Water source protection concerns were the major issue at the October 14 Boothbay Region Water District Board of Trustees meeting. The board members moved up the "new business" portion of their meeting so that audience members would not have to wait through the entire meeting for a presentation.

The presentation concerned the fate of the region's public water supply, as the concerned citizens in the audience had read the September 25 Register article, "Lake Knickerbocker: A `Lake on the Edge,'" and were concerned about the fate of the town's public water supply (Adams Pond) and the emergency water supply (Lake Knickerbocker). They felt that the Water District and local citizens should be informed about the high levels of phosphorous in Knickerbocker Lake, about what that means for the lake, and given a plan of action for how to treat it.

"What essentially we've got is a group of people are concerned about the reports that we have [an endangered water supply]," said John VanOrsdell, who had invited the presenter, "and that Knickerbocker Lake stands on the threshold of turning green. And we hope that he can explain how that came about."

VanOrsdell had invited Jon Van Bourg, Director of Water Quality for the Kennebec Water District and the past-president of the Congress of Lake Associations, to speak about his experiences with China Lake (the public water supply for six towns, Waterville, Winslow, Fairfield, Vassalboro, Oakland and Benton) and his knowledge of phosphorous pollution and algae blooms. (China Lake is currently dealing with algae blooms.)

Board chairman Marsh Irving initially suggested another public meeting where concerned citizens could ask for "broad participation from the people of Boothbay and the Boothbay peninsula in general and bring him there and have him do a presentation to all of them."

"I think what you're doing is wonderful," he said, and explained that the board saw its responsibilities as mainly pumping water from Adams Pond, filtering it, and distributing it. "We have very little control over the quality of either pond here. Only by the frontage that we own on the pond can we limit activity in that pond."

Irving stressed the need for the selectmen and the water board to have the support of the people. "It's never easy to do land use control, where you're taking away somebody's potential use of their property for the public good."

Knickerbocker Lake Association member and Boothbay Region Water District employee Richard Bredeau of Boothbay asked the board what participation it could promise the lake association.

Board member Peter McNelis said that while the water district board of trustees is not a political action committee, he did not see any reason why the water board couldn't participate in that type of informational meeting to give support and information. He called the goals of the two organizations "a complementary interest."

The citizens expressed concern that there was no environmental group or state agency that was monitoring public resources. One audience member, Ed Furber of Southport, asked, "Let's just assume that Knickerbocker starts to get polluted for whatever reason. What body, what political or state representative body, oversees that, protects it?"

Irving answered that there was a "matrix of different people with different interests," and Boothbay Region Water District Superintendent Jon Ziegra said that that matrix included the town, the water district customers, the Department of Environmental Protection, the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, the Department of Marine Resources, and the Department of Health and Human Services, but that there really was no one decision-making entity.

One problem identified with protecting Adams Pond is that there is no real way to police it. Ziegra said that if someone is caught pumping water out of the lake or dumping something into the pond, at best they can be charged with trespassing. Irving said that the water board has "no enforcement authority over anything" and that it would be up to the townspeople to create restrictive codes for the board or the sheriff's department to enforce. Ziegra said that as he understood it, it was the town's responsibility to use existing state environmental laws to protect the water supply.

"But the closer to home those rules come from," Irving said, "the more control we have as a town to do it and then to administrate. Rather than bring the state laws down here and enforce them, we create our own body of ordinances and then we can enforce those...We can look at it as an even bigger problem than they would look at it."

"What people don't understand, I think, in this area is that it's a very finite water supply," said water board clerk Roy Crawford. "There's nowhere to go beyond Adams and Knickerbocker. We've tried hydrological surveys...So if this gets to that point, we're in deep trouble."

"Two weeks ago is when I heard about it," said Furber. "And I had no idea there was even a problem."

"Water is something that's ignored all over this country," said Irving. "This isn't just the Boothbay peninsula. It's the most underexamined resource and the most necessary resource that we have. You don't wanna get people shocked, all you wanna do is get 'em informed."

Van Bourg arrived at the meeting at this point and began his presentation, relating the history of China Lake. He said that it was a eutrophic, or dying, lake.

"And all things considered, Knickerbocker Pond and Adams Pond are gettin' in that direction real quick," he said.

"Eutrophic" means that China Lake is anoxic (without oxygen) in the summertime; there is no oxygen in the lower levels of the lake, so fish can't live at the bottom of the as they are supposed to. There is enough phosphorous in the sediment washing into the lake that when the lake becomes anoxic, the phosphorous floats to the upper levels and feeds blue-green algae blooms.

"Then reversing that process -- stopping it, slowing it, changing it, making it go back to the way it was -- is almost an impossibility," said Van Bourg. "The reason is you've created a vicious cycle that just keeps going on and on and on forever until the lake fills up with sediment of its own generation."

Van Bourg said that in a healthy lake, the water with the highest concentration of oxygen is at the bottom of the lake, and that is where all the large fish live. In a eutrophic lake, the water with the highest concentration of oxygen is at the top of the lake, and so many large species of fish die. He said that in 1983, all the trout and salmon in China Lake died.

However, while Knickerbocker Lake has high phosphorous levels and is in danger of blooming, neither it nor Adams Pond is at that stage yet, and Van Bourg said that the good news is that the process can be slowed or even stopped, with "an awful lot of public input."

Van Bourg continued, "Where does the sediment come from? Where does the problem come from? It comes from everybody. It is everyone's problem. If Knickerbocker isn't eutrophic yet, and it is anoxic down at the lower levels, that means it's heading in that direction quickly. Careful and prudent human action will stop the process of cultural eutrophication."

