Spangled Skimmers are patrolling the ponds this summer, their iridescent bodies…

June 28, 2026Worcester/Monadnock Plateau

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are patrolling the ponds this summer, their iridescent bodies catching the light — a welcome sign of dragonfly activity in the region. Yet beneath that beauty lies a harder truth: all 47 of the water bodies assessed here are classified as impaired, none supporting their designated uses. The state lists ten of them under the Clean Water Act's impaired-waters inventory, a tacit admission that recovery is uncertain.

Midsummer heat and stagnation are the immediate killers. Warm water holds less oxygen, and slow ponds become soup-thick with algae blooms — exactly the conditions that should favor dragonfly larvae, yet the oxygen crashes kill them before they can emerge. The Piscataquog's Abenaki name means "where deer drink," a name that still holds literal truth: deer still wade these shallows to drink, as their ancestors did. The water, though, is no longer fit for its original purpose. The skimmers are here; the system is not.

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