One thing that has really surprised me during my service with the Newfound Lake Region Association is how friendly the people and volunteers here are. It is amazing to see this tight-knit community coming together to protect what is important to them. This community’s dedication to NLRA’s mission was made clear during the Volunteer Meet and Greet and Work Day at Grey Rocks. Over coffee, NLRA staff and volunteers gathered to discuss the important conservation work happening in the watershed and the many upcoming volunteer opportunities. It was a wonderful experience getting to know more about the people in the area and what Newfound Lake and its watershed means to them. After the meeting, we spent some time on the Floodplain Loop Trail at Grey Rocks removing a bunch of oriental bittersweet seedlings. Oriental bittersweet, Celastrus orbiculatus, is a highly invasive plant/woody vine. These vines will literally take over the landscape by wrapping around entire trees and plants and suffocating them. Like most invasive plant species, oriental bittersweet outcompetes our native plants, which limits resources native plants can use, and results in loss of biodiversity. In the past couple of years the NLRA has been keeping an eye on areas that are known to have oriental bittersweet at Grey Rocks. You can find upcoming volunteer days at Grey Rocks at NewfoundLake.org/events
One very important aspect in maintaining the water quality of Newfound Lake and the surrounding watershed is stormwater management practices. Using various stormwater management techniques, residents can prevent runoff carrying harmful pollutants from entering our waterways. NLRA watershed stewards had the opportunity to implement stormwater management techniques at a shorefront home on Newfound Lake. The project consisted of 3 main parts: permeable stairs and walkways, dry wells, and a rain garden. For more information about these projects and other projects you could implement to prevent stormwater runoff, visit our stormwater library DIY fact sheet at https://newfoundlake.org/stormwater-resources/. At the house much of the area was barren soil, which causes runoff during storms. The new rain garden will prevent this. Around the garden we dug infiltration trenches. Rather than moving the topsoil and causing erosion, during a storm, stormwater would drain into these trenches and dissipate through the ground overtime. Based on the geographic features of the property, when a storm occurred most of the runoff was funneled into a single point. To prevent further erosion we built infiltration steps and a permeable walkway. These permeable surfaces allow water to soak up in the ground and stop large sheets of moving water that cause erosion and runoff. For the last main project at the residents house we implemented two dry wells under the drip edges of the roof. These areas had high concentrations of water due to all the rain of the roof congregating into these two places. In order to prevent erosion here two large dry wells were dug and layed with 5 inch stone to collect this water and allow it to filter through the ground over time.
As part of our mission to protect Newfound Lake and watershed, the NLRA offers educational events and programs for the public. Watershed Stewards have the opportunity to design and lead public programs that fit within NLRA’s mission.On July 20, I will be running an event that looks at the importance and diversity of aquatic invertebrates in our surrounding ecosystems. One such importance is that they readily act as bioindicators of water quality. Depending on the aquatic invertebrates species/orders present and absence correlated with water quality. Some orders such as Trichoptera (Caddisflies), Ephemeroptera (Mayflies), and Plecoptera (Stoneflies) are indicators of good water quality. By using collected samples from other waterways in the area, I hope to teach the public how to identify characteristics of each order in the hopes that they can identify specimens themselves and then allow them to go out onto the river and collect and identify what invertebrates they collected.
Sawyer is one of the half-year members serving with the Newfound Lake Region Association. Learn more about Sawyer here!