After a long career in healthcare, James has turned to his true passion – conservation and wildlife education. James serves on the Board of the Mahoosuc Land Trust and is an avid naturalist writing about birds and leading bird walks in Western Maine. He joined Maine Lakes this summer to launch the next phase of the Maine Loon Restoration Project titled Look Out for Loons. James invites you to contact him if you are interested in helping preserve this iconic symbol of Maine’s wild and wonderful lakes!  Email James

Come learn about ways that you can help Common Loons survive and thrive on Maine’s lakes as a volunteer for the new Look Out for Loons program at Maine Lakes. In collaboration with Maine Audubon, Maine Lakes is looking to build a corp of 75 passionate volunteers who want to work within their communities to reduce disturbance and increase nesting success. Come hear about the top risks for loons in Maine and how the actions by LOFL volunteers reaching out to community members can help reduce those risks and create safer places for loon families to raise their chicks each summer.  

Meet with the Maine Lakes’ loon outreach program manager to learn more about what Maine’s loons do in Maine all summer, and how the Look Out For Loons program is helping improve loon success.  

Loon Q and A

Jason is a Fisheries Resource Supervisor for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Jason has worked for IFW for 17 years, and currently manages inland fisheries resources in central Maine and the Midcoast area.   Email Jason

Invasive fishes cause irreparable damage to our ecosystems. This discussion will identify invasive fish species that were introduced years ago that are expanding their ranges in Maine, and some species that are fairly new to Maine (identified in recent years). 

Invasive Fishes Update

Jen is the owner and Senior Scientist at Ecological Instincts, a small, Maine-based, women-owned environmental consulting firm based in Manchester. Her expertise is in assisting municipalities, lake associations, and watershed groups with
water quality monitoring, watershed assessments, watershed management planning, grant writing, and project management for watershed restoration projects statewide. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Interdisciplinary
Environmental Science from the University of Maine at Farmington, and a Master’s degree in Ecology and Environmental Science from the University of Maine, and is a Certified Lake Manager. Jen is a past President of Maine Lakes and currently serves on the Advisory Board.  Email Jen

Georges Pond is a 358-acre lake with a 1-square mile watershed located in Franklin, ME. The lake is listed on Maine’s nonpoint source (NPS) priority watersheds list due to changes in water quality over the past decade- specifically because of nuisance algal blooms which began in 2012. The Georges Pond Association developed a Watershed-Based Management Plan in 2020 that provided a 10-year strategy for reducing phosphorus (P) from the lake and watershed by addressing internal loading and increasing efforts to mitigate NPS pollution. The plan included a septic system vulnerability analysis which identified 102 “at risk” shoreline properties on soils susceptible to septic system short-circuiting. In 2021, GPA received a Section 319, Phase II Watershed Protection grant which included septic system inspections and biomat evaluations for five at-risk septic systems to determine if a “short-circuit” was occurring at no cost to participating landowners. Five biomat evaluations and septic system inspections were conducted over a two-day period in the summer of 2022. As expected, results of these evaluations showed that the two pre-1974 systems were non-functional and a threat to Georges Pond’s water quality. Surprisingly, two of the three post-1974 systems were, in fact, more of a threat to the water quality of Georges Pond than the pre-1974 systems. The results of these field investigations raise concern about the ability of older (pre-1995) septic systems to treat P and prevent it from getting into the lake via groundwater or other means when located on course sandy soils. 

LAKE SCIENCE: Septic Inspections and Evaluations at Georges Pond

Before becoming a Board Member at TLEA in 2018, Jim was renovating his family’s vacation home on Thompson Lake. Retired from Brown Goldsmiths & Co. in Freeport, he was a jewelry designer/model maker
and sales/manufacturing liaison for over 20 years. Employed previously in the health care industry, Jim worked in Addiction Treatment and Psychotherapy. An avid ocean sailor for many years, Jim has enjoyed his last ten years on Thompson Lake, improving his construction and landscaping skills. An Eagle Scout from Troop 7 in Pelham New York, Jim graduated from Colby with a BA, from the University of Pennsylvania with an MFA, and from Pacifica Graduate Institute with an MA in Counseling Psychology. Jim has reorganized the current YCC at TLEA after it became dormant for three seasons, just before and during the Covid years. This is the second year for the new YCC at TLEA and it joins a previous 18+ years of YCC activity within the 52+ years of TLEA’s existence as a nonprofit organization. Email Jim

Learn more about creating (and maintaining) Youth Conservation Corp crews who focus on erosion-control efforts and other activities that improve lake and water quality. Whitney Baker from 30 Mile River Watershed Association will share an overview of the YCC program, and her perspective from a staffed regional watershed organization. Jim Skinner from Thompson Lake Environmental Association will share his perspective from a lake association that relies on volunteers to run and manage the program. Both speakers will share “lessons learned”, ideas for success, and some of the challenges they’ve faced organizing YCC crews for their lake and their region.   

