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FALL 2020 volume 37 issue 2 watermark Published by Laudholm Trust in support of Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve Working Together Toward Habitat Resilience inside • Flotsam / News Briefs • Nik’s Notebook: 2020 • New Research Fellow coastal communities long enough subjected to the enormous • Solar Power Update • Regional Resilience Plan Wander and you will find water over a roadway stress that tidal pressure can put • We Had Visitors at high tide. Locals know the spots where flooding has been on its bed, particularly when the • FY 2020 Financials • What to Do for Winter an occasional inconvenience. There’s a fair chance they have only passage for that water is noticed that flooding happens more often these days, and they not big enough. With overtopping and undercutting, eventually may know that sea level rise projections portend overtopping something has to give. will become more frequent during future high tides. One such spot is Sawyer Road, which links Cape Elizabeth Coincident Concerns Back in 2017, the reserve’s restoration project manager, Jacob to Scarborough over the Spurwink River. A bridge once spanned Aman, was working with The Nature Conservancy on a stream the Spurwink here, but it was replaced by a culvert first in 1963 connectivity project, compiling a list of priority sites for then again in 1997. The current culvert is aluminum, about 12 restoration. As part of their outreach, they met with the Cape feet wide by 11 feet high, and too small. Elizabeth planner and public works director about Sawyer Road Undersized culverts restrict the natural ebb and flow of and another Spurwink River road crossing. Both sites were high tidal waters that are vital for salt marsh health. The impeded salt priorities for ecological improvement, since they contained both marsh suffers changed salinity, altered plant life, and reduced a large amount of salt marsh and a good capacity to allow for sediment flow. A pinching culvert also increases the velocity of marsh migration. water currents running through it, causing a creek to scour its continued on page 6 banks and form unnatural pools. The characteristic hourglass shape on either side of a roadway in aerial photos is a telltale An undersized culvert under Sawyer Road in Cape Elizabeth restricts the tidal flow of sign that a salt marsh calls for ecological triage. the Spurwink River. The Wells Reserve assisted with a study of the road crossing and Sawyer Road has had the attention of town officials for surrounding salt marsh. This photo shows an eroded river bank that has been scoured its frequency of flooding and imperiled stability. The road is by water currents accelerated by the small culvert. watermark fall 2020 watermark A newsletter for members of Laudholm Trust and supporters of flotsam the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve Maine Coastal Ecology Center Exhibit Laudholm Trust 207-646-4521 fax 646-2930 Area Closes to Public On October 5, 2002, Mya the talking clam Nik Charov, Laudholm Trust President ext 144 [email protected] greeted visitors to the Maine Coastal Ecology Tracy Kay, Operations Director Center for the first time. For many years after, ext 127 [email protected] Katelyn Rice, Fundraising Coordinator she regaled the public about the mud life of ext 145 [email protected] Scott Richardson, Communications Director a simple softshell. As she got older, though, ext 114 [email protected] Mya wouldn’t ever stop talking. Eventually, Karen Stathoplos, Membership Coordinator ext 140 [email protected] she had to be silenced; the switch was Wells Reserve thrown. Mya’s tired-tech comrades around 207-646-1555 fax 646-2930 the room, one by one, had also given up the Paul Dest, Wells Reserve Executive Director ghost. Reluctantly, the reserve has closed ext 124 [email protected] these exhibits and is weighing options for the Jacob Aman, Project Manager ext 112 [email protected] future use of the space. Caryn Beiter, Program Coordinator ext 110 [email protected] Sue Bickford, M.S., GIS Specialist Walk a Trail, Read a Story ext 120 [email protected] After two successful collaborations with 5210 Jessica Brunacini, M.A., Margaret A. Mya arenaria, the talking softshell clam, was a Davidson Fellow Let’s Go! York County, reserve educators have ext 143 [email protected] popular attraction in the ecology center exhibit area Annie Cox, M.A., Coastal Training mounted their own StoryWalk® along the Coordinator until she started talking nonstop. She is now retired. ext 157 [email protected] Saw-whet Owl Trail, out to the Laird Norton Laura Crane, M.S., Research Assistant fields, and down the Farley Trail. The book, ext 105 [email protected] action plan before the end of the year. Chris Chris Feurt, Ph.D., Coastal Training Director Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner, will ext 111 [email protected] described