A three-acre man-made pond that battled algae blooms for decades is gone. In its place, Deerfield Township residents will find a restored stream, wetland pools, new trails and a quarter-acre fishing pond at Landen-Deerfield Park.

The Warren County Park District completed the nearly $1 million restoration project and held a ribbon-cutting on July 10, according to a WYSO report published Monday, Aug. 10. The work took three years of planning and nine months of active construction.

H2Ohio program funds and American Rescue Plan Act dollars paid for the project, which restores the headwaters of Simpson Creek, a tributary of the Little Miami River. Landen-Deerfield Park is the second most-visited park in the Warren County system.

The old pond had been a fixture for roughly 40 years, but lawn fertilizer runoff from surrounding development fed chronic algae, watermeal and duckweed. Its dam valves also weren't functioning properly, forcing the park district to maintain emergency plans to pump the lake in a controlled fashion if flooding threatened downstream properties.

Warren County Park District executive director Matt Latham told WYSO that fertilizers from nearby lawns wash into storm drains and eventually into local streams, where the extra nutrients "really supercharge that algae growth."

Crews drained the pond, removed the sediment layer, reshaped the grading to form stream channels and wetland pools, and planted 7,000 native plant plugs. The sludge from the pond bottom was repurposed as fertilizer for the new plantings. Contractors also moved a sewer grate lower on the earthen embankment to reduce the volume of water the area could hold.

New amenities include interpretive signs explaining the restoration, nature-play elements such as stepping stones through the wetland, and the smaller fishing pond.

Latham said wildlife bounced back quickly once the system came online: turtles, ducks, frogs, minnows, tadpoles, birds and dragonflies all appeared soon after construction wrapped.

Linda Adams, 79, a Maineville resident who has visited the park for 15 years, was among the first visitors after the ribbon cutting. She told WYSO she had doubted the project during construction.

"I thought, 'this ain't gonna amount to much,' but it really did," Adams said. "I really, really enjoy it."

The park has been open to visitors since the July 10 ribbon-cutting. The exact split between H2Ohio and ARPA funding has not been disclosed.