The Drought

So everyone knows ther is a drought going on, but other than the grass in the side yard going dormant, it is hard to see evidence of the lack of water when I look around.  Except, when I crossed the road on my walks the last few times, and I was stunned to see how low the water was in Scudder's Pond!  I know it is not a deep pond but I was amazed to see how far the water has receded from the edge of the pond.  Please click on this to see it larger and you can see how much of the bottom of the pond is exposed.

This concrete ring surrounds the drain from the pond.  Water enters this pond from a small trickle of a stream on the far side of the pond in the direction we are looking, But then the bad part is, that there is a drain from the nearby street on the far left that comes downhill to the pond and when it rains, the rainwater washes down the street picking up oil drippings on the street from cars, and dog waste and sand, and then washes into the pond!  There is supposed to be some kind of "separator" where that water enters but I don't know how well it works.  And this concrete ring is supposed to keep debris from going down the drain which it surrounds.  Then the water enters a pipe which runs under Shore road and then into the harbor.  Normally the top of this ring is about 18" below the top of the water in the pond.  So this shows how much less water there is because of the drought.