Unsung Watershed Heroes
Greetings to the Belgrade Lakes community and welcome back summer residents and visitors! When I was growing up and there was any kind of ruckus in the house, which was pretty common with six kids, my mother would tell us, “Take it outside!” We would then head out to the woods behind the house to find something to do.
My mother was a wise woman. fifty years before Richard Louv wrote Last Child in the Woods in 2008, she had an innate understanding of “nature deficit disorder” and knew that direct exposure to nature is essential for a child’s healthy physical and emotional development. Louv and others later proved that kids who spend a lot of time outside are healthier, have longer attention spans, and are less likely to suffer from depression or childhood obesity.
If you haven’t read Louv’s book, you should. I hope this column will inspire you to take advantage of all the outdoor recreation opportunities in our area and especially about the importance of getting youngsters outside and interacting actively with the natural world instead of spending hours passively browsing social media. Mother Nature is an amazing teacher and we can all learn from her, especially in these stressful times.
Staying physically active is one of the best ways to keep your mind and body healthy, and carefully planned and executed outdoor activities are inherently safer than indoor activities. 7 Lakes continues to add new properties and new trails. The hiking trails (including some new ones!) in the Kennebec Highlands and nearby 7 Lakes Alliance (former BRCA) properties like French Mountain, Mount Phillip, Fogg Island, and The Mountain are beautiful, verdant, and awash in spring and early summer wildflowers like trillium and lady slippers and birds and other wildlife. Visit the 7 Lakes Alliance website for the latest updates and to download maps of the trails.
Last year we published a new version of our local Trail Map and Guide. It is available for purchase at the 7 Lakes building, originally the Maine Lakes Resource Center (MLRC), as well as at Day’s Store, both in Belgrade Lakes Village. The new Quill Hill Mountain Trails off Drury Lane are scenic and not very steep, making them particularly appropriate for hiking with youngsters and oldsters.
It’s hard to believe I have been writing columns for this paper for nearly two decades. In 1988, a developer was planning to put a hotel on the top of French Mountain and had an approved subdevelopment plan. He missed a mortgage payment and a group of four landowners, including Denny Phillips, John Schooley, and Warren Balgooyen, who had camps on Watson Pond took advantage of the opportunity to purchase the roughly 50-acre property from the bank. They then founded the Watson Pond Conservation Trust, one of the first land trusts in the State of Maine and took on the mission of conserving French Mountain and Watson Pond.
The developer then began trying to purchase property on The Mountain. A group of Belgrade Lakes Association members, including Eddie Mayer, Jane Eberle and others, stepped in and purchased the property and asked the new land trust to take care of their new property. In 1991, they created the Belgrade Regional Conservation Alliance (BRCA) and took on the mission of conserving the lands and waters and natural heritage of the entire Belgrade Lakes Watershed, which comprises 180 square miles in three counties and portions of thirteen municipalities. This was a major leap of faith for this young group of volunteers, with no budget, no paid staff, but tremendous enthusiasm for this inspiring mission. The BRCA is now known as the 7 Lakes Alliance, a National Land Trust Alliance (LTA)-Certified Land Trust with multiple buildings, a year-round staff of about fourteen, reaching about 85 in the summer season, and annual budget of around $3M.
Today, the 7 Lakes Alliance is widely recognized for its science-based conservation of the lands and waters of the Belgrade Lakes Watershed, especially its record of accomplishments in stabilizing and improving water quality through land conservation. The team of unsung watershed heroes most responsible for bringing this mission to life is the Land-Water Conservation Team, which has contributed over a century and a half of experience to this organization, consisting of Roy Bouchard, Whitney King, Jack Schultz, Pat Donahue, and Bill Swan. Roy, Jack, Bill, and Pat were part of the original 1991 Board and are still actively involved in the organization.
Whitney has been a professor at Colby and part of a group of Colby faculty that included Dave Firmage, Russ Cole, and others doing scientific research in our watershed for decades.
Roy served multiple terms as BRCA President, Secretary, and Registered Agent. He served on the Land and Stewardship Committees (and still does as a volunteer). He spent 30 years with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (MeDEP) where he ran the Lake Assessment Program, which included the Invasive Species Program for aquatic plants, water quality monitoring, habitat protection, applied research and collaboration with several colleges on such diverse topics as the economics of lakes, watershed protection and shoreline evaluation, including LakeSmart.
Jack was a long-time member of the Lands Committee, and developed a strong partnership with Pine Island Camp on whose board he also served. He has been not only a successful fundraiser for multiple land projects but also a longtime member of the Rome Planning Board and where he developed strong shoreland zoning ordinances. He recently helped purchase the back side of Mt. Phillip, where he implemented a right of first refusal he obtained over 20 years ago.
Pat is a longtime realtor with Lakepoint Real Estate. He has worked tirelessly with the Land Trust and Stewardship Committees, providing knowledge of the local real estate market and land transaction expertise to all our land conservation projects. He played a significant role in all the Kennebec Highland Campaigns (I, II, III) helping to identify target parcels, land owners, and assessing potential risk of development and realistic market values. He has continued to provide that expertise to all our land conservation efforts for over three decades and has worked closely with the Education and Outreach Committee to develop requirements and technical updates for the Homestead Outdoor/Nature Education Center, including significant funding. Pat was an important member of the Design Committee for the MLRC building and helped identify and obtain contractors for the Low Impact Development/Green Infrastructure grounds (rain gardens, porous pavers, wastewater treatment system, etc) and has continued as a member of the 7 Lakes Facilities Committee.
Bill is the long-time chair of the Lands Committee. He served as Director of Licensing at the Department of Inland fisheries & Wildlife for over two decades and is responsible for our close alliance with the State. About fifteen years ago, Bill moved to Parker Pond and he was active in helping to found the 30 Mile River Watershed Association. He currently serves as Chairman of the Board of our sister watershed association on the other side of the drainage divide along the ridgeline of the Kennebec Highlands and has created a strong regional watershed association partnership.
Whitney developed the memorandum of understanding that formalized Colby’s participation in the new 7 Lakes organization and served on the Design Committee for the building’s Low Impact Development/Green Infrastructure grounds (rain gardens, porous pavers, wastewater treatment system, etc.) and laboratory spaces. He came onto the Board of the new organization (now 7 Lakes) in 2012 and has chaired the Science Advisory Committee that has overseen the development of the Watershed Management Plans for the lakes since then.
Personally, I am in awe of this group of unsung watershed heroes, who have each been working as volunteers for over 35-years to help grow this organization that benefits all of us. If you meet any of this team personally or simply know them, please thank them for their efforts on all our behalf.
I have been busy this spring as a Mentor for the Atlantic Salmon Federation’s fish Friends program, helping students learn about the life cycle of Atlantic salmon by raising salmon fry in refrigerated tanks in the classroom. Maine currently has the only remaining wild population of this Federally endangered species in this country. Sally Whittington, Josie Miller, and I recently worked with approximately 40 students from science classes at Mt Blue Middle School to stock almost 200 salmon fry into the Sandy River. I also recently had a successful foraging trip and gathered spring greens including fiddle heads, dandelion leaves, trout lilies, trillium leaves Japanese knotweed that allowed me to create a classic spring meal of sauteed brook trout.
Check the 7LA website for upcoming events. We will also be offering regular expeditions on our new education boat. I encourage everyone to take advantage of the wealth of recreational opportunities this area offers. Do like they used to in “the good old days” and take a kid fishing, hiking, or paddling in a canoe. It’s how memories are made. Or take a parent, so they can become a kid again.
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