Turtles A Hurdle To East Hampton Pond Excavation

The excavation of Town Pond was halted this week after wildlife advocates said they feared turtles hibernating in the muck that is being removed would be harmed by the work.

A week into the excavation work that is expected to remove more than 10,000 tons of mud and decaying organic matter, a group called Turtle Rescue of The Hamptons alerted the village that there were likely turtles sleeping in the muck through the colder months that would not have fled when the disturbance started.

Over the weekend, members of the group and wildlife advocate Dell Cullum dug and poked in the black porridge of the now exposed pond bottom for signs of slumbering turtles. They found just one, but said that a thorough survey of the mud would take much longer.

Village Mayor Jerry Larsen said on Monday that he has ordered the excavation work halted for one week to allow the turtle rescuers to continue the search, though he noted that they are finding the work difficult and laborious.

He said that a long delay could be problematic for the village because the excavation company, Bistrian Materials, has other projects on its schedule and turning away from the project and returning could be costly.

“We put everything on hold for a week and the people who are trying to rescue the turtles think they will be able to get them all out by then, so we’re going to all get together on Thursday and talk about where things stand,” Mr. Larsen said on Tuesday. “If we were going to delay longer than that, we’ll have to talk about what the financial impacts on the village would be. As of today, they have pulled out three turtles, none of them are endangered species, I’m told, and I don’t think they know how many turtles could be in there.”

None of the turtles found thus far have been native species. A turtle removed from the muck on Sunday was a species know as a red earned slider, a common pet species that is native to the Southwest desert and Mexico, but has become one of the most common invasive species in other regions because of people releasing the pets into the wild. Mr. Cullum said that three turtles removed are being given “new homes” since they can’t be released back into the wild. He said the wildlife advocates fear there could be native species like snapper turtles in the pond, but has yet to see any evidence of one.

The approximately $900,000 project to remove several feet of pollution-soaked muck from the bottom of the pond began last month and was scheduled to take about a month to complete. It’s the latest phase in an effort by the village to reduce the amount of pollution that flows from the business district and surrounding residential neighborhoods through Town Pond and into Hook Pond, which has been plagued for years by sometimes dense algae blooms. Other phases have included the creation of “rain gardens” and bio-swales along the path that water trickles through the Hook Mill area and south of downtown in an effort to remove nitrogen and other pollutants from the water before it reaches Town Pond and Hook Pond.