FROGS
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The Problem with Being a Pond

Then again, a pond’s life is not as copasetic as long had been the case. Long, in this case, being in the order of billions of years. Really, that’s quite long enough to pull quite an act together. Ponds, as an important part of the entire wetlands system, became efficient biomes that formed, were filled in, froze, thawed, were buried under, and sometimes they were left behind by retreating glaciers. Millennia of practice taught ponds to attract all the creatures necessary to create a little world that could support itself, in abundance, while filtering the water, taking carbon out of the air, mitigating the effects of destructive flooding, and creating more land for the plants and animals that preferred a dryer climate.

Nowadays, however, there is just too much to do. Not only was there the old work, recycling all of the dying into new life, but the human population surrounding a pond is now pouring in extra work that needs to be done—pronto! By covering up so much space with buildings and roads, filling in millions of ponds in the process, there is at the same time more material running off into fewer ponds. Then the humans are tossing extra nitrogen and phosphorus onto the land, too much of which is immediately washed into ponds and other bodies of water before it ever does the work humans intend for it. Instead, it is left for the ponds to process, on top of all the other work it had been assigned to do for the previous millennia. The stress of life as a pond these days will kill you.

Yes, a pond has a little extra capacity, but that level is being quickly exceeded. This is a process called eutrophication—too much of a good thing. By pumping too much nitrogen and phosphorus into you, your life as a pond becomes overwhelmed with plant life. The plants, especially fast-expanding creatures like algae, love the extra nutrients. They multiply enormously – blocking out light to the rest of the pond – then die in the normal course of things and are eaten up by bacteria that use all your available oxygen in the process, suffocating the animal life that once entertained your waters.

Ponds aren’t the only place eutrophication happens. You hear about algae blooms in coastal waters that kill marine life in the area from oxygen starvation as well. But as a pond you also have to be concerned about humans using up too much of the local water for their agriculture, or an engineer condemning you to be filled in, or human practices that cause you to become inhospitably salty. If you are downwind from a coal plant, the rain that was once so refreshing now falls on you full of acid and mercury, making you crystal clear—but completely dead.

No, life ain’t easy for a pond, and you had begun to give up hope, but then a group of folks came to your banks one day and offered to do what they could to help.

We’ll talk about them next time.