 New five minute video produced by Noah Johnson of Lower Cape Television reveals study results of airborne toxins detected in two Brewster ponds.
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 Marty Burke, BPC board member, and Nancy Leland, Lim-tex sample water on Lower Mill Pond How Can You Help? Your $100 donation replenishes cyanobacteria testing and analysis supplies--like water collection bottles, plastic hoses vials, collection tote bags, and microscope slides--throughout the testing season.  Your $200 donation equips the Citizen Scientist program with laboratory collection and analysis equipment including aerosol collection devices [pictured].  Your $500 donation goes towards the cost of cyanoscope, fluorometer, and anatoxin kit purchases. (Shown here.) Thanks to our supporters' generosity, the 2021 appeal has raised $22,000 to date to support Citizen Science and other BPC programs. Please renew your membership. It's easy--just press the button below or visit: brewsterponds.org Donate Now Thank you! Your support makes a difference for Brewster’s Ponds!
 Image of Doug Smith from a video showing him taking a scoop of pond water and examining the creatures that reside within a healthy ecosystem The Pond Education Team has been hard at work converting many of our pond trip experiences and lessons into virtual equivalents. Unable to bring the students down to the pond (due to the Covid-19 Virus) for observation, exploration, and hands-on research experiences, we are in the process of creating videos of our volunteers doing just that. How Can You Help?  Your $50 donation can purchase new pond books for the second and fifth grade classrooms like The Turtle Sisters of Cape Cod by local author Susan Bauer. Books will also be read aloud on video. We also need to purchase new pond activity books and coloring books for the students.  Your $100 donation can purchase arts and craft supplies for creating new signs, posters, and other educational display materials, and building macroinvertebrates models.  Your $150 donation can purchase materials used to create new handmade puppets.  Your $200 donation can purchase a new puppet theatre and its accessories. The puppets and the puppet theater will be used to produce our own pond health related puppet show for the students, voiced by BPC volunteers. Thanks to generous supporters, the 2021 appeal has raised almost $16,000 towards a goal of $50,000, to support the Pond Education and other BPC programs.
Please renew your membership. It's easy--just press the button below or visit: brewsterponds.org to donate.
 BREWSTER – From June through August in the summer of 2019, Marty Burke made a twice-weekly trip to either Lower Mill Pond or Cliff Pond. It wasn’t to swim, or even to paddleboard, one of Burke’s passions now that he has retired from a career as an employee benefits and reinsurance analyst.
Instead, as a volunteer with the Brewster Ponds Coalition and its citizen science committee, he traveled to the ponds to assemble an automated aerosol collector known as a CLAM. The Compact Lake Aerosol Monitor looks like a potted plant, a nondescript plastic tote sprouting four articulated gooseneck arms each hooded in black mosquito netting. It sits on a platform in shallow water, the arms positioned to droop within a few inches of the pond’s surface. It may look simple – it was custom built by researchers at the University of New Hampshire – but its purpose is incredibly complex: The monitor collects microscopic toxins from a cyanobacterial bloom that has become airborne, mainly through evaporation. Large-scale gathering of these airborne toxins for research would be prohibitively expensive for scientists to do themselves, said James Haney, professor of biological science at the UNH Center for Freshwater Biology. His department oversaw the collection process and trained the citizen scientists at the pond coalition, making sure their methods were rigorous enough that they could produce data researchers could use. For the complete article, click to go to the Cape Cod Times.  The final BPC paddle event of the summer was held on Saturday night. The group embarked from Ayer's Pond in Orleans and paddled to the mouth of Little Pleasant Bay and back. It was a peaceful, sunset paddle that everyone enjoyed. Thank you to Business Partner Ryan Burch of SUPfari Adventures for sponsoring this second paddle event this summer and to guides Luke Foley, Scott Shaw and Peter Trull. Click here for a brief video of the paddle.
Sixty people attended two workshops presented by BPC partner Crocker Nurseries last week. Now a videotape of the workshop and the full plants list handed out the workshop is available. Click here to see video and plants list.
 This paddle was previously postponed last Saturday due to cold, windy conditions. This Saturday promises to be ideal weather. LAST CHANCE. Only 2 spots remain!
their web page.   UPDATE: Both sessions are full! Any further registrations will be put on a wait-list and contacted of there are any cancellations!
On August 8, 2020, the Cyanobacteria Advisory postings at Seymour Pond were REMOVED at the neighborhood association landings after two weeks of monitoring and water sampling. Once a toxin is released the wind, waves, and temperatures can change the locale of the bloom and toxins. Guidelines established by the MA Department of Health suggest the two week quarantine. The Cyanobacteria and associated toxin levels have dropped to a low risk level for swimming and other recreational water activities.
We continue to monitor our freshwater ponds in Brewster in collaboration with The Association for the Preservation of Cape Cod (apcc.org/our-work/science/community-science/cyanobacteria/) to provide timely notification to our residents of potentially harmful algal blooms. For additional information, please also visit www.mass.gov/guides/cyanobacterial-harmful-algal-blooms-cyanohabs-water . |
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