Angus Council is to investigate difficulties at Keptie Pond in Arbroath following a “think tank” meeting with councillors.
Angus Council drilled a bore hole in the pond at a cost of £45,000 last year but the pump has been working only “intermittently” over the last month and was switched off.
The pumping equipment is used to keep the pond topped up in a bid to avoid low water levels that can contribute to a build up of algae.
Councillors Alex King, David Fairweather, David Lumgair and Bob Spink met at Keptie Pond yesterday with Angus Council officials and communities director Alan McKeown.
The council will today be looking at the problems at the pond including the pumping equipment and will continue to work alongside the elected members.
Mr Fairweather said: “We are now going to get action and find out perhaps where we have gone wrong and we’ll rectify it as quickly as possible.
“The engineers will be checking the pump and whether the pipe is big enough and if there’s enough water going into the pond.
“The bore hole has been working as the algae is not nearly as bad but we do have natural pond weed which seems to have overtaken the algae.”
Mr King said there was not much algae on the water but people thought it was worse because of the thick blanket of pond weed.
He said: “The main thing we have to do is find ways of getting more water into the pond. The difficulty is we can’t just open the sluices and let the water come in from the main these days because it’s very expensive.
“I don’t know how much it would cost to raise the level on the pond by a foot but it could be as much as £25,000-£30,000.”
He said making it deeper would stop it evaporating as quickly in hot weather and would allow the pond to flow better. Mr Spink said the bore hole had been a waste of public money because it had been sunk in the wrong place.
He said it was drained every year when it was a skating pond and refilled from the burgh supply at Glen Ogil.
Mr Spink said: “Now controlled by Scottish Water that option no longer exists for if we were to choose that route we would be required to install a backflow valve to ensure against pollution of the drinking water.
“Not only would this be expensive, for Scottish Water would insist on a metered supply, but I was told by the director a year ago that that would cost us £22,500 to achieve a water level of only 300mm and would require regular replenishment to maintain the water level. Draining is no longer an option because of the biodiversity considerations which include a fairly large coarse fish population.
“Thus a borehole was the choice made and one which I strongly advocated from the start.
“I was not aware of the site chosen to sink a borehole and upon whose advice, and was surprised and disappointed at the choice.”