GRIMES, Iowa — Grimes residents of the Beaverbrooke Neighborhood have complained to the city about the condition of the Gabus Pond for over a decade.

“I have contacted the city numerous times. All the neighbors have contacted the city with complaints of all the algae and the overgrown grass that they put in. There hasn’t been any maintenance and this year it really got bad,” said Georgiana Droffner, a grimes resident who lives next to Gabus pond.

Droffner says she was told by the city that the pond would be maintained when she moved in 10 years ago.

“I moved into this area ten years ago and all the homes on the pond were not here yet. So before I bought, I spoke to the city manager, and he had said that the pond would be taken care of by this city once all the homes were built,” Droffner said.

Droffner is frustrated that the city hasn’t done more to take down vegetation around the pond.

“There’s a ball diamond that’s north of here that they’re mowing every day into, and it looks meticulously kept. However, this is right in the middle of a housing development and we have to look at this. The bugs are bad, the odor gets bad at times and I’m at wits end. I am so tired of talking about it for ten years,” Droffner said.

Kevin Hensley, the Director of Public Works for the City of Grimes, said that the city is taking residents concerns seriously.

“We definitely understand the residents concerns, you know, and that’s why we’ve worked with the DNR to establish that maintenance, the maintenance program as well,” Hensley said.

Gabus Pond is apart of the Iowa DNR’s Community Fishing program which helps turn urban ponds into fishing sites. Hensley said that the ponds involvement in the program adds challenges to treating it.

“We’ve also worked with the DNR to establish a maintenance and maintenance schedule for it as well. So they’ve given us chemical application recommendations for the type of weeds that are growing in their plants that are growing in there. That’s the algae and the other aquatic vegetation that’s in the pond. So we follow those recommendations that were given to us by the. Department of Natural Resources and also have to abide by the the label on the on the chemicals as well. So we’ve been treating that pond every two weeks throughout the summer,” Hensley said.

Hensley said that DNR plans to add Grass Carp to Gabus Pond to take care of the algae issue.

“That’s the way that I understand that the grass carp would work is that, you know, they put two, maybe three in there and they will eat, you know, help control that vegetation by eating, eating the vegetation,” Hensley said.