By David Abel Boston Globe Staff
BARNSTABLE — Fifteen years ago, when Sandra Bolton and her husband bought their three-bedroom Cape overlooking the serene waters of Shubael Pond, their view was like “heaven on Earth,” she said. Few summer days passed when they didn’t take a dip.
But in recent years they began to notice a guacamole-colored scum marring the previously clear waters. Last summer, just as temperatures were increasing and the pond beckoned, local officials banned swimming there after finding toxic algae blooms that can be harmful if ingested, inhaled, or touched.
Earlier this month, they did the same after dead fish were seen floating on a new layer of slime.
“It was like paradise, and then it turned into a nightmare,” said Bolton, 79, a retired elementary school teacher who last year resorted to buying a blow-up pool for her grandchildren. “It’s getting worse.”
Shubael Pond is one of 996 small lakes on Cape Cod, freshwater jewels that offer an alternative to the increasingly shark-infested saltwater on the coast. The remnants of melted glaciers from the Ice Age, the mostly shallow kettle ponds are again being transformed by climate change, a blow to those drawn to their secluded beauty.
Scientists have found that the ponds are warming rapidly, sapping their oxygen, making them more turbid, and altering their distinct ecosystems, which include wildlife ranging from microbes to bullfrogs.
The warming temperatures, combined with increased development and more powerful storms that wash fertilizers, wastewater, and other damaging nutrients into the ponds, have created ideal breeding grounds for cyanobacteria, the toxic ingredients of algae blooms that can multiply in dangerous amounts in very short periods.
“The bacteria like warm, calm places, without a lot of water or wind velocity, and these little lakes are their perfect breeding grounds,” said Charles Culbertson, a microbial ecologist with the US Geological Survey’s New England Water Science Center.
We’re always looking for stories that might interest our readers. If you come across something so interesting that it cries out to be shared, please send it to editor@enviropolitics.com If we agree, you’ll see it here soon.
