White Pond is a 58.5 acre lake and
reservoir
A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation.
Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...
within the towns of
Stow
Stow may refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Stow, Lincolnshire or Stow-in-Lindsey, a village
* Stow of Wedale or Stow, Scottish Borders, a village
* Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, a small town
* Stow, Shropshire or Stowe, a village
* Stow ...
and
Hudson
Hudson may refer to:
People
* Hudson (given name)
* Hudson (surname)
* Henry Hudson, English explorer
* Hudson (footballer, born 1986), Hudson Fernando Tobias de Carvalho, Brazilian football right-back
* Hudson (footballer, born 1988), Hudso ...
, in
Middlesex County, Massachusetts. The lake has historically provided a source of
drinking water
Drinking water is water that is used in drink or food preparation; potable water is water that is safe to be used as drinking water. The amount of drinking water required to maintain good health varies, and depends on physical activity level, a ...
to the town of
Maynard, and Maynard maintains water rights to the pond and owns some of the land surrounding it. White Pond is adjacent to
Lake Boon
Lake Boon is a lake in eastern Massachusetts covering about in the towns of Stow and Hudson, Massachusetts. The lake is approximately 1.5 miles long and consists of four basins connected by narrows. The first and largest basin at the north-west en ...
but their waters are not connected.
History
A nineteenth century writer described White Pond as "a fine sheet of water, situated in a level, sandy section of town, and
ttakes its name from the white, sandy bottom, which gives its hue to the water." By 1828 a railroad corporation surveyed a route around White Pond, and eventually constructed railroad tracks along one side of the pond. By the mid-1800s, "White Pond had a large commercial ice cutting operation functioning on its shores, and
ice house was situated next to the pond near an old railroad."
[FINAL REPORT DIAGNOSTIC FEASIBILITY STUDY LAKE BOON TOWNS OF HUDSON STOW, MA CONCORD (August 1987) https://archives.lib.state.ma.us/bitstream/handle/2452/69990/ocn370394029.pdf?sequence=1] In 1888 the Commonwealth granted the Town of Maynard
water rights to White Pond,
[Acts and resolves passed by the General Court by Massachusetts (1888), p. 419, accessible on archive.org] and in 1889 Maynard built a three-mile pipeline to carry water by gravity to Maynard where it was pumped to a reservoir atop
Summer Hill for distribution throughout the town.
In 1935 the
Civil Works Administration
The Civil Works Administration (CWA) was a short-lived job creation program established by the New Deal during the Great Depression in the United States to rapidly create mostly manual-labor jobs for millions of unemployed workers. The jobs were ...
(C.W.A.) and
Federal Emergency Relief Administration
The Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) was a program established by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, building on the Hoover administration's Emergency Relief and Construction Act. It was replaced in 1935 by the Works Progress Adm ...
(F.E.R.A.) cleaned up the forest surrounding the pond and planted new trees. In 1942 the water pipeline to Maynard was replaced with a ten-inch diameter, concrete pipe. Due to droughts affecting the level of White Pond, in 1964, Maynard acquired a well within the adjacent U.S. Army Reservation (now
Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge
The Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge (ARNWR; formerly referred to as the U.S. Army's Fort Devens-Sudbury Training Annex) is a protected National Wildlife Refuge located approximately west of Boston and west of the Eastern Massachusetts N ...
) to pump water into White Pond when it was low, and in 1972 and 1973 Maynard acquired other wells, the Quirk Wells off
Old Marlboro Road
Old Marlboro Road (also known as Old Marlborough Road) is a historic road and the name of a poem about the road by Henry David Thoreau, published in his work, ''Walking''. Old Marlboro Road currently runs through Concord, Sudbury, and Maynard, Mass ...
.
[https://www.townofmaynard-ma.gov/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/WPSC-minutes-20110307.pdf ] White Pond continued to provide Maynard with drinking water until it was decommissioned in the 1990s because the system required an investment to be updated to comply with the EPA Surface Water Treatment Rule. Maynard switched entirely to wells for its water supply.
The town still holds water rights to White Pond, and in 2019 discussed reactivating this water supply through the Refuge to diversify the town's water supply. Cost estimates were approximately $20 million for a water treatment plant and $9 million for replacing the 1942 pipeline.
References
{{Massachusetts lakes and ponds
Lakes of Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Hudson, Massachusetts
Maynard, Massachusetts
Stow, Massachusetts
Ponds of Massachusetts
Reservoirs in Massachusetts