conservation collaboration

by leigh macmillen hayes

Thanks to the forests that naturally filter the water that flows into [Sebago Lake], the Portland Water District has a waiver from filtration from the EPA, meaning the water does not have to be filtered before treatment, a designation granted to only about 50 water supplies in the country. This pristine water resource provides the drinking water for almost 20% of Maine’s population—200,000 people in eleven towns.” ~sebagocleanwaters.org

When most of us think of Sebago Lake, we think of recreation, but since Thanksgiving Day 1869, when the first pipeline from the lake to Portland was completed, it has served as a drinking water supply to the city and beyond. According to Portland Water District’s website, “The Portland Water District (PWD) is a quasi-municipal organization chartered by the Maine Legislature . . . Trustees are elected from geographic areas designed to provide representation proportionate to the population of PWD’s service area. The Board of Trustees is the governing body of PWD. Much like a city council, the Board adopts a budget; approves the rates and charges for public services; establishes District-wide policies and plans, and appoints a general manager to administer the affairs of the organization.”

The key factor to being one of the cleanest drinking water utilities in the country is due to the low level of development in the watershed. A watershed is a land area that channels rainfall and snowmelt to streams, brooks, and rivers, and eventually to outflow points such as Sebago Lake.

In the lakes region, which is part of the Sebago Lake watershed, we have intact forests that filter the water naturally. But, as Hadley Couraud, who works for both Western Foothills Land Trust and Loon Echo Land Trust as Sebago Clean Waters Conservation Coordinator, says, “Over 84% of the land is forested, but only 11% is conserved in perpetuity. To ensure that the forests themselves can keep filtering the water, we need to permanently conserve more of those forests.”

Sebago Clean Waters (SCW) has been in the making since 2000. In those early years, PWD and Casco Bay Estuary Partnership contributed funding to land trust conservation projects to protect land in the watershed, with Lake’s Environmental Association’s Holt Pond, which is under a conservation easement with Loon Echo Land Trust, being one of the early projects they helped fund. Karen Young, Coalition Coordinator of Sebago Clean Waters, says, “That was significant because it was the first time Portland Water District formally recognized that the work that the land trusts were doing was important to protecting the water quality of Sebago Lake.

By 2013, PWD established a funding program to provide grants to conservation organizations working in the watershed. In 2015, The Nature Conservancy led an action plan for Crooked River, the largest tributary to Sebago Lake, which features valuable ecological habitat and is extremely important for water quality because it provides about 20% of the water that flows into the lake. That project involved a number of players including those who today are part of Sebago Clean Waters.

SCW officially formed in 2017 as a collaborative effort of organizations and a regional water utility (PWD) that combine their resources, expertise, and experience to increase the pace of forest conservation in the watershed. The coalition brings together different organizations for the purpose of sharing complementary skillsets and abilities, thus increasing the capacity and efficiency of all. The intention is that where smaller organizations like local land trusts and watershed associations vie for the same dollars, as a coalition they can compete at a much more national or even global scale for funding to align their efforts in targeted places selected using data and modeling—places where they can have a real impact on water quality.

Smaller groups such as the local land trusts and Lakes Environmental Association bring relationships and expertise of local communities to the table. Larger entities such as Portland Water District, Casco Bay Estuary Partnership, Highstead Foundation, Open Space Institute, The Nature Conservancy, and The Trust for Public Land provide increased technical capacity and help with garnering funds at that much larger scale. The goal of Sebago Clean Waters is to conserve 25 percent (35,000 more acres) of the Sebago Lake watershed in the next 15 years. To enable these conservation efforts, SCW plans to raise significant funding from public and private sources.

As a group, the coalition consists of three legs on a stool—science and conservation; communication; and financing; with techni-

cal expertise thrown in as an extra support. A Steering Committee guides the coalition and includes representatives from each of the organizations. They split the work between an executive committee, lands committee, communications committee, water fund committee, and equity team.

