Popular Cornwall pond so thick with silt ducks can't swim
A pond popular with families is so thick with silt that ducks and swans don't have enough water to swim in. The duck pond at Boscawen Park in Truro has been silting up so much over the last few years that the water level has actually dropped and it also no longer does its job to prevent flooding.
Truro City Council said the pond was last dredged up in 1995, almost 30 years ago, and it is high time, the work is done again for the good of the wildlife that calls it home.
As well as ducks, the pond is home to a wide range of other wildlife, including moorhens, swans and a heron which is currently nesting in one of the trees. Terrapins have been released in the pond in the past without permission and despite the best efforts of the council’s parks and amenities team, who have caught and removed them as soon as they are sighted, there are still some in the water it's believed. The invasive species has been known to nibble at ducklings' legs from under water.
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Richard Budge, parks and amenities and facilities officer for Truro City Council said: "The duck pond is fed to two tributaries, one of which comes from a nearby Park farm and the other from the New Cemetery fields. The pond has a silt trap, which is designed to collect the material which is washed down from the valley.
"The trap was last emptied around 12 years ago, with significant levels of silt building up since then, especially at the far end of the pond. This means that the ducks swimming into this part of the pond can find themselves standing on top of mud."
Richard said plans to dredge the duck pond will be finalised by Truro City Council over the next few weeks – thanks to funding from the Truro Town Deal programme. The city council said it has issued a tender for the duck pond project and is currently waiting for responses from contractors interested in carrying out the dredging, with the aim of work beginning in early November.
The project is part of the wider Truro Town Deal funded and City Council led Boscawen Park Sports Hub Project which will aim to provide Truro residents and visitors with new and improved indoor and outdoor sports and leisure facilities.
The Truro Town Deal Board, in partnership with Cornwall Council, successfully bid for a Town Deal worth £23.6 million to support a range of projects that will contribute to the city’s regeneration and boost the local economy. Cornwall Council is the lead authority for Cornwall Town Deals and supports the governance role of the Truro Town Deal Board and administrates the fund.
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Richard added: "Our top priority is to protect the wildlife living in the pond during the dredging process. While it is important to dredge the pond to remove the silt, we need to ensure that the work does not disrupt the wildlife too much. All those submitting tenders are being required to carry out an ecology survey as part of the process."
As well as affecting the water level, the silt has also reduced the capacity of the pond to help manage the risk of flooding. This means that when very heavy rain and high tides are forecast, the team need to manually open a sluice gate to prevent Boscawen Park and the nearby Trennick Mill and the Lodge from being flooded, by water rushing down the valley.
The city council said there are a number of potential options for carrying out the dredging. These include using specialist machinery which will stir up the material on the bottom of the pond and then pump it into slurry tankers, or bringing in excavators. These involve leaving the excavated material on the side of the pond to dry, allowing any wildlife to relocate back into the pond, before it is removed.
Another option is to use a tug boat with a special cutting tool which travels up and down the pond using the cutter to dislodge the silt, which is then drawn up into a suction pipe. This option will enable the wildlife to move to another section of the pond whilst the cutter is in operation.
Once the pond has been dredged, the excavated material needs to be disposed of. With around 16,000 cubic metres of silt and mud expected to be removed during the dredging process, the Council is looking at a number of different options.
As most of the material has come from organic farmland, one option is to use it as top dressing on the land it came from. Another possibility is for the material to be taken to Imerys near St Austell to reclaim clay sites where greening and rewilding work is going on.
Richard added: "We will be looking very carefully at all the tenders which are submitted to make sure that their plans protect the wildlife as well as providing an effective method for removing the silt."
He said that the city team are also planning to use the opportunity of the dredging works to carry out repairs to the edges of the pond, which have deteriorated over the past few years. They are also looking at the possibility of putting in a secondary pipe which would transfer excess water directly into the river, reducing the amount of silt coming into the pond in flood weather.
Town clerk David Rodda added: "Removing the silt will ensure that the ducks and swans can actually swim all the way along the whole of the pond, as well as helping to protect nearby areas from flooding.
"The duck pond is one of our best loved amenities and, thanks to the funding provided by Truro Town Deal, we have the opportunity to return it to looking its very best at the same time as significantly improving the habitat for the wildlife which live there.
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