8615-R4_ML&P_LSLA_2024_SummerNewsletter_Web

Watershed Update Layne Albert

It’s winter and our lake is quiet and mostly (partly?) frozen (as of the time of writing/submission of this article…..). Boats and wave runners have been out since October last year. Certainly, no one is swimming. I’ve only seen a handful of people ice fishing. But the silence and lack of activity on the lake is a stark contrast to the amount of activity currently happening in the background. We have a relatively short season to work with homeowners within our watershed to identify and remediate sources of pollution that flow to our lake and negatively impact the lake’s water quality. So, during the winter we do our best to recruit participants into the LakeSmart evaluation program, identify and train volunteers to perform the LakeSmart evaluations and work with our constituents on watershed issues. It’s a pretty busy winter for us focused on implementing measures to increase Little Sebago Lake’s water quality. Short-term Goals – LakeSmart

For this season (and going forward) our (the Watershed Committee) goal is to continue to promote voluntary participation in performing LakeSmart evaluations around the lake. We work closely with Maine Lakes.org (Maine’s non-profit, charitable membership organization designed to be the voice for protection of freshwater resources and wildlife habitat) to be up to date on the LakeSmart program. Kevin Ronan is our LakeSmart coordinator. Along with Kevin, BJ Warner is also trained to be a LakeSmart evaluator, and in addition, she is a plant expert so having her along during an evaluation might include advice on proper planting as well. I have been training to become a LakeSmart evaluator and will join the team this season to help with evaluations. We could use help here….. Please consider becoming an evaluator yourself for our lake. We need more evaluators as more Little Sebago Lake homeowners have begun to ask for evaluations. The evaluations take about an hour to perform and a few more hours afterwards to document the work so it’s not a large time commitment. In addition, the training is relatively quick (entirely virtual other than attending evaluations) and is mostly comprised of attending evaluations with other experienced evaluators. It’s a kind of learn by watching thing…… You will be rewarded with helping our homeowners identify sources of Non-Point Source (“NPS”) pollution

and identify ways to improve their buffer zones mitigating the problems. NPS pollution is caused by rainfall or snowmelt moving over and through the ground. As the runoff moves, it picks up and carries away natural and human-made pollutants, depositing them into our lake. Helping us to identify and reduce NPS pollution will result in higher quality lake water for us. Thank you in advance for your help…… We’ve performed a few evaluations so far but have yet to fully get the program going and reap the benefits of a cleaner lake. So, we challenged the Board of Directors and committee members (if you haven’t heard from us yet, you will soon) to participate in a LakeSmart assessment. Remember that we, your neighbors, perform the evaluation and the results are NOT shared with the DEP. We really encourage your participation in the LakeSmart program. You will gain valuable insight into how to best plant and manage your property to help improve the quality of our lake. We even have some funds from the Little Sebago Lake Association to help offset some of the cost of implementing Best Management Practices (BMPs). BMPs are a practice or combination of practices that are an effect, practicable means of preventing or reducing the amount of pollution generated by nonpoint sources (NPS). Implement BMPs, increase your buffer zones (fortify and plant

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