Water Remediation Summit at Georgica Pond

Project Description

In recent years the waters of Georgica Pond, an estuarine pond along the South shore of eastern Long Island, have been subject to excessive nutrient loading. This has resulted in toxic algal blooms that have led to low dissolved oxygen and caused fish kills, as well as the deaths of household pets. To restore the pond’s natural function, a series of short term and long term actions are required to decrease nutrient inputs and filter the water that flows into the pond from shallow groundwater sources. The Chapman Perelman Foundation and the Friends of Georgica Pond have rallied around these water quality issues by engaging with and supporting the monitoring of the pond’s water quality by Dr. Christopher Gobler at SUNY Stonybrook. Their intent is to preserve and protect the Georgica pond ecosystem, “through science-based, watershed-wide policy and restoration” practices.

Biohabitats was honored to help the Chapman Perelman Foundation facilitate a Waterbody Remediation Invitational Summit. This summit brought together some of the leading thinkers and researchers in water quality remediation of sensitive ponds and estuaries. It included academics from such renowned institutions as Florida Gulf Coast University, UNC’s Institute of Marine Sciences, the University of Vermont, Rutgers, and the University of Wisconsin, as well as the head of the EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program, researchers from Sandia National Laboratories, The Nature Conservancy, and environmental engineers and designers including Michael Ogden and John Todd, of OceanArks and Living Machines, and others from AECOM and Hazen and Sawyer.

The two-day workshop was an inspiring tour de force of knowledge-sharing and brainstorming that has provided the Foundation with a set of goals and initial projects that they can begin to move forward with, after the completion of a watershed-wide management plan.