Pond

Between goose droppings and silt, the pond at E. Carl Kohler Park in recent years had been less than hospitable and barely inhabitable for fish. "It was virtually useless," Phil Collice said Thursday, after he and other officials stocked the pond off Horsham Road, one of several steps they hope will beautify the 70-acre park. Collice is chairman of Horsham Township's Park and Recreation Board. More than 600 fish are being added to the pond. On Thursday, sunfish and catfish were released.

State Rep. Ellen Harley (R., Montgomery) has been fighting an unsuccessful battle to reverse a King of Prussia swim club's decision to drain and fill its colonial-era millpond. Many of the nearby residents and Martin's Dam Swim Club members fear the club would sacrifice a beautiful and historical piece of property if the pond, which dates to 1718, is filled, Harley said. The dam that holds the pond has been found unsafe by the state Department of Environmental Resources, and the club filed permit applications in August to the DER to fill the three-acre pond as a safety precaution.

Residents say the former Rosenberger Dairy property near Nields Street and Bradford Avenue harbors a wetland. East Bradford Township officials and a developer say it does not. Whether a pond now filled with soil near the border of West Chester and East Bradford Township should be protected is in question. "We're not obstructionists," said Paul Ladd, chairman of the West End Neighbors Association, a group of about 100 residents working with some East Bradford residents to protect a quarter-acre they say is a wetland.

For the third straight month, engineers representing a developer endured this township's version of running a gantlet: facing the Board of Supervisors and residents while seeking approval to build their subdivision. Now all that they can do is to wait for a decision. During a board meeting Tuesday, Chester Valley Engineers Inc. presented sketch plans for the Charles Merriwether Subdivision, an 11-home, 84-acre development that would be bordered by the Charlestown-West Pikeland township line and Wells Road.

Two young brothers drowned yesterday in the freezing waters of a pond in Evesham Township, Burlington County, despite the rescue efforts of scuba divers and medical personnel, officials said. Christopher Fuller, 9, and his brother, Steven, 5, were pronounced dead at Garden State Community Hospital in Marlton more than three hours after they were pulled from ice-covered Barton Run Lake, officials said. Both of the boys died of drowning, said hospital spokesman Ed Kanis. They did not regain consciousness after being pulled from the pond, officials said.

Piranhas, the toothy flesh-eating fish, are supposed to be found in South American rivers - or movies like Piranha 3D , in theaters today. Not the pond at Horsham's Kohler Park. Wednesday afternoon, however, a six-inch fish with sizable teeth and reddish fins was caught, and reports are saying it was a piranha. Photos of it do resemble pictures of piranha. Nicholas Hinderlider, wearing a shark-jaw T-shirt, said he caught it while fishing with his dad, according to a Fox29 video.

A Lower Moreland housing development plan that has been subjected to a number of changes by township officials now will be required to have a fence around a 1.12-acre pond on the site. Township commissioners again reviewed plans for the 11-lot subdivision on Clearview Avenue at their Tuesday night meeting after the developer, Geftman Bros. Inc., removed two flag lots - lots connected to the street by a drive running along a property in front - from the plan. The commissioners said previously that the lots had inadequate street frontage on Clearview Avenue.

A pond and fountain at Route 100 and Swedesford Road? "Why not?" asked Fairfield Place shopping center developers Eisenberg Co. of Chadds Ford. "Hmmm," replied the West Whiteland Planning Commission Monday night when reviewing the developers' revised plans for the 38-acre site. "You have to understand," said commission member Norman Thomas, "the idea of a pond (at a major intersection) is new to us. Give it a little time to sink in. " In fact, most members decided they liked the idea - if logistically feasible - to replace the soon-to-be-abandoned jughandle at that intersection.

First there was an egg. (You've heard this one before? Oh no, you haven't heard this one before.) Sometime in the fall of 1986, deep in the Schuylkill south of Pottstown, there was an egg, a fishy little fish egg. It drifted to the edge of the river, squirmed through a mesh intended to screen out grown-up fish, and found itself in a quiet, 9.9-acre, 10-foot-deep pond. The fish egg became a fish larva. And then it became a fish. And one night, it heard about this great singles bar in the pond, waltzed in and met up with this - like, you know - really cute fish.

A manmade pond has become a source of contention for two West Bradford neighbors. Ann Hubbard of 413 N. Wawaset Rd. told the Board of Supervisors at their Tuesday meeting that over the Fourth of July weekend last year, Robert Ferrier, her neighbor, started construction of a pond. It is on a section of his 4-acre property that is on the side of a stream that the two property owners share, she said. Hubbard told the board that Ferrier did not have a building permit or approval from the state Department of Environmental Resources or a variance from the township Zoning Hearing Board to build the pond within 10 feet of the adjacent property owner's line, as is required by township ordinance.

