator of the fisheries section of the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC).
The sight of ducks struggling, their wings covered with mud, greeted Diane Miller when she awoke Sunday morning, June 25, and looked out on Red Mill Pond.
The Millers have lived on the pond for five years, but they say they have never seen anything like the sea of mud they found on Sunday morning .
Roy Miller was alarmed by the condition of the water and immediately began to determine the source of the problem. He said he soon discovered the mud was coming from a construction site where K. Hovnanian Homes is building Nassau Grove.
Standing less than half a mile from the pond, the land at the site has been stripped of all natural plant life, leaving little but some rudimentary sediment-control fences to control runoff. No other sediment control measures are apparent at the site, and sediment is flowing from the site into the pond.
According to Miller, silt that runs off into a closed body of water such as Red Mill Pond can be devastating. While the pond should be able to handle a one-time occurrence of something of the magnitude he witnessed on Sunday, Roy Miller said it would not be able to tolerate much more.
In addition to causing the pond to remain muddy for extended periods, Miller said that inevitable consequences of continued construction-site runoff are that the silt will accumulate at the bottom of the pond, will cover and smother bottom growth, and will reduce the depth of the pond.
“These people are responsible, and this needs to be stopped,” Miller said.
Miller filed a complaint with DNREC’s Division of Soil and Water Management. Jaime Rutherford, was scheduled to investigate the matter. As of press time she could not be reached for comment.
Calls to K. Hovnanian Homes on Thursday, June 29, were not returned.
“We will do something,” said Diane Miller. “We have to save the pond.”
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