years 35 1971-2006 Vol. 11, No. 1 Provided free of charge to our monitors and affiliates Summer 2006 Inside Cobbosse Lake Removed ffrom “IImpaiired” Lake Liistt • Page 3 VLMP Liiffe Long Volluntteers • Page 6 Service Volluntteer Awards • Page 8 Awards! Umbagog Lake by Mark Hunt www.mjhunt.com What’s Inside President’s Message . 2 President’s Message Cobbossee Ceremony . 3 Lake Side Notes . 4 Ice-Out: Not Like the Old Days . 5 Life Long Volunteers . 6 am delighted to be writing to you VLMP Service Awards . 8 and introduce myself as the new Welcome New Staff . 13 IPresident of the Maine VLMP Board of Directors. It is truly an honor to work with such a great organization. I have served on the Board the past 5 years, and have been extremely Bill Monagle, VLMP President impressed by the progress the organiza- At the Annual Meeting on June 3 tion has made in that brief period, both Bill was voted the new President of at the board and staff level, as well as the VLMP Board of Directors. Bill is also the Executive Director of the the volunteer monitor level statewide. Cobbossee Watershed District in VLMP Staff Relocating the VLMP headquarters to Winthrop, and is a Certified Lake Scott Williams Executive Director the Brackett House on Lake Auburn Manager (North American Lake Roberta Hill Program Director Management Society). Maine Center for and the creation of the Maine Center Invasive Aquatic Plants for Invasive Aquatic Plants are just a What was the DEP's decision and the Jim Entwood Program Coordinator couple of the significant advances the Governor's comments based on? It Laurie Callahan Special Projects Coordinator organization has made in the past cou- was the fact that the lake has not had an Invasive Aquatic Plants ple years. Exciting times for sure! "nuisance" algae bloom, defined by the Linda Bacon QA/QC Advisor (Maine DEP) DEP as a minimum Secchi disk reading At the Cobbossee Watershed District Board of Directors of less than 2 meters, for 9 consecutive (CWD) where I spend much of my Bill Monagle (Winthrop) President years. And can you guess the source of time, we have been monitoring roughly Mary Jane Dillingham (Auburn) Vice President the data? That's right; Secchi disk data 20 lakes on a monthly basis since the Peter Vaux (Orono) Treasurer provided by the CWD staff and the Mary Nelson (Lovell) Secretary mid-1970's. Throughout our history, we VLMP volunteer monitor for have served as the regional coordinator Dick Bredeau (Boothbay) Cobbossee Lake, Cheryl Soucy. So you Peter Fischer (Bristol) for the VLMP and have benefited from see, those of you who take to our beau- Mark Fuller (Auburn) the additional Secchi disk data provided tiful lakes to collect water quality data Ken Holt (North Turner) by VLMP-certified volunteers on about Philomena McPhee-Brown (Turner) are providing an invaluable service to a dozen of these lakes. The data col- Gerry Nelson (Lovell) those at many levels involved in making lected by volunteer monitors have bol- Kirsten Ness (Waterville) critical decisions regarding lake manage- Tamara Lee Pinard (Westbrook) stered our own data sets to provide for ment and classification. Keep up the a more robust assessment of lake water great work! To Contact Us: quality trends. It is this credible lake 24 Maple Hill Road water quality data that supports lake In closing, what has been particularly Auburn, Maine 04210 management-related decision making at inspiring to me is the dedication and 207-783-7733 the CWD and upon which we have enthusiasm expressed by all of the vol- [email protected] guided successful lake and watershed unteers who have served as lake moni- www.MaineVolunteerLakeMonitors.org restoration and protection programs tors for many years, as well as the steady Editorial Staff over the years. The Maine DEP bases recruitment of new volunteer monitors. Scott Williams many of their lake water quality-related It's truly amazing that the VLMP family Roberta Hill decisions on these data as well. In fact, of monitors has exceeded 700 strong! Richard Jennings on June 11th of this year, the Maine And with other recently developed vol- Jim Entwood, Layout Department of Environmental unteer-based programs such as the Protection removed Cobbossee Lake Invasive Plant Patrol, the VLMP has Funding for this newsletter is made possible by grants from the US Environmental Protection Agency and the from the state's list of impaired lakes become firmly established as the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, (i.e., TMDL lakes), to which Governor guardian in-residence of Maine's lakes. through Section 319 of the Clean Water Act. Baldacci declared it "an historic day" Again, these are certainly exciting times. Printed on Recycled Paper by: and an "outstanding accomplishment". Curry Printing & Graphics - Auburn, Maine 2 Cobbossee Lake Removed from "Impaired Lakes" List On June 11, at