WOW! Can you believe the summer is almost over? Because I sure can’t! My time with the Lake Winnipesaukee Association has flown by so fast. Alison and I have been working on numerous projects for the LWA, and the project I’ll be talking about is our stormwater site assessments.
In partnership with SOAK NH through DES, Alison and I advertised free stormwater runoff site assessments for homeowners in the Lake Winnipesaukee watershed. We got the word out that we were doing this by announcing it at meetings, contacting road associations, through social media posts, and by placing our stormwater display in various public areas such as libraries and town halls. So far, we have completed about 25 individual assessments and 2 assessments for homeowner communities. Basically, when Alison and I get to the person’s house, we first ask them if there are any stormwater runoff issues that they have noticed. If there are, they show them to us, and then we walk around the property together looking for any other signs of runoff or erosion. Alison and I take pictures and create a write-up for the homeowner that includes details of the problem areas we saw along with attachments for do-it-yourself ways to fix the problems. A lot of the properties we’ve visited have been in pretty good shape, but there have been a few interesting cases.
I love doing the site assessments for several reasons. First of all, we get out into the community and we get to help people, and hopefully help the lake, too. But something I always enjoy about the visits is getting to know the people we are meeting with. One of the questions I ask most often is, “How long have you been living here?” and that usually leads to a discussion about the history of the people and the land. We’ve met with so many people whose families have lived on the same property for generations upon generations. A few people we’ve met grew up coming to their grandparent’s camp for vacation and now own the camp themselves. It’s always fascinating to hear the stories these people have, but sometimes they’re not always happy. Many of the people who have been on the lake for most of their life talk of the changes that have occurred on the lake. Some people reminisce about how the lake and the community were back before there were wake boats and lots of people. These stories reminded me of a documentary called “The Human Element” (you should totally watch it) in which it is shown through beautiful cinematography how humans interact with the earth, air, water, and fire elements. Hearing stories about humans and change might make you wonder why, back in the day, we as humans decided to attempt to control nature? But, we did, and here we are, so now what do we do about it? There’s some environmental existentialism for you! But I digress…
Another reason I love doing these property assessments so much is I find that it’s very easy to become depressed and lose faith in humanity when it comes to environmentalism. But here is a group of people, willing to have us come out and assess their properties, because they care. These people have, as the saying goes, “restored my faith in humanity”. It’s so easy to get bogged down by the sad and sometimes fear-provoking stories in the news about the state of our Earth (these stories are important to recognize!), but don’t give up, don’t lose hope. Find those people who care, bond together, get loud, and let’s get things done.
P.S. Sometimes we get to meet the homeowner’s pets, like this kitty!
Gloria is a recent graduate of Gettysburg College and has a passion for wildlife photography. You can read more about Gloria here.