if there is any chance of the horse manure seeping into the pond it wont be very
friendly for fish, and I wonder that it can pass coliform tests for swimming in
either. Ingrid

We are required by the health department to have the water tested
weekly, and our results have always been very low: MPN/100ml 2 fecal
coliform and the highest total coliform was 50. They said they don't
even require retests until we get 250 of fecal, and really don't
worry until it gets over 1000, so we seem to be in pretty good shape.

The reason I want to dig a bog lagoon is specifically to filter
whatever runoff we may get. This is southern california, and we don't
get much rain, and what we do get often falls as snow at this
elevation and during the season when there are no horses here.

My main concern is the eutrophication of the water from this runoff
which supports the algae blooms and makes the water "yucky". It drove
me crazy that they demanded that I remove all the larger floating
plants as they judged them yucky as well, knowing that they were
competing eith the algae.

I am hoping that if I use larger emergent plants, that the perimeter
area where they grow will be judged as not-pond, but more as part of
the adjacent field, and therefore non-yucky. Someone mentioned that
garter snakes like to live in the rushes (which indeed they do) and my
boss became concerned that the kids will then be afraid of the snakes.
Someone else mentioned that the bible refers to sedges amd rushes as
somehow wicked, and that some people may be uncomfortable with that.
So unless its all cement and chlorine, I will never please them all.

Thanks for the advice,
Nesdon