Capaha Park pond taken over by algae

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (KBSI)-  The public works department that maintains Capaha Park is having issues controlling the amount of algae in the pond.

“What we are going to be doing now is probably manually removing it,” said Kaed Horrell, Parks Division Manager for the City of Cape Girardeau.

Horrell says his crew has been working hard to control the algae with different treatment substances.

“The stuff we’re putting in there is strictly to affect the algae, not to affect the wildlife, or the plants and things like that,” he said.

Salvador Mondragon, a fisheries biologist with the Missouri Department of Conservation, says that using algaecides is the best option, but it depends on the temperature and is done in two-week intervals.

“We usually recommend an algaecide, that contains copper sulfate, which would only target algae’s in a pond,” said Mondragon.

Horrell says the department has been working with the Missouri Department of Conservation to learn the best way of treatment, but the growth rate of the algae is just too fast right now.

“The fact that Capaha Pond is kind of a retention basin, where a lot of water from surrounding neighborhoods and streets and yards all wash and go into that pond so we hope to within a couple years get this kind of equalized, to where we won’t have as much of an issue,” he said.