By JEFF MORRIS
Tuesday’s town board meeting served as a kind of cathartic release for many of the residents of the Todd’s Pond neighborhood of Katonah.
What began as a presentation from the Todd’s Pond Committee on Oct. 15 about a new proposal to begin dredging the pond, evolved into a series of testimonials from neighbors about the impact the pond has had on their lives, and their frustration with what they have witnessed over the past five years.
The hour-and-a-half discussion became testy at times as that frustration boiled over.
The condition of the pond has been an issue as its size and depth have shrunk, silt has accumulated, vegetation has overwhelmed it, and wildlife habitat has decreased to the point of being nonexistent.
In June 2019, the town created the Todd’s Pond Advisory Committee to consider the condition of the pond and the extent to which it functions as a flood control component for the immediate vicinity and other parts of Katonah, and to make recommendations to the town board.
On Tuesday, TPAC chair Lou Sorrell reviewed what the committee has been doing, and presented a sedimentation study and dredging proposal from Mark Amler of Pristine Waters of Ridgefield, Conn. That proposal is for about $1.1 million, which is a fraction of the original dredging estimate obtained from Arcadis Consulting in 2020, which ranged from $4.6 million for a partial dredge to $13 million for a full dredge.
In an earlier update given by Sorrell in May 2023, he noted efforts to remove aquatic plant growth had been unsuccessful.
A hydrorake brought in in the summer of 2022 got stuck in the mud. After that failed, an attempt was made to eradicate aquatic plants by exposing them to freezing temperatures. Water in the pond was drawn down in stages in November 2022, but that attempt was thwarted by an unusually warm winter.
“But we did learn a lot about what the pond looks like,” Sorrell said last year, including being able to see the stream that runs through it — an observation he repeated this week.
Another plan that had been considered was to leave the pond dry, on the theory that if the summer was hot enough, the mud might get sufficiently hard to utilize dirt moving equipment and mitigate one of the biggest problem areas.
But the town’s wetlands consultant warned that the moist muck, left exposed, could become a natural grass bed, which would then result in new grass growing underneath once the pond was refilled. As a result, they immediately refilled the pond.
This left the committee with no choice but to assess their next steps, define the scope of work required, determine the permitting required and get a general budgetary estimate, and eventually move forward with trying to secure funds.
Also known as Cherry Ridge Lake, the pond was originally manmade and created as a source of ice for harvesting in the days before refrigeration. In 1955, the pond’s two owners turned ownership over to a lake association. In 1997 the association transferred ownership to the town, under a deed that required the town to maintain the pond in its “current state” in perpetuity.
Since then, residents have raised concerns about the pond filling with silt, the water dramatically decreasing in depth, neighboring basements flooding and lawns turning into marshes, and a retaining wall that appears to be crumbling. An engineer hired by the residents stated the pond was key to draining the surrounding neighborhood and mitigating possible flood damage downstream.
The TPAC has now collaborated with Pristine Waters for a new sedimentation study. That assessment stated, “Todd’s Pond in its current state is barely a pond, with sediment depths filling to approximately 70% of the pond basin.” It found the average water depth from the top of the sediment to the surface is approximately 1.3 feet, with a maximum water depth of 2.5 feet. “On average, the pond should be approximately 4.28’ deep throughout,” said the study. “There is more sediment than water in this basin.” It concluded, “This pond (if it is to remain a pond), can be restored through dredging the sediment fill out of the basin and restoring the modest original depth. While it is likely to remain productive following maintenance dredging, the ecosystem it supports would be in line of that of a ‘pond’, rather than that of an arguably less desirable wetland, marsh, or swamp.”
Pristine divided the pond into four zones, with three subzones. Their proposal matches those zones to phases of a dredging project, utilizing a combination of mechanical and hydraulic dredging. Sorrell presented a quick breakdown of the logistics involved, aspects of the proposed phases, and the estimated costs of each. The three phases would cost about $500,000 each, with a fourth phase including site restoration adding another $125,000. He recommended that the board approve phases one, two and four at a total cost of $1.1 million, excluding phase three because it is in the worst shape and this way they could get started and “get the biggest bang for the buck.”
Supervisor Ellen Calves had noted at the beginning of the session that the board would not be voting on anything that evening.
Sorrell estimated it would take about six months to obtain the necessary permits for work to begin. Asked how long each of the phases would take, Amler said he estimated the first phase would take two to three months, with phases two and three each also needing two to three months of actual work time, and a couple of months of drying time for the material that is removed.
Various methods of funding were mentioned, with the overarching message that this is going to cost a lot of money that the town does not have. Board member Stephanie McCaine, who is also a member of TPAC, observed, “Quite frankly, half a million dollars, right now in this economy, in this climate, when we’re already looking at a budget that is as tight as possible and as close to the cap as it can be, is something everyone in this room has to really understand and reconcile.”
She asked how, if they were going to move forward with keeping it as a pond, they were realistically going to fund that. She thanked everyone for coming — the meeting room was filled — and said they needed to come together collaboratively as a community.
“I hope we can continue to have civil discourse on how we can move forward with this,” she said.
That remark was either prescient or ill-timed, as what followed was an extended public comment session during which some residents levied pointed attacks on what they saw as the town’s failures in remediating the pond, resulting in its current depleted condition.
Resident Ken Strnad quoted from the contract with which the town took ownership, focusing on the stipulation the town maintain it in its “current state” in perpetuity. He argued that after watching five years of what he called a “comedy of errors,” the town now seemed to be back-peddling on its commitment.
“I know I sound a little ticked off; it’s probably because I’m out of patience,” said Strnad. “My point of view is probably reflected by many in this room.”
He was met with loud applause from those present. Multiple other speakers expressed varying levels of nostalgia for how the pond used to be, dismay about the way it is now, and a desire to get going on a solution. Troy Atkinson later got into a heated disagreement with McCaine that resulted in them both apologizing to each other.
Calves and McCaine responded, arguing the town was not reneging on anything — that they were simply airing all the solutions and ramifications in public in an effort to move the process forward. Calves emphasized that they now had a “more reasonable, still very expensive solution” but needed to figure out how to pay for it.