 PARTNERSHIPS: YCC Collaborations: Enhancing Lake Communities

Linda received her MS from the University of Maine in 1987, worked on acid rain projects for 4 years before joining the ‘Lakes’ section at DEP in 1989, and hopes to eventually finish her PhD. Linda is the Lake Assessment Section Leader at DEP, works closely with Lake Stewards of Maine, and has worked on many projects over the past 30 years, including more than a decade of Cyanotoxin research. Email Linda

Linda will provide a brief overview of cyanotoxin results from 996 samples taken during 316 lake visits to 142 lakes.  Extent of microcystin production, risk associated with the concentrations observed, precautions to take, and actions for prevention will be shared. 

LAKE SCIENCE: Cyanotoxins in Maine Lakes: What you should know, How you can help!

Before joining Wild Seed Project in the summer of 2022, Nell was working in the world of environmental and outdoor education in Maine — as an Island Fellow on Peaks Island establishing an edible schoolyard, as the Outdoor Educator at St. George Elementary School, as a Naturalist in the AMC High Mountain Huts, and most recently as the Garden Educator at the Reiche Elementary School in Portland. She is excited to bring her love of sensory-based learning strategies to this role, and get young people across Maine asking questions about their environments. She holds a BA in Environmental Studies from Bates College. She calls Maine home, and can be found exploring its woods by foot, its roads by bike, and its waters by boat (or sometimes, in a wetsuit). Email Nell

Native plants offer countless benefits beyond their four-season beauty––purifying air, shading and cooling cities, storing atmospheric carbon, minimizing flooding and stormwater runoff and helping to sustain vital pollinators, birds and other wildlife. Learn how to transform where you live by planting native species and adopting better landscape practices. From planting native trees to shrinking your lawn to leaving your leaves, discover the actions you can take to make your yard more biodiverse and climate resilient. 

Building a Biodiverse and Climate Resilient Yard: Simple Action Steps

Anthony Sutton, PhD, is Passamaquoddy from Sipayik. He is an Assistant Professor of Native American Studies and Food Systems at the University of Maine and Faculty Fellow at the Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions. Sutton’s work focuses on centering Wabanaki visions for the restoration of foodways and fisheries within Wabanaki homelands. Email Tony

For thousands of years, species like Alewives have gathered people and organized them in different places. For Wabanaki, I describe these as sites of sustenance, where food is gathered, management is enacted, and cultural and spiritual wellbeing is sustained. Today, fish are gathering a more diverse set of people from Wabanaki nations, municipalities, citizens, conservation groups, and many more. With the many ideas around how we think about or conceptualize rivers, the original stewards, the Wabanaki, can be obscured. This presentation will bring these voices together more fully by first describing a history that unites why we are gathering in these places and secondly, specific attention is given to amplifying the voices of Wabanaki knowledge, values, and management to inform how we think about rivers, fish, and the people around them today.  

Siqonomeq-kisuhs (Alewives Moon): restoring Wabanaki ways of knowing in river restoration.

Tracy Weber, Owner, Blue Aster Native Plants,. Blue Aster Native Plants was started in 2019. Prior to that, I was a professional gardener in Maine for 20 years. I became interested in native plants over 10 years ago and was frustrated by how difficult it was to find them in local nurseries, particularly uncultivated species. Then I became involved with a non-profit called Wild Seed Project. I learned how easy it is to grow many native plants from seed and decided to start growing them myself. My goal is to provide a wide range of species, both perennials and shrubs, with as much genetic diversity as possible and to grow them in as sustainable a manner as possible. I'm always learning! Email Tracy

Walk through the dos and don’ts of lakeside planting with the state horticulturalist and an owner of a native nursery. They will share resources, knowledge and tips for success. 

Whitney has a B.S. in Ecology and Environmental Science from the University of Maine. She is an experienced water quality monitor, LakeSmart evaluator, and has over 10 years of professional experience supporting and managing watershed protection and restoration projects for Maine lakes, providing technical assistance to private landowners, town staff, and road groups, working to remediate NPS problems. At 30 Mile, Whitney manages 319 and watershed planning projects, facilitates watershed surveys, and oversees the water quality monitoring, Youth Conservation Corps (YCC), and LakeSmart programs. Email Whitney

Learn more about creating (and maintaining) Youth Conservation Corp crews who focus on erosion-control efforts and other activities that improve lake and water quality. Whitney Baker from 30 Mile River Watershed Association will share an overview of the YCC program, and her perspective from a staffed regional watershed organization. Jim Skinner from Thompson Lake Environmental Association will share his perspective from a lake association that relies on volunteers to run and manage the program. Both speakers will share “lessons learned”, ideas for success, and some of the challenges they’ve faced organizing YCC crews for their lake and their region.   

PARTNERSHIPS: YCC Collaborations: Enhancing Lake Communities