Watchic Lake Homeowners Win LakeSmart Award

lakesmartThe Maine LakeSmart Program offers free opportunities for homeowners to learn how to manage their home and yard to protect the water quality of their lake. The primary focus of LakeSmart is to keep our lake water clean by stabilizing eroding areas, reducing the use of chemicals, diverting rainwater into vegetated areas, and maintaining or planting trees, shrubs, and ground cover along the shore-land. Recently two Watchic Lake property owners won this award; David and Eileen Burnell and the McNulty’s on Watchic Road 9. Here is the McNulty’s story.

We’ve been on the lake for than 20 years. A few years ago we began to notice some significant erosion in our driveway, which led to its replacement. We used a DEP certified contractor who suggested we use reclaimed asphalt for the surface (it’s permeable and reduces some of the run-off), and a few other things to minimize run-off, for example adding a small berm to divert water into the woods.

Shortly after the new driveway was installed, we heard of LakeSmart and had an evaluation done. This was a pretty painless process (in fact we were not even at the camp). After the evaluation, we got a very thorough report on our property covering the good (e.g. the driveway) and the bad (e.g. roof run-off into the lake). It included a number of suggestions on how to improve the property.

Drip trench - captures roof runoff

Drip trench – captures roof runoff

Over the past year we took the LakeSmart advice and had a drip-trench installed in two spots (see photo for lakeside trench), added some erosion control mulch, and planted some Maine blueberry bushes near our dock. The trench and mulch work was done by V&M Construction Service, but I think many home owners could do this themselves. The total cost for all this work was about $800.

After this work was completed, the LakeSmart folks (include Patty Taylor, the Watchic Lake LakeSmart Coordinator) did a second evaluation, and provided us the award.

Overall, this was a pretty simple and low cost process, and we learned a lot about taking care of the lake.

We encourage you to contact Patty Talyor at pateric@roadrunner.com for more information on the LakeSmart program at Watchic Lake.