RSF, you can also die from drinking too much water.

You can control runoff going into YOUR pond, and you can test the waters for contamination (and the runoff water entering your pond). There are a number of testing facilities around the nation that will do the water tests.

Personally? I'd not give it a second thought to eating large apex predatory fish from my pond more than once a week.

I'll make you a deal. Contact that Assistant Director and get a level of contamination that would be safe to eat. Get hard numbers. Get me all the information needed to ship a fish to them to be tested and PM me that information. I will donate and ship a large apex predator fish from my pond to be tested. You get the guy that said all bodies of water are contaminated the same to pay for the test, and have him send the test results of my fish to both you and I.

Once the test data is received, that should give us a hard and fast answer.

As for stocking, I'd prefer to stock HSB/YP/HBG/RES along with FHM and Golden Shiners. YP do much better in ponds than WE do.

As for aeration being mandatory for a pond, the answer is "it depends". If your pond doesn't see long periods of 2"+ ice and 2"+ snow and doesn't have a high BOD, then no it isn't mandatory.

Without aeration in the winter you run the risk of winterkill, and as a pond ages the BOD increases. During the summer with a pond that is deeper than 10-12 feet, aeration allows the fish to utilize the whole water column, and it also allows aerobic bacteria to break down organic matter in the deepest part of the pond.

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3/4 to 1 1/4 ac pond LMB, SMB, PS, BG, RES, CC, YP, Bardello BG, (RBT & Blue Tilapia - seasonal).