ST. GEORGE — It was a quiet Monday morning as Richard Agee walked around the Lower Tawa Pond and noticed something floating in the water. He’s seen this hundreds of times before — a stray bobber attached to three feet of fishing line. At the end of that, a barbed fishing lure.

“Like I told you, you’ll never leave here empty handed,” Agee said as he pulled the discarded line and lure out of the water.

Nearby, several ducks were swimming in the pond or browsing the grassy shore and sitting under shade trees. They were accompanied by a pair of geese, while a red-eared slider turtle sunned itself on a small concrete island in the middle of the pond, where a fountain of water usually sprouts.

While it was a peaceful scene that morning, some weekends residents can take advantage of the peaceful fishing offered at the corner of Tuweap Drive and 2100 West.

Over the last 18 months, Agee made a monthly mission to maintain the pond — which is counted among the city’s three urban fisheries — free of leftover fishing line, hooks and other debris.

He’s done this on a near-daily basis, which has also included helping to keep the overall pond and surrounding park area clean.

“Over the last year-and-a-half I’ve probably taken over a thousand hooks from the grass surrounding this pond,” he said. “There’s a massive amount of razor sharp lures and fishing hooks, all sorts of different types of things.”

Agee sees the discard lures, hooks and so on as safety risks to the people, pets and wildlife that frequent the pond, and recalled how he’s had to untangle dozens of ducks caught in discarded fishing line.

One day while tending to the pond, Agee met a woman who had to keep her dog from eating a piece of raw hot dog someone had left on a hook.

“There’s a huge liability I feel that’s going on here,” he said. “I think most of the citizens don’t’ like it when wildlife or pets or anyone is being harmed or killed or maimed for life because of carelessness, and that is what’s happening here.”

As these recurring issues stem from the heavy use the pond sees as an urban fishery, Agee has asked the city of St. George to put an end to its being stocked with fish and discontinue its use as a fishing pond.

“I don’t want this swept under the rug,” he said. “It’s very concerning and I’m hoping I can get some help down there at the city.”

Alerting the city

Prior to attending Thursday’s St. George City Council meeting to publicly address the issue, Agee sent a letter to the members of the council and contacted particular city department heads like Shane Moore, the city’s leisure services director.

“He’s doing a service and we really recognize him for what he’s doing,” Moore told St. George News in a recent phone interview.

Since Agee brought up the issue, Moore said he’s had city staff visit the park more, yet acknowledged they hadn’t seen as much debris as Agee had, which could be due to Agee cleaning the area before hand.

Still, he said the city can do a better job of maintaining the area and putting up additional signage calling on people to clean up after themselves and to contact authorities if they see evidence of animal abuse to anything suspicious taking place at the pond.

“I think that’s the limit of what we can do without shutting down the pond,” Moore said.

Who stocks the ponds?

Mike Hadley, the aquatics manager for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources’ Southern Utah Region, told St. George News that his agency stocks the fishing ponds in a cooperative program with the city.

The city maintains the urban fisheries while the agency supplies the fish. This partnership also extends to sharing potential costs on upgrades to the facilities as well as organizing volunteers for related service projects.

The fishing ponds are considered a benefit for facets of the community like youth and the elderly who may not be able to experience fishing in the outdoors, Hadley said, and St. George’s three fishing ponds are especially popular.

Ultimately, the city does have the authority to ask wildlife officials to stop stocking fish as they own the ponds, Hadley said.

Appealing to the City Council

Agee went before the City Council Thursday night during its community comment period and brought a large box with him filled with examples of the lines, hooks and lures he had collected over a month’s time. He was able to share a small amount of what he had found with the council while speaking.

When Agee first contacted St. George News about the his concerns he shared a measure of the discarded fishing materials and other debris he had found. The items were collected in several boxes laid out in his driveway. Large, tangled wads of fishing line were in some boxes while others had many different types and hooks and lures in them. Pieces of broken fishing poles were also among the collected debris.

“I think the pond would be better off just for the wildlife,” Agee said after repeating the reasons why he felt fishing should end at the pond, adding that fishing could still be enjoyed at the Upper Tawa Pond and Skyline Pond, the city’s other two urban fisheries.

However, Agee did not receive the answer from the city he said he was hoping far.

“We’re going to discuss this with staff and see what we can do about keeping that pond’s upkeep better,” Mayor Michele Randall said. “We have a lot of people who really enjoy fishing there… We will discuss it and will be in touch.”

City commitment and pond proponents

Following Agee’s addressing the council, Moore and others also spoke to the council in response to the request to end the fishing at Lower Towa Pond.

Moore told the council he committed to putting new signage at the pond, along with the aforementioned advisories about reporting any cases of animal abuse, as well as doing a better job of keeping the pond and surrounding area maintained and debris-free.

The mayor added the pond could also be a candidate for public service projects.

That was also a suggestion from Chad Utley, who spoke on behalf of Southern Utah Anglers. The group has sponsored and organized service projects before and would again if needed, he said.

And while he said he sympathizes with the problems created by the heavy use of the pond, Utley said it was also a sign of the pond’s popularity as a fishery. He also said that particular pond played a vital role as an urban fishery.

Specifically, Southern Utah Anglers uses the Lower Tawa Pond for fishing derbies for special needs children. The way the pond is set up with grass, a paved walkway circling the pond and trees provided shade make it more accessible for special needs individuals than the other fishing ponds are, Utley said.

“We think that’s an important consideration,” he said.

In addition to the fishing derbies held for special needs children, Southern Utah Anglers partners with the city of St. George and the Utah Division of Wildlife Resource to hold fishing events for youth in general.

Shawn Guzman, the city’s government affairs director and former city attorney, interjected and said he believed the creation of the city’s fishing ponds may have been funded by federal grants exclusively meant to fund the building of urban fisheries. If that is correct, he said, than closing any of the ponds to fishing may not be a feasible option to consider at all.

“Business as usual”

“They wouldn’t even look at the evidence,” Agee told St. George News over the phone Friday, noting that council members only looked as a small sampling of the items he had found before handing them back.

Agee said others had warned him the City Council would hear him out, yet likely do little to address his concerns. Its “business as usual” he said, adding that taking care of the pond is a “daily thing.”

Even if more signs are put up in an effort to educate people, Agee said he doubted anything will change as long as the fishing is allowed to continue.

Prior to the council meeting, Agee said he felt St. George was a beautiful town and a “jewel of the whole state.”

“If I didn’t feel so deeply about this town and love it so much, I wouldn’t be trying to make change here,” he said.

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