the process as a “collaborative be out through the winter. Jason Goldstein, Ph.D., Research Director effort among representatives from groups ext 136 [email protected] Emily Green, Coastal Training Associate Drifters Range Far and Wide that value Maine’s coast and marine areas in [email protected] Brian Greenwood, Facility Manager Several of the 24 ocean drifters released on very different ways.” She called the quality of ext 131 [email protected] the collaboration inspirational, particularly in Linda Littlefield Grenfell, June 25 as stand-ins for planktonic lobster Environmental Educator larvae are still at sea and reporting their light of the pandemic. ext 128 [email protected] Ben Gutzler, Ph.D., Post-doctoral positions via satellite. Their tracks for the Research Fellow MTA2C Coalition Reaches 5-Year Goal first month were critical to the project’s ext 119 [email protected] By completing the 220-acre Fuller Forest Suzanne Kahn, M.S., Education Director success and have given the science staff ext 116 [email protected] Preserve in York, along with numerous Jeremy Miller, Research Associate much to consider over the coming winter. ext 122 [email protected] smaller projects within its five-town focus The extended journeys of surviving drifters Max Olsen, Beach Profiling Coordinator area, the Mount Agamenticus to the Sea [email protected] are amazing to see. Link to the current map Scott Rocray, CPA, Accounting Coalition has reached its goal of protecting ext 123 [email protected] from wellsreserve.org/drifters. Jeff Tash, Wildlife Biologist an additional 1,500 acres of open space in [email protected] Lynne Benoit Vachon, M.A., Maine Climate Plan Nears Completion 5 years. The coalition has protected 15,000 Volunteer Programs & Visitor Services acres since it was founded in 2002, with an ext 118 [email protected] The Maine Climate Council, with the reserve’s Dr. Christine Feurt on the Coastal ultimate goal of protecting 19,000 acres Maine Sea Grant around Mount Agamenticus, the York River Kristen Grant, M.A., Extension Agent and Marine Working Group, plans to ext 115 [email protected] complete its work on the state’s climate watershed, and Brave Boat Harbor. watermark fall 2020 3 nik’snotebook wellsreserve at laudholm A PLACE TO DISCOVER requires reserves: of strength, empathy, patience. A year like 2020 We’ve been honored to be your local national Laudholm Trust Board of Trustees estuarine research reserve during this trying time. We’ve kept our trails open because we Hal Muller, Chair Bruce Bjork, Vice Chair know you need them for safe outdoor recreation and restorative time in nature. Many of Dennis Byrd, Treasurer Robin Planco, Secretary you also visited us online, or in your memories, knowing that this treasured place on the John Carpenter coast of Maine is a reserve for so many. Thank you for thinking of us. Stephen Giannetti Todd Moxham We’ve been thinking of you too. We miss you. Our ongoing work here is always Rob Olson Leslie Roberts bolstered by the smiles and greetings of new and returning visitors to Laudholm, not to Krista Rosen Penny Spaulding mention staff and volunteers. Remote work, and everyone healthily masked, have kept us Janet Underhill all safer, but they are pale substitutes for the togetherness that we all need and expect, Honorary Trustees especially around the holidays. Cynthia Daley George W. Ford II Plenty has already been said about the trials, tribulations, and terrors of 2020. As Lily Rice Kendall Hsia usual, I’d prefer, for my sanity and my family’s, to think about the positives I’ve seen. One Bruce Read Betsy Smith in particular has given me hope to last for years: the response of the worldwide scientific Hans Warner community to the novel coronavirus, which was unknown just thirteen months ago. In Wells Reserve Management Authority one year, doctors and researchers have leapt across international boundaries and national Nik Charov, Chairman President, Laudholm Trust interests to meet the challenge. They have published nearly 80,000 papers on the virus, Karl Ekstedt Member, Board of Selectmen saved millions of lives with clear and science-based guidance, cut the development time of Town of Wells David Rodrigues multiple safe and effective vaccines by 80%, and are preparing to deliver an unprecedented Director of Real Property Management, Bureau of amount of doses in record time, all to save the world. Parks & Lands Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Nothing like this has ever been done before — it’s too easy to lose sight of that. Working Forestry Karl Stromayer together, we are beating this virus. As you’ll see in the pages of this year-end newsletter, Manager, Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge “working together” can accomplish a lot in coastal science, education, and conservation U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Gail Zydlewski, Ph.D. (appointment pending) too.