Marsh Pond Monitoring

Marsh Pond (also known as Great Meadow Pond) is located between Route 4 and Main Street. In years back, it was a hay field that was dammed in the winter for ice-making purposes. Now, it is a secluded beautiful pond which abuts the Sanborn Cray Conservation Area. Concerns over increasing development along Route 4 and contaminants present in the runoff from this busy highway prompted the commission to begin baseline water quality monitoring of the pond in 2004 under the guidance of the NH Department of Environmental Services' volunteer lake assessment program (VLAP).

The first monitoring session was held on June 3, 2004. Not only was water from the deepest part of the pond sampled, but also an inlet on Main Street, a drainage pipe from the Route 4/Main Street intersection that is directed towards the pond area, and the outlet of the pond. The chart below shows the results received to date. For a description of what these results mean, please click here. The commission is seeking volunteers to work with the DES VLAP program and perform additional baseline water quality monitoring in other town surface waters.

2004 Monitoring Results

2005 Monitoring Results