Heavy machinery on-scene at Pomphrey’s Pond yesterday. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)

By DUSTIN RACIOPPI

Something to be filed in the skinny folder labeled “On-Time Promises From Government?”

When a state Department of Environmental Protection rep came to Rumson in July and promised frustrated residents the agency would be back in September to dredge a needed-to-be-dredged pond, it might have been taken as a brush-off.

But the DEP is there, on the exact day local officials said it would be, ready to dredge Pomphrey’s Pond.

Local officials, after years of delays, had planned for work to start “on or about September 15.”

Today, September 15, work is expected to get started at the pond to lower the water level and excavate the pond’s soil to restore it to a more pleasant state. Before, neighbors said it had developed a feculence that made it undesirable for people who’d normally spend time at the pond.

Within six to eight weeks, that will be a thing of the past, Mayor John Ekdahl said.

Workers plan to dredge the pond, dry its spoils, transport them somewhere in western Monmouth County and replenish the pond so it’s good as new, he said.

Considering there are three governmental arms at work here — the Monmouth County Mosquito Extermination Commission, the county engineering department and Rumson — it’s pretty amazing that the work is getting done at all this year, let alone on time, Ekdahl said.

“We have three entities working together, and to me, that’s the story,” he said.