I asked my neighbors nicely for years about clearing trees and dumping their yard refuse at the edges of the pond. As usual, the refusal to admit they were doing anything wrong with their super green grass became status quo. It was “organic.”
But then the weed-wacking, the neon green grass planting along the banks of the pond, the bird feeders and yup, the green scum just at the base of where the grass was being dumped on the side of the pond. I emailed Andrew McManus, Conservation Director for the Town of Mashpee and to see if there was any way to get some signage made letting residents know to not dump yard waste and not cut vegetation in this area (signage that would indicate the area is protected under the town & state wetland protection acts). Andrew showed up and put the sign up you see along with this pond story.
I’m hoping to get another one posted a little further down for the house full of guys behind me, also dumping barrels of their yard waste into the woods alongside the pond. I still remember when a house abutting the pond had a hose running across the street and an awful smell and when I followed it, I realized it was dipped into their cesspool. That was remedied about 20 years ago or so and the tank was pumped but how many people walked over that and never thought twice?
When I asked Andrew about the runoff pipe with grate just above it on the side of the road just a little further up from one dumping area, he said much of the private roads in this area are in dire need of upgrading for stormwater management. It will take me submitting a citizen’s petition to change it as the town can’t just take it over. In the meantime, every time it rains, all the road runoff will keep draining into pretty little Cataquin Pond. A pond that has Bufflehead and Mallard duck families, two really cute otters, a Great Blue Heron, and lots of fish that nip at bugs in the evening on the surface of the water.
I remember years ago my husband and son went canoeing in Cataquin and my son caught a huge fish. It was covered in all kinds of ulcer-like bumps and rumor has it, was something out of a horror film. They respectfully put “Old Walter” back to swim away, with a flick of his tail, into the darkness.
I think of what is beneath, what is hidden, what we pretend not to see. What we discard of without thinking long-term, until of course, it’s too late.
