When you think of Manchester you might picture the Merrimack River or the immense mill buildings.
You might think of the Verizon Center or even the airport.
You probably don't think of hidden lakes and summers at the beach or boating, fishing, and swimming.
But a group in Manchester is hoping that one day you might.
New Hampshire Public Radio's Rebecca Kaufman has the story.
It's the first warm day of the year; the kind of day that gets you thinking about summer and being outdoors.
Track 26 :54 sound of bat hitting ball
On one of the fields next to Nutts Pond in Manchester, a small game of softball has started.
Nutts Pond is off South Willow Road, between shopping malls...
Track 8: Sound of airplane
...and Manchester's airport.
During the summer, the fields will be home to many of city's Little Leaguers.
But if they want to cool off after the game, Nutts Pond is not the place to do it.
It's murky and filled with garbage.
That wasn't always the case.
Track 3 :23 back in the day in the 20s this was a popular swimming spot, there was a beach over here where the soccer field is now
Art Grindle is the coordinator of Manchester's Urban Ponds Restoration Program.
Track 3 :47 I think the quote is sweet and clear spring water, this pond is heavily spring fed, and now it's obviously in this condition
Grindle stands on a storm water pipe that is gushing dirty urban runoff directly into the pond.
Track 2 1:18
These are some of the examples I wanted to talk about
Right of the shore, just below him, floats a shopping cart and a trash barrel.
Now in its fifth year, the Urban Ponds Restoration Program has targeted seven Queen City ponds to clean up and protect.
Their project organizes pond clean up days and it helps purchase land around the water bodies.
Art Grindle:
Track 2 1:20
Nutts Pond is really the most extreme case of some of things we look at like amount of pollution the pond sees and the amount of pollution that is obvious to people... you can go to a pond and it will look fairly pristine, you may not know if there's a problem or there isn't, this pond you can obviously see there's some problems
One of the goals of Urban Ponds is to return the ponds to their historic uses.
In the case of Nutts Pond, that would mean swimming.
But that's not likely to happen anytime soon.
The more immediate goal is to reduce the amount of pollution in the form of nutrients that makes its way into the water.
Jen Drociak from Manchester's Conservation Commission says that's important at all of the city's ponds.
Track 1 3:00 when you have nutrients such as phosperous and nitrogen in a water body it acts as a fertilizer for algae, it causes alga blooms, it has detrimental effects to fish and wildlife and water quality
And in urban areas, that kind of pollution can come from a number of places like rooftops, parking lots or people's lawns.
Art Grindle says heavy rain carries nutrients from these surfaces through storm water lines and into the ponds.
Track 8: 43 if you're thinking about a storm water line that's gushing and gushing nutrients in here at every rain storm you need to look up into that storm water line and up into the watershed and find ways to divert that runoff
Grindle says projects to divert storm water are in the works at two of Manchester's ponds.
But Nutts Pond's location makes it prone to neglect.
Track 13 :31
This pond has commercial properties on one side, on the other side is a rail bed, there's no stake holders really to care, so unlike some of the other ponds, it gets forgotten
There are plenty of stake holders at Crystal Lake in Manchester's South end.
Surrounded by summer cottages and home to a city beach and a day camp, Crystal Lake is one of the cleanest in the city.
People still swim, fish and boat in the 19 acre lake, just as they have for years.
track 1:36
our battle cry is we have something really viable now, why lose it and try to bring it back, why don't we take care of it in the first place
Andrew Manning is president of the Crystal Lake Preservation Association.
The organization has taken important steps to preserve the lake: steps like conserving land.
Track 9 7:30
We identified over 120 acres and right now we have locked up with conservation easements or outright purchase about 55 of those acres, they came in early because they are the most sensitive areas
Manning adds that protecting land in the middle of a city is not always an easy sell.
Track 7 2:32
You know it's southeast Manchester, it's urbanized, why should we protect it there, why should we spend the money, you know, you can get 1,000 acres in Deerfield or something like that, so we had to make the argument that it's all worth it
Conservation is an obvious answer for people like Andrew Manning.
His family has had a home on Crystal Lake for three generations.
And many older Manchester residents fondly remember swimming in ponds that are now too polluted.
But Jen Drociak from Manchester's Conservation Commission says those residents are not the majority.
:39 Manchester has a transient population also and ponds such as McQuesten and Nutts ponds that are situated behind heavily commercial areas, they don't have residents living right there, they are hidden behind strip malls so it's hard to find people who even know where they are
The Urban Ponds Restoration Project hopes to make people more aware of these hidden places.
But with a million dollar budget about to run out, it will be up to the city to decide whether the program should be extended.
Tom Seagle from Manchester's Department of Public Works is an advisor for the Urban Ponds Restoration Program.
He says the program has laid the groundwork for protecting the health of the city's ponds.
But Seagle's not sure Urban Ponds or more specifically its coordinator, needs further funding.
Track 3
I think it's worth continuing through the conservation commission, or through public works, I'm not sure we need a full time pond coordinator, that work could be added to someone else's work
Manchester's mayor and aldermen are now in the process of hammering out a budget for next year.
In the meantime, Urban Pond's coordinator Art Grindle says if you're in the city and looking to be outdoors, don't drive two hours north.
Track 15
1:25 you have one of the most developed urban centers in the state here and in the midst of that are places like Maxwell pond and if you walk up above the pond itself to the pond's inlet, black brook, it's like going for a hike in the White Mountains, itss just beautiful and you wouldn't expect to find that in an urban center
He's hoping to keep it that way.
For NHPR news, I'm RK.