a ceremony on the shoreline of Cobbossee Lake, Maine Governor John Baldacci announced the removal of the first large lake in Maine from the DEP's Impaired Lakes list. The Governor pre- sented the Maine Department of Environmental Protection's Outstanding Achievement Award to the Cobbossee Watershed District (CWD). The Cobbossee Watershed District is Maine's only lake watershed district. Formed in the early 1970's, in response to declining water quality in Cobbosee and Annabessacook Lakes in Winthrop and surrounding watershed communi- ties, CWD's mission for more than three decades has been to protect and restore the 28 lakes included in the Cobbossee Lake watershed. Maine DEP Commissioner David Littell (center) and Cobbossee The long-term efforts of the Cobbossee Watershed Watershed District Executive Director Bill Monagle (right) demonstrate past, present, and future water quality of Cobbossee Lake to Governor District, the towns in the watershed, local lake associations, Baldacci at a ceremony removing the lake from Maine's Impaired and individual landowners has led to significantly Lakes list. Cobbossee's improved water quality is largely due to the work improved water quality for Cobbossee Lake, which has not of Cobbossee Watershed District staff, watershed towns, landowners, conservation groups and volunteer lake monitors. experienced a nuisance algae bloom for nine straight years! Congratulations to CWD Executive Director Bill Monagle, and his staff for their tireless efforts to protect the Cobbossee Lake watershed. This achievement demonstrates that lake water quality can be improved when a concerted, long-term watershed pro- tection effort is undertaken. VLMP Website Updates www.MaineVolunteerLakeMonitors.org We want to know what you think! If you have not visited the VLMP website lately, check it out. We have a new layout with easy to access information about our volunteers and the data they collect. There are summaries of water quality data, invasive aquatic plants, workshops, events, and the Brackett Environmental Center. You can even look up specific information about your lake: who is monitoring the lake, summaries of their data, and a link to additional data on PEARL. Just click on the Search for Info on Your Lake link to get started. Please provide us with your feedback. Are you able to find the information you are looking for? What additional online tools would be helpful? Do you have any specific feedback about the site? If so please send a note to [email protected]. 3 Lake Side Notes matic changes in transparency that occur ment about the causes of increasing during a season are "smoothed out." temperatures (See Not Like the Old This applies to nearly all indicators of Days, page 5.) Longer periods of open lake water quality, but the evidence of water could have a profound influence this natural variability is often most pro- on our lakes over time. Warmer water By Scott Williams nounced, and evident, with Secchi trans- temperatures and a greater period of VLMP Executive Director parency. time during which sunlight is able to penetrate the water columns of lakes During the past several years, Maine has could result in measurable increases in his edition of The Water experienced some remarkably extreme biological productivity - beginning at the Column is coming to you a little weather. Several years of moderate bottom of the food web with the algae. later than usual, as a result of the drought around the turn of the century T This could result in reduced water clari- early Annual Meeting and a hectic early were followed in 2005 by one of the ty. But such a simplistic view doesn't summer schedule. As always, it was great wettest years on record for much of the take into account the effects of other to see so many friendly and familiar state. Winter and spring of 2006 were extreme meteorological phenomena, faces at our annual event. I had an exceptionally dry and warm, with virtu- including drought, heavy precipitation opportunity to chat briefly with quite a ally no spring runoff for much of the and greater or lesser wind activity, to few volunteer lake monitors, all of state. The month of May was very dry, name only a few. whom were pleased with the conference, and the fire danger was high throughout but nearly all reinforced the message Maine. Then the rain started - and con- Many questions are being explored con- that we have heard often for a number tinued for several weeks through early cerning the effects of extreme weather of years, which is that they prefer the July, during which conditions went from on lakes. This research (and moderate shorter, half-day version of the meeting, "bone dry" to "sopping wet." speculation) must take into account the with attendees together in one location unique variation of individual lakes and If you were able to take a Secchi disk for all events.