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Will Proposed Budget Cuts Threaten the Lakes Region?

March 13, 2011 - Windham - We proudly proclaim, "The Lakes Region." It is the name of our newspaper. We live in the Lakes Region of Maine.


I live up the street about a block from Highland Lake in Windham. My husband, Keith Williams, has done scientific analysis of the water, the plants, the sediment at the bottom of the lake, attended water quality seminars, given lectures at national conferences on water quality, and more, for all the 23 years we have lived here. I frequently have little bottles of algae in my refrigerator or sitting on the window sills where they live until Keith can take them to the University of New Hampshire where they have sophisticated equipment to perform precise analysis.


In addition, Keith and several hundred other volunteers for the Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program (VLMP) do invasive aquatic plant analysis on lakes over much of Maine. Two summers ago, I volunteered to be the cook for the VLMP on a special project funded through foundation grants. But, ahhh, we were on Moosehead Lake in a remote region known as the Wild Lands, in a cabin powered by a generator. Such beauty and solitude few people can imagine.


In the evenings, after supper, and table space became available, out came the plant samples from the labors of their day, a microscope and stacks of books, as the process of plant identification continued far into the night. Over the years, incidental plant samples had been identified, but this was the first plant survey that covered the entire shoreline of Moosehead Lake. It was critically important that each plant be correctly identified in order to serve as a baseline for plant comparison in years to come.


Each year that plant identification is done on a lake, the data gathered serves to identify plant colonies that can be invasive or plant colonies that are native and thus not harmful to the lake quality. Even with careful consideration, some plants could not be identified. Those plants were carefully dried and taken to Barry Hellquist, the guru of plant identification, a retired professor of aquatic plant botany, who lives in Massachusetts.


Today, this very minute, the incredible beauty and solitude of Moosehead Lake is in jeopardy. If the state budget cuts proceed as outlined, much of Moosehead Lake shoreline will be opened up for development. Funds that help defray the cost of monitoring other lakes in Maine will be cut. The lakes we proudly proclaim our own will be in danger of unregulated development and the ultimate degradation.


Years ago, Keith's annual report to the Highland Lake Association on water quality explained that the stinking putrid algal blooms we experienced at the time were caused from unregulated development in the past. It was then that the Cumberland County Soil and Water Conservation District received a large grant of hundreds of thousands of dollars to perform remedial work in the watershed, matched with in-kind volunteer hours.


That organization devised a program using youth employment in the summer to focus on the more egregious sources of pollution, such as water runoff from unprotected
shorelines. They educated the residents in the Highland Lake basin about what they could do to inhibit further lake pollution. They organized resident volunteers to monitor, report on and work to modify any source of pollution. Today, with the pollution more or less under control and regulations in place, our Highland Lake water quality is stable.


I've heard many times this budget season people say they've never been political before, but their jobs are now being eliminated because of these budget cuts. Suddenly, they want to know the name of their representative.


Shall we gather at the river? Shall we gather at our lakes? Or shall we gather at the state house in Augusta and send a message loud enough that our legislators will hear our determined cry. "I live in the Lakes Region. I want our lakes to continue to be pristine, the pride of our state. I am the custodian of my lake in this precious place on Earth called the Lakes Region."

Sally Breen, Keep Maine Current, March 2011


Lakes: Moosehead Lake
Regions: Moosehead


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