Hundreds of children gather at the Westfield Sportsmen Club pond each year to attend the annual fishing derby which is free and open to the public. (File photo by Frederick Gore)
WESTFIELD – The Conservation Commission approved, conditionally, the Westfield Sportsman’s Club project to chemically remove nuisance aquatic vegetation which is choking the six-acre fishing pond at the Furrowtown Road facility.
Ryan Joyce, a wetland scientist with New England Environmental, Inc. of Amherst, said that the club never managed the aquatic plants which now infest the pond, preventing fishing activity.
Joyce said that the additional information requested by the commission pertaining to water quality had been provided to the city and that the state Department of Environmental Protection had also completed its review of the club project to chemically treat the pond.
“We’re planning to treat the pond to get rid of one specific plant, Elodea,” Joyce said at the July meeting. “We did a survey of the pond and found this species is everywhere in the entire six acres.”
The commission members debated the general conditions routinely attached to projects, as well as special conditions specific to the club’s aquatic plant management project. Joyce said the club intends to apply several treatments of the herbicide initially to eradicate the plant mat chocking the pond, and then to use more limited applications to control the plants in the future under a management plan.
One of the special conditions issued by the board will require a “reassessment” of the pond to examine water quality and determine if and when subsequent applications would be appropriate. Commissioner Henry Bannish added language that will require the club, through it consultant, to provide additional information prior to further treatment and that the board vote to approve future applications.
Joyce said the first application will be made either this fall or early next spring.
“That timing will be decided by the club,” he said.
