Around Town
‘The Whole Process Was Very Smooth’: Dredge for Pond at Lakeview Cemetery
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A dredge of one of the ponds at Lakeview Cemetery is wrapping up, a project designed to improve aesthetics and to clear out muck that could lead to green algal blooms.
Launched in response to findings of excessive sedimentation and invasive species in the pond, the dredge represents an eco-friendly investment by the Cemetery Association itself in a property that is deeply important to residents. “Overall, the whole process was very smooth,” Lakeview Cemetery Superintendent Peter Passaro said. “It was a good experience.”
Approved by the town’s Inland Wetlands officials, the project saw in its first stage “suction dredging,” which involves pumping out sediment from the pond and now involves “geotextile tubes,” which replaces water that had been removed. According to the project proposal from Ridgefield-based Pristine Waters LLC: “We believe that [the Lakeview Cemetery] pond is a very good candidate for suction draining … to prevent the buildup of decomposed organic sediment (muck), which would overload the pond with phosphates that lead to greater algae growth. The pond that underwent dredging is in the southeast part of the property—past the veterans’ gravesite area.