Algae closes Navbahor Pond to swimmers

NURZHAN — The city's sanitary service closed Navbahor Pond to swimmers yesterday after an algal bloom turned the water green, in one of the hottest and driest summers the Chu valley has known in years.

The pond, of about eight hectares, was built in 1998, during the territorial period, when the Navbahor District was being laid out on the southern edge of the city. It is filled from a branch canal of the Chu and supplies water for the district's parks and street trees. Boats may still be hired, the service said, but swimming is banned until tests show the water is safe.

Inspectors said low inflows and the heat had warmed the water and encouraged the bloom. The Chu and the Talas have run far below normal this summer, and canal deliveries across the lowlands have been rotated.

On the shore yesterday afternoon, families who had come to swim sat under the trees instead. "There is nowhere else in the district for the children to go in the water," said a mother of three. "Now they sit and look at it." The service said it would review the closure next week.