Lake District's ponds fare better (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Lake District's ponds fare better

11:10am Tuesday 9th February 2010 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(0)

PONDS in the Lake District have fared better than those in the rest of Britain, the first national survey of small waterbodies has revealed.

Research by Pond Conservation and the Centre for Ecology and Hyrdology found that 80 per cent of ponds in England and Wales are in a ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ condition.

Around half a million ponds from the tarns of the Lake District to garden pools were studied and results revealed that the waters in the poorest conditions were being damaged by pollution from farms, sewers and roads.

Dr Jeremy Biggs, director of Pond Conservation, said it was ‘shocking’ that ponds were in such a terrible state, adding: “This should be a wake up call for everyone concerned with protecting freshwater wildlife and involved in water management.

“Practically unnoticed, wildlife-rich, clean and unpolluted ponds have become a rarity in the countryside.”

However, Dr Biggs believed that the Lake District was faring better than elsewhere.

“There is land that is not used very intensively in the Lake District,” he said. “Ponds and tarns on the higher fells are excellent spots. I would be surprised if they were as bad as the national average.”

Dr Biggs said small waterbodies in the Lake District were important for supporting the likes of the natterjack toad and a fern called pillwort.

He urged people across the county to clean up old ponds and create new ones.

“Stop drains carrying polluted water into ponds and reduce and eliminate the use of chemicals like fertiliers near ponds. You need to cut off the dirty water source,” he said.

He advised people to build new ponds in areas where the water would not be exposed to pollution.

“Ponds are an important indicator of how water friendly our management of the countryside is. At present ponds are telling us we’re not getting it right,” added Dr Biggs.

The charity is in the third year of the first phase of its Million Ponds Project, which aims to create 5,000 clean ponds in England and Wales by 2012.