When power players like Steven Spielberg and billionaire Ronald Perelman want to relax and entertain, they retreat to their massive estates on Georgica Pond, a 190-acre coastal lagoon in East Hampton, a magnet for the country’s creative and financial elite.
The pond is surrounded by 74 stately homes, including some on the National Registry of Historic Places.
‘There are so many poisons, we hardly see any fish anymore.’
- Local fisherman
Once blue and lovely, Georgica Pond, up close, is now nearly the color of pea soup. The reason: It’s been poisoned.
The toxicity got so bad that officials were forced to close the pond earlier this month. And it’s all because the pesticides the well-heeled residents are using to keep their massive properties lush and green are leeching into the water and destroying it.
Add that to the homes’ antiquated septic systems that have been continually pouring nitrogen into the water, and you have an environmental disaster.
“We are at a tipping point. We need to take a hard look at the future in order to have sustainable clean water for future generations,” said Rick Drew, one of the East Hampton town trustees responsible for Georgica Pond.
He said the problems have been building for decades — and may take just as long to fix.
“A lot of the problems we are seeing today began in the 1980s, when there was an explosion of irrigation systems. The result was a lot of trophy lawns and spectacular rose gardens along with a ton of nitrogen seeping into the ground,” Drew said.
The pond’s toxic blue-green algae and oxygen-sucking weeds have even killed house pets.
In 2012, resident Annie Gilchrist Hall’s beloved Jack Russell terrier, Rosie, died after drinking poisoned pond water.
That’s when a group of wealthy and powerful residents banded together to form their own group, Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation, which officially launched in August 2015.
They have so far kicked in around $1 million, says Sara Davison, the foundation’s executive director.
Board members include photographer Priscilla Rattazzi Whittle, who is married to financier Chris Whittle and is the niece of the late FIAT chairman Gianni Agnelli, as well as Gilchrist Hall and Dr. Anna Chapman, who is married to Perelman.
“When Annie’s dog died, that got all of us mobilized. Enough was enough. We had to do something,” Rattazzi Whittle said.
“Suffolk County is working on fixing the problem as well as the entire Hamptons septic system, which must be replaced. It will take a long time to fix Georgica Pond and it will cost a lot of money, but I believe that we can get it done. We are working with engineers and formulating a plan,” she added.
At this time, there are no rules or guidelines to stop homeowners from using harmful fertilizers on their pristine, and often unnaturally green, lawns.
Homeowners and upland farms need to stop using chemical fertilizers and add vegetation buffers to soak up some of the chemical runoff.
“The majority [now] have buffer zones, but I don’t know how many are using fertilizers,” Davison said.
“We are organizing a workshop in October on best landscaping practices,” she added.
And while the pond is now closed for swimming, crabbing, fishing and sailing, that hasn’t stopped people from other recreational activities like paddle-boarding.
“We have advised people not to swim or use the pond at all,” Drew said.
“I wouldn’t want my family using a body of water that could make them sick and I wouldn’t want other families to do it either.”
But local Kevin Miller, who says he has fished in Georgica Pond since 1970, is still visiting with his rod and reel.
“I fished for crabs here six weeks ago. I ate the crabs I caught. They were good, but there was something that wasn’t quite right,” Miller said.
“There are so many poisons, we hardly see any fish anymore.”
Experts say the pond’s poisonous algal blooms are caused by an overloading of nitrogen and phosphorus, which come from household wastewater — cesspools — and fertilizer, which enter the pond from groundwater and form sediments at the bottom of the pond.
There’s also phragmites, an invasive bamboo-like weed that spreads “like wildfire” around the pond.
The poisons that fill the pond have sucked out most of the oxygen, which kills the fish, a scientific process known colloquially as “fish kills.”
“Most of the kills have been small bait fish,” said the Friends’ own scientist, Chris Gobler, associate dean for research and professor at the school of marine and atmospheric sciences at Stony Brook University.
The low-oxygen conditions really only occur at night, he said. And the poisons have only been emerging during the peak of the hot summer season — for now.
The toxins normally grow heavily in stagnant water — so it’s fortunate that Georgica Pond opens into the Atlantic Ocean. The ocean should help flush out some of the toxins.
Instead of waiting for officials to solve the problem, the wealthy Friends are trying to develop their own solutions.
One of them involves an $80,000 aqua-weed harvesting machine — essentially a giant, orange pond lawnmower.
The machine, an Aquamarine Model H5 Aquatic Weed Harvester, removes cladophora, a macro algae, as well as Sago Pond weed, which grows fast and has been spreading throughout the pond. The vessel cuts the macroalgae below the surface and scoops up floating macroalgae on the surface. The algae is then trucked to the East Hampton waste-disposal station.
“We will be quantifying how much nitrogen and phosphorus was removed at the end of the season, which will give a sense of how helpful it was,” Gobler said.
While the Friends will see how well their machine works after the end of the season, when it can be studied, the group is also waiting to see the results of other proposals that have sprouted up.
‘The magnitude of the problem will take many years to correct … This is a marathon — not a sprint.’
- Congressman Steve Englebright
About 40 are currently being studied.
“Everyone is starting to come together to find out the cause of this vile problem and how to fix it,” Drew said.
Some projects currently awaiting federal approval include ways to remove nitrogen from the septic systems, Assemblyman Steve Englebright told The Post.
“We are trying to find out how to retrofit all the cesspools on Long Island. The magnitude of the problem will take many years to correct and to clean the ground water. This is a marathon — not a sprint.”
It is not yet clear who will bear the costs, Englebright said. But one thing is certain — the solution will be pricey.
According to Drew, the exact cost might be $30,000 to $50,000 per home, depending on each home’s size and number of bathrooms. “We might make the updates mandatory in the future,” Drew said. “We are exploring our options.”