Using data sets that measure the impact of land on water quality, such as the geology of the soil, location of aquifers, slope of land, and combining that with biodiversity data such as wildlife habitat, locations of streams and wetlands, and climate resiliency helped provide an analysis that prioritized which parcels of land would contribute most to water quality. Says Hadley Couraud, “The intention has never been to protect every piece of land, but we do want to strategically select the most important lands for water quality as much as we can, aligned with community values.” In the end, though, the most important thing is what each landowner wants—the entire effort is voluntary.

Even though there are larger regional goals in mind, the strength of SCW is that the participants understand land conservation consistently leads with land trusts since they have relationships and understand the needs and values of the community. As Hadley explains, some people don’t think about conserving their property because either they’re not worried about legacy or they don’t need the additional tax break. In some instances, there are large parcels owned by multiple generations of timber harvesters who have never thought about conservation before and wouldn’t be interested in donating an easement or selling the property.

Let’s be honest, protecting cherished property can be financially and legally complicated. But, this is where the benefits of being part of SCW as a larger regional organization become apparent. Sebago Clean Waters has the capacity to raise funds, thus allowing the local land trusts to go to land owners and rather than ask for a land donation or sale of it, can instead offer to pay for the conservation easement. With an easement, you as the landowner continue to own the land, though it is protected from development in perpetuity, and you don’t have to use your money for any legal fees and paper work.

Recently, the group was awarded an $8 million grant from Natural Resources Conservation Services, which will leverage $10.5 million in a partner match. These monies will pay for the easements as mentioned above and help create improved forest management plans that include silviculture and climate resilience, as well as aquatic connectivity work, bridge or culvert work in various municipalities, aquatic invasive removal in Sebago Lake, and the launch of a forest carbon collaborative to get land trusts and conserved lands enrolled into carbon markets. This would mean owners of forested lands could be compensated for keeping it that way. So . . . how does one get the message out to those community members who live upstream, downstream, and on the lake? “For a long time,” Karen Young

“...protecting forests is incredibly important for so many different reasons: for water quality both in Sebago Lake and for downstream water users, but also in the water supplies in the upstream watershed.

The forests are resources for so many reasons, supporting traditional ways of living, for recreation, wildlife habitat, local economy, and as we’ve all realized due to the COVID pandemic, for our well-being.” says, “we thought there were two different messages to share with the folks who lived upstream and downstream. I actually think they are two parts of the same message, which is that protecting forests is incredibly important for so many different reasons: for water quality both in Sebago Lake and for downstream water users, but also in the water supplies in the upstream watershed. The forests are resources for so many reasons, supporting traditional ways of living, for recreation, wildlife habitat, local economy, and as we’ve all realized due to the COVID pandemic, for our well-being.”

Maggie Lynn, Loon Echo’s Development and Outreach Manager, adds, “Sometimes, what you lead with is different for downstream as well as upstream communities, but there’s also a third part of the audience, the Sebago Lake community. The upstream message is more about access, local water quality, and protecting these special places that people know and love, whereas downstream that’s all important but the people are not as connected to place even though they enjoy the spaces we protect.”

In a recent survey, Loon Echo discovered that their membership values water quality/ climate change and wildlife habitat, which is the foundation of the land trust’s work. As Hadley says, “This demonstrates a shift in public awareness of water quality threats and climate change so whether we are looking at downstream or upstream or lake impacts, both are happening as a result of us working on both at the same time.”

How can we help? Alanna Doughty, Educator and Milfoil Director at Lakes Environmental Association, offers this, “One of the best ways for involvement is to support local land trusts and LEA at the community level. If you care about the lake you live on or the land next to you, get involved with your local organizations because that is going to manifest the closest to home. By giving to them directly you are supporting land conservation and water quality testing. These organizations are not funding Sebago Clean Waters—in fact the reverse is true— but the staff and time capacity is growing as the need to establish and maintain more projects comes across the table and the coalition grows. On the other hand, if you live in or have a business in Portland, then you should support Sebago Clean Waters to help protect your water supply.”R

Here’s the easiest way to reach them: Loon Echo Land Trust: lelt.org Western Foothills Land Trust: wfltmaine.org Mahoosuc Land Trust: mahoosuc.org Lakes Environmental Association: mainelakes.org Sebago Clean Waters: sebagocleanwaters.org