Trout-fishing season started Saturday at two ponds in Delaware. Tidbury Pond near Dover and Newton Pond near Greenwood opened to anglers after the ponds were stocked with rainbow trout, most of them averaging 11 inches long. The ponds will be stocked with more fish in two weeks. Officials said that residents who want to fish for the trout have to comply with the state's normal requirements for a fishing license and also buy a trout stamp, which costs $4.20 for residents ages 16 to 64. Higher prices apply to nonresidents.

OUR TOWN has produced its share of rising - and falling - rock stars in the past few years, as talents like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Hoots and Hellmouth, Disco Biscuits and the War on Drugs have moved into the national spotlight for better and sometimes worse. (Like CYHSY, which has been unable or unwilling to sustain that Pitchfork-poked, flavor-of-the-month hype.) Then there's Dr. Dog. Or should we say, Dr. Who??? Walking slowly but carrying a big stick, this West Philly-based and pretty wonderful band has been at the game far longer than most, yet still seems freshest of the lot. Fact is, 20 years have passed since singer-bassist Toby Leaman and guitarist/vocalist Scott McMicken started making music as eighth-graders at a West Grove, Chester County, middle school.

OTTAWA - Defense was a rumor. So was physical play. Heck, the singer Drake, who performed after the second intermission, did as much hitting as the players in Sunday's 59th NHL All-Star Game at Scotiabank Place. In other words, it was a typical All-Star Game: Free-wheeling pond hockey on national TV. The New York Rangers' Marian Gaborik recorded a hat trick and was named the MVP as Team Chara outlasted Team Alfredsson, 12-9. It was the fourth-highest scoring game in all-star history.

DOLPHINS (-3) over Eagles Don't get all warm and giggly just yet, just because Michael Vick is returning. If you remember, and I'm sure you do, the Birds dropped six of their first nine with Vick under center. And since the 2011 Andy Reids have the most turnovers in the NFL at 29, the job becomes much more difficult. And to make it even more difficult, Miami is on one hellacious roll. After starting the season at 0-7, the Dolphins have won four of the last five, and are riding a 6-0 spread streak.

A fisherman reeled in an unusual catch Tuesday at a Gloucester County pond: a 26-inch American alligator. The gator, found at Franklinville Lake in Franklin Township, was turned over to the Gloucester County Animal Shelter. According to shelter director Bill Lombardi, the gator was likely dropped in the lake by someone who could no longer care for it. It was the second alligator found in South Jersey in six months. A two-foot gator was pulled from beneath a bridge near a lake in Gloucester Township.

The Rev. Dr. Louis B. McCants, who received his ordination as a Baptist minister in his native Georgia and came to Philadelphia to found his own church, died Saturday. He was 82 and lived in Germantown. He was born in Oglethorpe, Ga., to Isaac and Jennie B. McCants. He was educated in Georgia, and he and his wife, Annie, were baptized together in a pond in Oglethorpe. He received his calling to preach under the Rev. Galon Morine, at the Golden Star Baptist Church, in Oglethorpe.

The body of Sarah Townsend was recovered from a pond in a Burlington Township park Friday afternoon, ending a five-day search for the Florence teenager that drew national attention. Townsend, 18, went missing Monday after leaving for school about 7 a.m., authorities said. A few hours later, her boyfriend discovered her car next to Sherman Pond in Green Acres Park, a short distance from where her body was found. Officials said Friday evening that an autopsy determined that she drowned.

They're small fish - only tadpole-size - but they have voracious appetites. They can eat several times' their weight every day. And their favorite food? Mosquito larvae. That puts Gambusia affinis up there with the dog as one of man's best friends. The state Department of Environmental Protection is stocking many of New Jersey's lakes and ponds with thousands of them and other insect-gobbling species. By the end of this spring, the state will have delivered three million fish in the course of the 20-year-old program overseen by the state's Mosquito Control Commission and the Bureau of Fresh Water Fisheries.

Authorities in Burlington County exhausted their search yesterday of a municipal park and pond where a missing high-school student's car was found a day earlier with her purse and cellphone inside. More than 100 people searched for clues that could lead them to 18-year-old Sarah Townsend, who was last seen at 7 a.m. Monday leaving her Florence home for Allentown High School, in Monmouth County. Townsend's boyfriend called police shortly before 10 a.m. when he found her car in a dirt lot overlooking a pond in Green Acres Park, several miles from her home.