Gooses in Natural Swimming Pool

It's gooses cause it's 2....
Seeking advice on risk about geese in natural swimming pool
We are living in a village with 22 connected natural swimming pool and pond. The pond cleaning the water for the pools. Our latest village residents are a pair of geese. They have taken up residence in one pond, eaten everything visible from the pond and enjoying their own private heaven. The geese are grain fed by the kids and there is considerable amount of poop.
The question is about human safety for the swimmers. The same water is circulating to swimming pools that are used by our community.
Most online resources scare the swimmers with tales of deadly bacteria, parasites and so on. In the 6 months of residence the rest of the system seems to handle the load, the water is still clear and noone has died.
Should our animals be excluded from the water system???

We could as example build them a separate pond draining to the garden.

In my opinion, they should be excluded from ‘public’ swimming holes ~or~ install a circulatory bio filter into their preferred swimming pool.. 🤷‍♂️

Chris Vee wrote:In my opinion, they should be exculded from ‘public’ swimming holes ~or~ install a circulatory bio filter into their preferred swimming pool.. 🤷‍♂️

I have seen this before in the Netherlands on a Farm of my colleague.

Especially in Autumn the Geese travelling to the south, stop at his lake and mess things up big time.

He added a bio filter which gets grazed down in a matter of days and loses it's function.

The only way to stay safe is remove them completely or one day one of the swimmers will be on his way to the hospital infected with salmonellas or other nasty stuff..

Chris and See Hess thanks for your replies.

The pond is in in a line of pools and ponds gravity fed from the hilltop. Directly below the reedbed that is invaded by our Gooses is another 60m2 reedbed filled with gravel and plants .

This reedbed is probably acting as a biofilter at least partially.

However we have about 10 sub 10 year old sproggies playing in this water system at every level.
So I am thinking it might be a better idea to create an offline  goosie pond draining to the garden and exclude them with some fencing from the closed natural pool water system.

Hello Tony and welcome to Permies.
I love your swimming pond!

Although it's lovely to share our amenities with other animals, I certainly wouldn't want anyone to get sick as a result. I'm not clear about one thing. Is the treatment reedbed pond just before the water is dispersed, rather than a recirculating system? If so any ponds above that which the geese use are likely to be perfectly fine.
If it possible to give the geese their own habitat I think everyone will be happier (including the geese, and you can have peace of mind that the water used for swimming is as safe as it can be.

Nancy thanks for your input,

Regarding ". Is the treatment reedbed pond just before the water is dispersed, rather than a recirculating system? "


Our village is on the banks of a quite steep river valley.

Unfortunately our system is about 70% recirculating, we are blessed with a beautiful but small spring right down near the river.
This water is mixed in with the pool water and pumped uphill about 250m /30m height to the top of property. From there it flows by gravity down through it ponds and pools.
We are moving about 6m3/hr up the hill which is enough to flush everything each 24-48hrs.

So the only real option is to create a separate goosey pond and fence off the water system. As we have a spring replenishment losing some directly to an offline flushed goose pond is within the system capability.

The concensus seems to be that "sharing is not caring" when it comes to birds, humans and swimming holes.

Tony Vovers wrote:So I am thinking it might be a better idea to create an offline  goosie pond draining to the garden and exclude them with some fencing from the closed natural pool water system.

Welcome to the forum, Tony!

Cute kiddos and geese and a beautiful natural swimming pool.

I feel you are right about the idea to create a goosie pond.

As Nancy said, everyone will be happier, including the geese.

After giving it a 2nd thought it came an idea in my head.

"Duckquaponics"  

If you can separate them and use Gravel beds to grow enough Nitrifying bacteria (Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter) to convert the Ammonia levels over nitrites into nitrates you could use an Aquaponics kind of grow bed to grow even Veggies.

It is way to complex to point it out here in the post but Aquaponics is basically a Lake, a Puddle , a stream or any natural water body just running on high density.
(More fertilizer more plants and still in a balance like in nature)  

Same counts for modern ship sewage systems.
On work vessels you can have more than 200 crew and the sewage system operates so good that the cleaned water has drinking water quality.

I guess if you google for above systems you might find a safe solution for your swimming ponds...

See Hed

Many thanks for your input and aquaponic suggestion, in fact we already have a proxy aquaponic system installed as the water circulating out of the goose pond routes to a gravel filled grow bed pond with Watercress and Kale and Ferns before going to the next swimming holes. This grow bed is about twice the size of the pond the gooses have purloined.
We are about to get our water tested in and below the goosie pond, I just need to work out what tests to make.

Tony Vovers wrote:See Hed

Many thanks for your input and aquaponic suggestion, in fact we already have a proxy aquaponic system installed as the water circulating out of the goose pond routes to a gravel filled grow bed pond with Watercress and Kale and Ferns before going to the next swimming holes. This grow bed is about twice the size of the pond the gooses have purloined.
We are about to get our water tested in and below the goosie pond, I just need to work out what tests to make.

Since E-coli and Salmonellas are life forms you would need a test in a lab. ($$$)

I would start with an ammonia test which you can find in any Pond or Aquarium Shop and if the levels are found high, then is it obvious that the above mentioned nitrifying bacteria are not capable to cope with the loads created by decaying matter (which includes goose droppings).
This indicates that the goose might overload the pond and create a risk for swimmers.