He explained that cultural eutrophication means that the eutrophic state of a lake is caused by people. He warned that the next stage in the process would be the finger-pointing stage, something that he experienced when algae bloomed in China Lake.

"They'll blame the road. They'll blame the developers. They'll blame the tree cutters, they'll blame the farmers who used to be here. They'll blame the water district. They'll blame how high the water level is, or isn't," said Van Bourg. "Everybody will have a reason why the water has turned bright green and is foul and stinky and why the fish are dying," he said. Van Bourg said that China is still going through the finger-pointing stage.

Furber asked if air pollution contributed to the phosphorous levels in the lakes. Van Bourg said that all the phosphorous pollution was coming from the land; that acid rain, while killing fish, also killed off algae blooms by varying the pH of lakes.

Refuting Irving's earlier statement that the water board wasn't responsible for the fate of Knickerbocker Lake, Van Bourg said, "If you're taking water from the source, if it's your source, then it's your responsibility."

He said that, generally speaking, protection of the public water source is mandated in the water board's charter, and that the drinking water department required all water districts to have a source water protection program, even though this requirement is not really enforced.

In the case of China Lake, Van Bourg said that the local people drafted a phosphorous control ordinance after the algae blooms began in the lake, but it was so stringent that the code enforcement officers were having trouble enforcing it. Van Bourg suggested that if Boothbay came up with a phosphorous control ordinance, it be worded such that someone moving into town could easily read and understand it.

Selectman Steve Ham asked Van Bourg if Knickerbocker Lake could be brought down out of the danger zone, even with a strict phosphorous control ordinance.

"You could get rid of all the people around the lake tomorrow and it will probably come back. Otherwise what you need to do is control all the sources of erosion around the lake," said Van Bourg.

According to Van Bourg, Three Mile Pond, a water source next to China Lake, was treated with alum. The chemical settled on top of the sediment on the bottom of the pond and kept it from floating up to the upper levels of the pond and feeding algae blooms. Unfortunately, the treatment was only a temporary solution: when the ice on the pond's surface began to break up in the spring, it settled on the bottom of the pond and disturbed the alum barrier, releasing the phosphorous. Van Bourg said that treating a lake with alum or an algicide doesn't deal with the cause of the problem (erosion), just one of its effects (algae blooms).

Van Bourg said China Lake is currently in a state of stasis and there are no more fish dying off. This was achieved by taking the money it received from the federal government and using it in restoration projects: restoring camp roads, rip-rapping the shoreline where it was eroding, making sure that silt fences were in place at construction sites, establishing and monitoring phosphorous control ordinances, placing willow wattles in places where culvert outfalls have uncontrolled erosion on the other side, dealing with the DEP, holding public meetings to galvanize the community, etc.

According to Van Bourg, there are 33 to 35 lakes in the state, many of which are public water supplies, that are in danger of forming algae blooms. These lakes, which are on the DEP's 303D list (a list of water bodies that are deemed "impaired"), will have a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) analysis done on them by the state.

Bredeau said that Knickerbocker Lake was on the 303D list, but it was pulled off in 1996 or 1997 because of insufficient data. Irving said he didn't understand how it could be one of Maine's most endangered lakes if it wasn't on the 303D list. Van Bourg suggested to the board that they call the DEP to get Knickerbocker Lake back on the 303D list. He said that if the lake was on the list, the DEP would monitor it more closely and the town would have more help informing citizens that the lake is in danger and what they can do to save it.

"You see where we are?" asked Irving. "I mean, that timeline is great for us because we're before the problem...we have plenty of notice that it could happen, so the idea is to go out and create enough of a groundswell of support to help our selectmen and the planning board put the necessary ordinances on the books to begin the process....the public has to be educated. It's very hard to get people to focus on a problem that's not right in front of them."

"It seems like if we don't do something that down the line the water district is gonna have tremendous expenses bringing the water quality up to useable standards," said an audience member.

Furber asked Van Bourg what steps the town should take next to protect both Knickerbocker Lake and Adams Pond from further damage. Van Bourg recommended getting the lake back on the 303D list, informing the public and getting support for protective measures for the lake, and voting on and enforcing codes that would reduce the amount of phosphorous that enters the lake.

Van Bourg kept reminding the board that, whether people use town water or have a well, or live adjacent to or three miles from Knickerbocker Lake and Adams Pond, the protection of local drinking water is everyone's problem.

"We had residents who lived eight, nine, ten miles away from [China] lake and they complained bitterly that the phosphorous control ordinance shouldn't apply to them, and it does," he said. "And that's a good thing because the fact is, they may live eight or nine miles away from the lake, but they may only be 50 feet from a stream. Ninety percent of the phosphorous load that hits any lake comes from one storm event," a storm event such as the one that hit the region on October 15.

Van Bourg reminded everyone that during storms people are all inside their homes, not out looking to see where erosion is occurring and where water runoff is ending up.

Ziegra proposed that the board charge $25 for each required backflow prevention test. He said the fee is a standard charge at other local water districts, and it would allow the BRWD to recoup some of the costs involved in the testing.

"Right now it is an expensive program," said Ziegra, "but it's an unfunded mandate that we have to perform...Twenty-five dollars for a business is not an excessive charge."

Irving suggested that the board hold off voting on the testing fee until they had seen a list of the water district customers who would be affected by the fee. They will vote on the policy at the next meeting.

After the presentation, the board went into executive session to discuss legal matters.

The next meeting of the water district will be October 28.