Living Waters…Thriving Island
By Emily Reddington
(an excerpt from 2024 Annual Report)
The actions our community takes in the next decade will have a profound impact on the fate of the Island’s living waters. The land upon which we stand, grow our food, and build our homes is interconnected with the health of our waters. The rate of development is astounding. It is also unsustainable if our terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems are to remain intact and functional.
See A Changing Watershed on pages 8-9 for a perspective on landscape change in the Edgartown Great Pond watershed over the past 20 years.
Science and conservation are racing against the clock to save nature; documenting the sources of impairment and preserving native landscapes and waterways. Policy and permitting seem to be lagging behind. Time is of the essence, as the more we do now, the better the outcome of restoration efforts. We need to be nimble, coordinated, informed, and proactive in our response to the crisis facing our waters. We need to be the voice of water, the voice of the ecosystem. If enough community members speak and advocate for the fate of our waters at planning board meetings, at conservation hearings, and at annual town meetings, there will be ripples in decision making that spread out like a safety net for our waters. For each change proposed, please consider……..
The Legacy Beneath Our Feet
By Dr. Javier Lloret, Marine Biological Laboratory and University of Maryland
(an excerpt from 2024 Annual Report)
For decades, human activity has introduced excess nutrients—especially nitrogen and phosphorus—into the aquifer. These nutrients come from household wastewater, fertilizers, and other sources. Once they reach coastal waters, they fuel the growth of algae and plankton, which can degrade water quality, trigger harmful algal blooms, and even lead to fish and shellfish kills. The challenge we face today is that much of the nutrient pollution
now affecting our ponds was introduced years—sometimes decades—ago. The environmental issues we see today are in part the legacy of past pollution. This pollution legacy presents a major challenge for managing and restoring our coastal ponds. Because groundwater moves so slowly, even if we stopped all nutrient pollution today, the excess nutrients already in the aquifer would continue to reach our waters for years to come. This delayed response means that despite our current efforts and investments in improving water quality, noticeable improvements may take decades to appear.
However, there are solutions…….
Dive Deeper into our Annual Report!
Meet the 2024 Seasonal Field Crew
Check out our community engagement in 2024
Look forward, look back on development in EGP’s watershed
Water Gives…What If We Give Back
By Emily Reddington
(an excerpt from 2023-2024 Annual Report)
Water Gives
Imagine a fall day, with its golden light, where you paddle across the shimmering waters of a great pond to the barrier beach, a narrow division between pond and ocean. Imagine the salt air, the warm breeze, and the sound of the waves. As if all this beauty and abundance were not enough, imagine humpback whales breaching just beyond the shore. This is not just a lovely imagining, but rather the lived experience of community members this fall on Edgartown Great Pond.
Those of us lucky enough to spend time on our great ponds have moments where the barriers between ourselves and the natural world fade away. Maybe it is that time you were peering into the water and saw the swirling fish beneath you dancing to an innate rhythm. Maybe it was that early morning kayak you took where you witnessed the magical play of otters. Perhaps it was the wonderful feeling of being weightless as you floated in the pond and regarded the clouds passing above.
Life begins in water and throughout life we turn to living waters to lift our spirits, feed our families, and sustain our economy. Water gives our community a sense of identity and it also sustains us in the best and worst of times.
Keeping Local Waters Alive
At Great Pond Foundation (GPF) our mission is to cultivate the resilience of our coastal pond ecosystems through science, collaboration, and education. Expressed most simply, our goal is keeping local waters alive. Our field studies, laboratory analyses, scientific collaborations, technical communications, and community outreach are done to keep local waters alive.
We are proud to bring you Great Pond Foundation’s 2023/2024 Annual Report dedicated to Cultivating Community Resilience. It is going to take an Island of informed and engaged community members to protect our precious ponds.
~ Quantify MV CYANO impact from 2021-2024.
~ Dig deeper into Planning for Sea Level Rise.
~ Explore Monitoring Well Installation at Long Point.
What If We Give Back
Water gives us so much, what if we chose to give back? This reciprocal relationship with water and its creatures is not a new concept. The Wampanoag community has spent the last 12,000 years living the knowledge that giving back to the ecosystem, through gratitude and actions, is a vital part of sustaining life. Wampanoag people have long understood that water itself is life.
Resilience is about giving back more than we take. It is building a surplus of health and well-being and cultivating a stronger ecosystem. Each cut is an opportunity to renew and restore pond ecosystems. It is an opportunity to strengthen the ecosystem and to build resilience by infusing brackish ponds with cool, salty, clear, and clean seawater.
Excess nitrogen is the greatest driver of impairment in our pond ecosystems. Eventually external nitrogen restrictions will be imposed by the state, as they have been on the Cape, but will the health of our precious ecosystems five years from now? What if we proactively chose to reduce nitrogen?
Cultivating Community Resilience
Martha’s Vineyard is celebrated for its abundant and beautiful natural spaces, but one of our greatest assets is our strong and resilient community. While the challenges facing our ponds are growing, so is our knowledge of the sources of impairment and the solutions to remediate them. Our community can be the model for other coastal communities by proactively choosing to give back to our waters and cultivate their resilience.