NON-PROFIT U.S. POSTAGE PAID the Lewiston, ME Permit # 82 Water C lumn ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED The Newsletter of Lake Stewards of Maine - Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program Vol. 25, No. 1 Celebrating the Work of Maine's Citizen Lake Stewards Winter 2020-21 Would you like to contribute to the growth and sustainability of LSM? Consider Becoming an LSM Board Member re you enthusiastic about the work of LSM? Looking well as various experience and skills to the job; others are Ato support a good cause, for a way to give back to in the field of lake science or environmental conservation. your community, or to help the lakes of Maine? The LSM The Board of Directors meets 4-6 times annually at Board of Directors welcomes you to apply for a position the LSM Center for Citizen Lake Science, in Auburn, on our board, or one of our subcommittees. Maine, and also through videoconferencing. Meetings The Board develops policy, oversees fiduciary matters, typically take place on weekday mornings, and may last and works with an enthusiastic staff. We help with the until early afternoon. annual conference, fundraising, and outreach to the Please contact LSM Executive Director, Scott public, and some of us even volunteer in the Williams, if you are interested in a position on field, working alongside LSM staff. We the LSM Board, joining a subcommittee, or are particularly interested in bringing if you have questions. Following an initial on new board members who have discussion, candidates will be interviewed knowledge and experience in the areas by a subcommittee of the Board, and the of marketing, fundraising and program Board will act upon all applications. These development. Some of our Directors are are volunteer positions. monitors who bring that background, as 36 What’s Inside: President's Message . 2 President’s Lakeside Notes ~ Navigating Turbulent Waters . 3 Littorally Speaking ~ Wonders of Connection . 4 Connecting the Drops ~ Funding During the Pandemic . 6 Quality Counts ~ Quality Assurance & Quality Control . 7 Message Georges Pond Alum Treatment . 8 Barb Welch Meet Maine's Lake Stewards! . 9 President, LSM Board of Directors Under the Hand Lens ~ Didymo . 15 Influences of Extreme Weather on Maine Lakes . 16 his has been a different kind on blooming lakes, as well as meeting Thank You to our Generous Donors! . 18 of year for all of us, and a very with monitors from individual lakes Changes to Communication & Technology . 22 T Fridays at 4 For Lakes Webinar Series . 23 difficult year for many. I hope you are that were experiencing problems. Gloeotrichia in Time & Space . 24 doing okay and you and your families They answered more email and 2020 Watershed Survey Grant Recipients . 25 are well. telephone questions than ever before. Late Season Algae "Flash Blooms" in Lakes . 26 Despite, as well as considering the In addition, staff continued to apply Big Lake Infestation Update . 28 COVID-19 situation this year, I am for grants, looked for new ways Variable Water-Milfoil in Androscoggin Lake . 30 so proud of what the LSM staff to connect with donors, and tried Passings . 32 and hundreds of volunteer monitors some innovative fundraising to keep Welcome New LSM Board Members! . 34 accomplished this sampling season. programs running. LSM Staff Come April, in the face of COVID- And staff were all in their separate Scott Williams Executive Director Roberta Hill Invasive Species Program Director 19, LSM’s usual protocols for gearing homes; no heads together over the Jonnie Maloney Program Coordinator up for trainings, developing schedules, conference table. They were still a Christine Guerette Project Facilitator checking equipment, sampling, team, though, and each used their Alison Cooney Development Coordinator attending lake association and skills, experience, and ingenuity to Tristan Taber Training & Technical Outreach Coordinator professional meetings were obsolete. put together programs that gathered Board of Directors So, at first, we thought it would be a water quality data as accurately as Barb Welch, President (Whitefield) quiet summer, since not much could before, supported Invasive Plant It’s the Bill Monagle, Vice President (Winthrop) be accomplished because in-person Patrollers from afar, and kept LSM Sibyl French, Treasurer (Raymond) training, meetings, even traveling running and afloat. Phoebe Hardesty, Secretary (New Gloucester) together were no longer advisable. time of your life! Linda Bacon QA/QC Advisor (Maine DEP) The volunteers were intrepid. They Locally owned and managed, with a proud 30+ year history Robert French (Raymond) Staff soon figured out, however, they collected data on hundreds of lakes. If Sue Motley (Rangeley) of excellence in sustainable retirement living, OceanView could still train and support volunteers someone out-of-state couldn’t make it Joe Musante (Princeton) using technology. They learned back to Maine, they found substitutes. is just minutes from Portland. Offering an independent, Advisory Board how to do remote training, host