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Hearing to Air Woods Pond Water Concerns

June 24, 2010 - BRIDGTON -- A July 29 meeting will aim to bring together all the interested parties around Woods Pond to address water level and water quality issues.

A committee of the small lake’s neighbors could be formed following that meeting, their main tasks to set a water level regimen and otherwise explore ways to enhance water quality and quality of life around the pond.

Selectmen decided to hold the hearing and aim for a committee following Tuesday night’s workshop, led by Peter Lowell of Lakes Environmental Association, who allowed that while the water level is always the most controversial issue, “water quality is the most important.”

Bear Zaidman of Camp Wildwood, who observes the pond daily, insisted Tuesday that the two seemed to be tied together, on Woods Pond. He and other neighbors complained of deteriorating conditions in the clarity of the water, increased plant growth and bottom deterioration. He worried that continual low water levels in recent years might be contributing to the lake’s degradation. While all indications point to evidence that the new dam there is sound, Zaidman wondered if it had the proper capacity to adequately control the water level, especially to raise and lower it quickly enough to meet changing weather conditions.

Zaidman said markings on rocks seemed to indicate a “normal” high water mark 14 inches above the pond’s level today. Even now, the lake’s level is two to three inches below the dam’s boards; dry conditions haven’t allowed the lake to fill up this year, in any case. The town has been managing the lake water level, based on the recommendations of an ad hoc committee formed eight or so years ago, shoreline residents noted Tuesday. Might some outside guidance help?

Selectmen were looking for local guidance, as on Long Lake, where a committee made up of residents from Harrison, Naples and Bridgton control the levels of Long Lake and Brandy Pond at Songo Locks. Might a citizen model work better for Woods Pond, as well, selectmen wondered?

The town will invite the LEA, a state hydrologist (if possible) and all the property owners around the pond to the late July meeting. They want to make sure a full spectrum of input is heard that night, and that all viewpoints can be expressed that evening. Some noted that other parties may actually like the recent low pond levels, since lower water increases the extent of private beaches.

While acknowledging that this was a drier than usual winter and spring, the LEA’s Peter Lowell said the greater threat to the pond’s water quality might be development in the small watershed in the past 10 years. Culverting may have diverted water on two of the major feeders to the pond, Lowell said. Charts he produced showed that scientific tests indicated only a very slight downward trend in water quality and clarity over the past 10 years, but the lake expert said that there is usually a built-in “lag time” between the cause of a water quality problem and its manifestation in the lake that is the focus of an individual watershed.

Zaidman said a consensus of the neighbors would be valuable in setting water levels, but he reiterated that water quality was indeed the major concern. A full discussion, with outside expertise to guide the local element, should help, long-term. “We aren’t going to fix this this year, anyway,” he allowed Tuesday. But a proper regimen might help for more normal years, because, as the testimony from the lake’s neighbors went this week, “the lake’s filling in; we’re getting algae; we’re getting warmer water. Something’s got to be done.”

By Michael Corrigan, Bridgton News, June 24, 2010

Lakes: Woods Pond
Regions: Sebago


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