HUNTINGTON BEACH : Permanent Cleanup Set for 2 Lakes

It’s lunchtime at the lake at Greer Park, and the ducks and other birds lounging in the bright-green water are ready to feed.

A visitor tosses bread pieces into the flock, setting off a scramble. In the fracas, ducks kick up turbid brown clouds from the pond’s shallow floor.

The curious murk, park officials say, is the result of an abundance of dead algae and aquatic weed, combined with uneaten bird food and an estimated three-foot layer of duck excrement that coats the bottom of the lake.

To permanently clean up the lakes at Greer and at nearby Chris Carr Park, the City Council has authorized a $250,000 rehabilitation project.

The lake problems at Carr Park, at Springdale Street and Heil Avenue, are similar to those at Greer. The stench and waste accumulation are less severe, however, mainly because the lake is much deeper than Greer’s, said Daryl Smith, the city’s superintendent of parks, trees and landscaping.

During spells of hot weather, the sordid mixture at Greer Park becomes a breeding ground for a strain of botulism-causing toxin, officials said. Dead ducks and other birds have been turning up on the lake’s edges, and officials say they fear a potential threat to visiting dogs and perhaps even children, who frequently play along the shore and feed the birds.

The rancid combination also often fills the air with a pungent stench, which has piqued a flurry of recent complaints from residents in the surrounding, upscale neighborhood near McFadden Avenue and Golden West Street.

“On a hot day, the smell can get pretty bad,” said one visitor, who eats lunch at the park every weekday. “The heat really seems to (extract) the smell out of the water.”

Residents say the unpleasant smell has subsided considerably during the past month, since city officials began adding a deodorant to the lake.

To slow the algae growth, the water is also treated with a shading agent, which filters the sunlight and gives the lake its fluorescent green hue, Smith said. As another temporary remedy, workers routinely have been cleaning dead algae from the lake, he said.

As part of the cleanup effort authorized by the council and scheduled to begin in January, the water circulation systems of both lakes will be overhauled, officials said.

An array of factors have contributed to the gradual sullying of the lake, officials said, beginning from the park’s inception 15 years ago.

The biggest problem is the lake’s original circulation system, which city officials discovered was inadequate soon after they took over the park from developers who built it along with the neighboring housing tract.

As algae spread through the poorly circulated lake, the population of ducks and other birds boomed.

Ducks given as Easter gifts often end up as residents of the lake. Additionally, because bird feeding has become a popular pastime at Greer, increasing numbers of birds have flocked to the lake and multiplied, officials said.

The feeding ritual has become so widespread that the city is considering erecting signs forbidding the practice, officials said.