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Don't put any more fish in Walker Park pond
To the editor:
Here we go again -- dead fish floating in Walker Park.
It saddens me that what was once a place to spend my childhood years is now in such horrible shape. I pray that the Kiwanis Club does the right thing and moves the fishing rodeo out to the Sportsplex. If they don't, I hope that they would please not put any more fish into it until it can be cleaned up and out.
I'm an outdoorsman, and in being one, I never try to harm an ecosystem or take something that I'm not going to consume. Placing fish into a lake should not be done unless the place can support the life. It's just plain cruel to continue to place fish into the lake so the Emergency Squad can go scoop them out later.
The pond needs to be drained. It needs to be dug out and the algae removed. Three culverts installed running into the ditch behind it. That's all that needs to be done to fix the problem. It was like that for years until the city removed them and redid the pond, and put the old fountain in. When it rains, two drains run into the pond, but there is nowhere for it to release the old water. These three culverts would turn the pond into a place with running water. Water comes in, water moves out -- byproduct oxygen.
Go by and look at the color of the water in Walker Park. It's green stagnant water. It's full of algae, which sucks up all the oxygen. There was nothing wrong with the lake until they redid it. Those culverts would probably be the cheapest route for the city to aerate the water. Pumps have to be maintained and cost money to run. There are fish that eat algae, but I doubt that they could survive long enough to eat the algae with the oxygen levels what they are now. We need a backhoe, a handful of workers and three culverts -- problem solved.
I know that the city is scrapped for cash, but it we can't get a little parks and rec money to fix the problem, could we at least not add to it by putting anymore fish an there?