The latest news about Maine lakes and ponds.

LEA Expands Local Resources for Officials

January 29, 2012 - Bridgton-LEA received funding from the “Mystery Foundation” and Maine Department of Environmental Protection to develop a capacity building program for local land use officials. The project targets code enforcement officers and planning board members but is open to anyone interested.

Presentations are made at planning board meetings to explain how boards can act to protect various natural resources using existing standards or modified standards. The economic value of these resources is also discussed and technical assistance options are explored.

As part of this project, LEA is developing an inventory and tracking system for lake protection elements required by the boards for each development. Vegetated buffers, treatment ponds and rain gardens are a part of almost every project. Developers present designs for these measures, called best management practices (BMPs), but follow-up spotty at best.

The LEA project will follow development activities to see if these components were instituted. The project began last spring in three pilot towns: Bridgton, Harrison and Naples. We have already discovered cases where rain gardens were never installed and where a house was built in the middle of a forested buffer.

BMPs are crucial elements in the fight to keep our lakes clean. Local governments and even the DEP lack a system to assure that BMPs are built according to approved design, that they are built in the right location or that they are even built at all.

Long-term maintenance of these elements is another problem. LEA will document BMPs and will field check them with state and local assistance and will provide CEOs with a tracking database.

Peter Lowell, LEA Lake News, January 2012


Lakes:
Regions: Sebago


Print this story

Email this story

return to Lake News