The petition, which is posted under the anonymous administrator name Rochelle Pond, says, “Rochelle Pond is a beautiful small body of water that is home to numerous wildlife, and is enjoyed by many fishermen, visitors and homeowners.
“This petition serves as a way to encourage the City of Roanoke Rapids to create new regulations or strategies to provide a clean, safe environment for our community to enjoy. The amount of litter, over growth, and sewage drains that empty rainwater and possible chemical runoff into the waters has endangered the safety of the wildlife that live in the pond, and creates a significant trash problem after rainstorms.”
The petition, as of this report, has 65 supporters.
Scherer said in his report, “Public works has several projects in progress,” which include replacement of stormwater concrete pipes at the intersection of Seventh and Monroe streets; temporary repair of depressions on Virginia Avenue from heavy use by trucks at the Manning school construction site and the installation of a new stormwater collection fixture on Park Avenue. “They have also been busy with recent happenings at the theatre such as the Touch-A-Truck event and the Community Wellness Forum.”
Scherer said, “Recently, an online petition was started anonymously to complain about the lack of cleanup efforts by the city at Rochelle Pond.”
The city has spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of man hours maintaining the pond “and it is disingenuous of residents to complain about how poorly the city maintains what is a stormwater retention pond and not a private lake.”
The city, Scherer said, has dredged the pond and the natural flora around the shoreline. It has put employees on a boat on a regular basis to collect trash and treat the shoreline cattails to keep them from growing too large. “We have repaired the pond overflow drain to ensure heavy rains do not raise the pond levels to near or above flood stage. We do not have the resources to do anymore than what we do there now.”
Scherer said the pond serves as a retention basin to collect stormwater from a large area of the city and then is released at a controlled rate. There are around 510 acres of drainage areas in the city. “It is an extensive area and the trash that residents thoughtlessly leave in the streets ends up in the pond. While public works endeavors to clean those streets on a regular basis, they cannot do it every day and keep all the needless trash out of the stormwater system.”
Said Scherer: “Those who anonymously want to complain about the trash in the pond would be better served by assisting us in occasionally helping to collect the trash themselves, either off of the streets or along the shoreline. Public works will put out cans around the pond for people to put the trash into and will then haul the trash away.”
