Municipalities are Cleaning Up their Ponds By Following the Private Sector Methods

Local Governments are looking for alternative ways to keep their municipal ponds and water reservoirs healthy and clean. Unfortunately, most do not have the budgets for expensive solutions, so for years they have just gone on, the way they always have - by adding pond chemicals to treat their water as a short term measure to solving long term pond problems.

Many are being taken advantage of by equipment vendors and consultants who believe that they can charge outrageous amounts of money for their products and services just because the customers happen to be local governments.

Its refreshing to hear from many municipalities who are starting to be more entrepreneurial and aggressive in their approach to solving this issue and are experimenting with less expensive, do it yourself, alternative ways to improving pond water quality.

Pond and water aeration is the best place to start in your experimentation process. Government studies have been conducted for over 20 yrs on the benefits of pond aeration and how, by increasing the levels of dissolved oxygen in a pond, you can improve the quality of the water. This natural process is really quite simple: the additional levels of oxygen burn off excess nutrients, pollutants and run off chemicals that are suspended in a pond's water body - cleaning up the water and improving the health of its ecosystem. This alternative is minimizing and sometimes eliminating the use of expensive toxic pond chemicals.

There are pond aeration systems on the market that range in prices from hundreds of dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. I urge you to look at some of the vendors that have been around servicing the private sector for decades and providing tremendous results. A web site page that you may want to visit is the Koenders Windmills customer feedback section - they have created a series of testimonial videos of private enterprise and customers who have used windmill aeration systems on their ponds for years. Listen to the results these people have received from investments of less than $2000.00

Maintenance and warranties is always an area that product vendors like to justify charging 10 times the fair price for a product. These types of windmill aeration systems have 3 yr warranties included and are virtually maintenance free, except for the 1 hour every few years it takes to do the periodic maintenance on them.

The next experimentation stage once you have implemented your aeration systems is to explore the burgeoning market of natural pond conditioners as opposed to chemicals to help your ponds along. These formulations are made up of various bacteria, enzymes and other metals - when combined with aeration can provide an excellent alternative to chemical use.

© 2006, Pond Owner Magazine.
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