Flax Pond image courtesy of Skip Caplan 

​The Brewster Ponds Coalition’s Neighborhood Outreach program partners with local neighborhood and pond associations to help them gain a better understanding of these beautiful, complex ecosystems.

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A neighborhood pond is both a great resource and a great responsibility.

​The BPC Neighborhood Outreach program can leverage and enhance your group’s efforts and help to expand them to a broad and long term environmental stewardship program in a non-regulatory manner.

Being a caretaker is the right thing to do: the sandy soils of the cape allow groundwater to flow into and out of ponds. Keeping your pond clean also keeps our sole source aquifer water clean and can be a personally transformative experience.

The BPC Outreach Program:

• Builds a working partnership with your neighborhood group or pond association
• Works with you to understand your pond dynamics
• Helps you focus your pond association on water issues
• Instills a “Pond Caretaker” attitude in your neighborhood
• Explores how you as a neighbor can help 
• Grows BPC awareness and membership through our joint efforts​

​How We Can Help:

• Assemble available information on your pond from various expert sources
• Provide consultative advice on immediate remediation problems like stormwater runoff
• Suggest referral to engineering resources as needed ​

• ​​Enlist our Citizen Science team to test your pond for cyanobacteria​ ​​
• Hold your donor funds in a tax-free account to be used for eligible remediation projects
• Build a "Pond Protection Plan" for your pond
• ​Provide access to resources and educational events available to BPC members

Image courtesy of Dawn Walnut.

The BPC Pond Protection Pledge:

​What better gift can we give each other than the gift of conservation? This gift is a thoughtful, needed, heartfelt, and unique one that neighbors give to each other when they take the BPC Pond Protection Pledge (PPP). 
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The PPP is simply a conservation movement that isn’t waiting for someone else to do the job. With the world increasingly and visibly under siege from environmental threats such as climate change, habitat destruction, rising temperatures, and pollution, the urgent need to take “individual” action has never been clearer. The PPP brings people together and educates them on what they should do in their homes and yards to protect our ponds.

​​Like to learn more, volunteer or provide financial support for this program?  Click on one of the buttons below!

The Three-Part Pledge: 

​The PPP asks neighbors to: 

• Commit to not using chemical fertilizers in yards which leads to an increase in nutrients. 
• Commit to having septic tanks inspected and pumped every two to four years. 
• ​Commit to decreasing or eliminating phosphate containing household cleaners by watching what goes down the drain and using earth-friendly cleaners. 

We have worked with neighborhood groups at Sheep, Seymour, and Upper Mill ponds to start the pledge in their neighborhoods. You, too, can join the PPP and become a “steward of the ponds.” The only knowledge needed is a genuine curiosity and desire to keep your pond clean. Know that your efforts are backed by the BPC. We will provide you with yard signs, bumper stickers, and educational materials. 

For more information about the PPP, please click on this link to view a recent presentation and send an e-mail to [email protected] with the subject title “Pond Protection Pledge.”​

Pictured above is Nancy Decker, Seymour Pond neighborhood resident and PPP member.