The Ponds Units

Spanning a total area of 160 acres, Units 1 and 2 consist of 91 ponds on Cornell University owned land, just north of the Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport. The Unit 1 ponds (22 total) were built in 1958-9 at the Warren Drive site by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. These ponds were initially designed to monitor growth of aquatic plants under variable conditions (findings were applied on the Erie Canal), while studying marsh ecology and chemistry, and waterfowl nutrition. All of the construction (except for the original 22 marsh ecology ponds) was supported by funds from the Cooperative Regional Projects Research Fund, Hatch Act (CRF-1). The Unit 2 ponds at the Neimi Road site (50 total), plus 19 more at the Unit 1 site were built in 1964 using Federal funds. Each pond is an inverted truncated pyramid with a 20m x 20m bottom. In total, there are 22 shallow marsh ponds and 69 deeper ponds, the latter of which were constructed to be 2.4 m deep and hold 1,000 cubic meters of water when full.

Location of the Ponds

The Cornell Experimental Ponds Facility property consists of Unit 1 and Unit 2 (see photos below), distanced about 1.5 miles from each other; Unit 1 is located at 947 Warren Drive, and Unit 2 is located at 216 Neimi Road. The facility is available for short or long term rentals; the Ponds can accommodate multiple and simultaneous research projects at any given time. For more information, see our Facility Rental Information page.