Hakone Gardens investigate prized koi deaths
by Koi Oriental on 29/06/08 at 2:25 pm
Hakone Gardens has discontinued the use a 90 year old well after a number of the estate’s prized koi were found dead in their pond in the past month. Silicon Valley’s Mercury News quotes Lon Saavedra, executive director of the Hakone Foundation: “The reason for the deaths is still unknown”.
Saavedra sent a letter to the Saratoga City Council stating his belief that the problem could be that surface toxins from local runoff have seeped into the well, which fills the estate’s pond.
“The well was constructed around 1917 when problems such as runoff from local homes weren’t an issue. The well was never properly sealed off and is only 60 feet deep, which is extremely shallow compared to present-day wells”, said Mike Maggiora, corporate secretary for Maggiora Brothers Drilling, Inc.
“To think that a surface well has been servicing Hakone for the last 90 years is remarkable,” Saavedra said.
Water samples from the well were sent to a laboratory for testing; results of those tests won’t be known for at least two weeks, Maggiora said.
Maggiora was quick to point out that he isn’t positive the problem is the well.
“A lot of things can happen to a pond,” Maggiora said. He recalled the time when a dog jumped into a pond and disturbed the mud on the bottom, sending bacteria up into the water, which suffocated and eventually killed the fish in the pond.
Hakoke Gardens are the oldest Asian and Japanese estate in the Western Hemisphere, set in eighteen acres in the hills of Saratoga overlooking Silicon Valley, USA.
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