Some of the Invasive Plant Patrollers Aria Amirbahman, PhD Steve Norton, PhD active lifestyle on 80 beautifully wooded acres, you can enjoy seminars, do quality control, identify (IPPers), we call them Uber IPPers, Roy Bouchard, MS Firooza Pavri, PhD maintenance-free living in a wide variety of cottages and Holly Ewing, PhD Matt Scott, MS specimens… over Zoom. Thank took it upon themselves to organize C . Barre Hellquist, PhD Ken Wagner, PhD goodness for Zoom. They hosted local teams to survey new lakes. apartments, with peace of mind for the future. Lloyd Irland, PhD Pixie Williams, MS weekly seminars for 9 weeks with Some found some new infestations David Littell, JD Karen Wilson, PhD an average attendance of 50 people, (ugh). Maine’s citizen lake scientists Layout & Design by Jonnie Maloney, LSM Program Coordinator twice-weekly workshops for Invasive continued to monitor our lakes Cover Photo: Nymphaea odorata, taken by Dennis Plant Patrollers, a weekly support efficiently, effectively, and safely. Roberge . Please enjoy this photo as much as we do— session for water quality monitors, My thanks, respect and admiration it's lovely, mesmerizing, peaceful, and tranquil—a weekly conferences with EPA, DEP to all who helped make this summer’s little something we could all use right now, and a true and other New England collaborators work of art, courtesy of Mother Nature . monitoring season so successful. Funding for this newsletter is made This newsletter is printed on 30% possible in part by grants from the Maine post-consumer recycled paper, and For more information about virtual tours Department of Environmental Protection, is produced and mailed by Penmor visit our website or call today! the US Environmental Protection Agency, Lithographers, Lewiston, Maine. oceanviewrc.com • 207-781-4460 the Lake and River Protection Sticker Fund, Foundation Grants, individual donations 20 Blueberry Lane, Falmouth, ME 04105 To Contact Us and corporate underwriting. (207) 783-7733 Stewards@LakeStewardsME org. 24 Maple Hill Road, Auburn, Maine 04210 This locally owned and managed retirement community is proud www .LakeStewardsOfMaine .org If you would like to go green and receive the Water Column in electronic format, www .LakesOfMaine .org please contact LSM at (207) 783-7733 or [email protected]. to underwrite the important work of the Lake Stewards of Maine 2 35 Welcome, New LSM Board Members! Sue Motley has been a water Joe Musante is the Lakeside Notes quality monitor on Quimby water resources Navigating Turbulent Waters Pond in Rangeley for almost biologist for the twenty years. She serves as a Passamaquoddy utum leaves have fallen, and on workshops, personal meetings, plant patroller and a regional Tribe at Indian Arecent brisk November mornings the nearly-continuous flow of coordinator for water quality Township, having we have been clearly reminded of constituents and the general public monitors in Franklin and worked in their what is soon to come. During the past coming to our work place in Somerset counties. She has been a environmental several weeks, data from LSM citizen Auburn, the annual lake monitoring by Scott Williams LSM Executive Director team leader for watershed surveys department since lake monitors have been arriving in conference, meetings with our Sue Motley and a LakeSmart evaluator/ Joe Musante 2004. Previously, droves. And while all of this sounds partners, and much more. We are and webinars, and dealing with lower coordinator. She formed a lake he graduated “normal”, given the time of year, six genuinely energized and inspired by profile, but nonetheless essential association, The Friends of Quimby Pond, and headed with a BoA and a BoS from the University of Maine months ago we were uncertain about our many personal connections with organizational and administrative up the organization for 11 years. She compiled and wrote at Machias in 2002, all while working with his the extent to which LSM volunteers all of you! issues, summer went by very quickly! a handbook titled Caring for Quimby Pond. mentor, Norman Famous. The pair conducted all would be able to undertake their Our obvious highest priority was We have been deeply heartened by manner of environmental field work around Maine, Prior to her retirement several years ago, she spent nearly valuable work during the upcoming to ensure the safety of both staff the continuous encouragement and but predominantly in Washington County. forty years working as an Emergency Medicine Physician summer season. We should have and volunteers. With that in mind, support offered by many partner Assistant. She has worked in various hospitals in the state Joe now spends most of his summer field seasons known better than to doubt a group we made the difficult decision to organizations, lake communities including MaineGeneral Medical Center in Waterville/ tracking the water quality of the lakes on the West of extraordinary people who have not conduct in-person workshops, and others. Supporting charitable Augusta, Maine Medical Center in Portland, and Eastern Branch of the St.