Gary Moody

Staff Photo by Angela Lewis George Kangles, right, president of Walldorf Property Management, and Alan Kelley, with Mountain City Landscape, talk about changes made to four Heritage Landing ponds to make them more environmentally friendly.

When the banks of the ponds throughout their neighborhood started falling in, the residents of Heritage Landing banded together to fix it.

They hired hydrologist and erosion control expert Gary Moody with W.I.S.E. Hydrology in Knoxville to fix the five ponds, and today they are thriving and the residents and aquatic life are living in harmony.

The problem originated several years ago as the grass and other landscaping plants surrounding the pond banks were cut short, Mr. Moody said. While it may have looked nicer, the short grass allowed wind and water to cause waves to dig steep cuts into the banks.

“The banks were failing, and homes were sitting on those banks,” he said. “One home was about to slide into the pond.”

The problems with the five ponds in Heritage Landing escalated as the animals and fish living in and around the ponds multiplied. Beavers and muskrats — water-dwelling mammals that like to build their homes in or near banks — caused problems in the ponds.

Grass clippings and other landscaping that was blown into the ponds aggravated the nutrient balance in the water, Mr. Moody said. All these factors combined to cause big problems for the ponds, and especially the banks.

“This erosion had also caused a serious deterioration in the water quality of the ponds themselves,” said George Kangles, president of Walldorf Property Management Co., the business that manages Heritage Landing. “The original design of the ponds was stormwater control and a complete ecosystem replete with aquatic life, birds and plant materials, and the result was almost akin to a conservation area.”

That was 2007. All the original work on the ponds was finished last year, and after allowing the flowers, shrubs and trees a year to establish themselves, Mr. Moody came back in September to see how it all looked.

He was pleased that rain and temperatures had cooperated to produce noticeable growth along the ponds’ shores.

The homeowners of Heritage Landing, a private, gated community on the North Shore, paid more than $500,000 to have the banks restored and the ponds returned to state they were in before the problems began. About 600 people live in the 228 condos and 13 homes that make up the 100 acre-community of Heritage Landing. The homeowners footed the cost, which was not a part of the normal operating budget of the homeowner’s association.

As part of fixing the ponds, Mr. Moody and his crew put in rock at the edge of the water, put in vegetation above that and covered a pipe feeding from the Tennessee River with a cage to keep large mammals out.

“Those ponds get a lot of visitors,” Mr. Moody said.

Pat O’Brien, who is on the board of Heritage Landing’s homeowners association, led the effort to repair the ponds. He is extremely pleased with the outcome, and gives much of the credit for the ponds’ repairs to Mr. Kangles, whom he said worked with residents for a positive outcome.

Today the ponds and areas surrounding them no longer resemble a golf course, which is what residents were used to, and instead have a more natural look. The process has required some education and an adjustment for residents, Mr. Kangles said.

“By 2010, the bank appearance should be much improved with natural plant material, wild flowers and in general, a very nice looking area,” he said. “The water quality has already improved greatly with signs of new substantial fish and frog stocks in the ponds.”