Miacomet Pond Dredge Plan

Miacomet pond has water quality issues and each summer for the last several years the Town has had to limit access to the pond for swimmers and recreation due to poor water quality. The main issue is the Harmful Algal Blooms (HAB’s). These HAB’s are usually cyanobacteria, a blue-green algae, and can have negative health impacts for humans, pets and wildlife.

This situation has been long documented for ponds around Nantucket and now the Town of Nantucket, Natural Resources Department and the Nantucket Land Bank are working together to see if this can be resolved for Miacomet Pond. A layer of organic muck sits at the bottom of the pond and holds nutrients like Nitrogen and Phosphorus that degrade water quality. Cyanobacteria and similar bacteria consume these nutrients, which exponentially increases their population causing HABs and limiting the recreational uses of the pond.

The solution is to dredge out this organic muck and remove the reservoir of contaminants and return it to the nutrient poor, high water quality system that it is meant to be. This is an ecological restoration project that could serve as a model for other Nantucket ponds with similar issues. The project is focusing on how to design the dredging and to study the volumes and order of materials to dredge and produce a plan for the Town to enact. An additional advantage may be to have a “beneficial reuse” of the dredged materials.