RANGELEY PLANTATION – They say “an ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure.”
In March, the residents of Rangeley Plantation demonstrated the wisdom of this age-old saying when they voted unanimously to support Rangeley Lake Heritage Trust’s Headwaters Lake Protection Program and its request for funds.
This critically important program is the first line of defense in the effort to protect our local lakes and ponds. It utilizes several paid staff and 65+ volunteers who monitor water quality on over 12 lakes and ponds, teach boaters how to inspect their watercraft and trailers, and patrol shorelines for invasive plants such as Hydrilla.
At the plantation’s annual meeting, Joanne Dunlop made a motion to provide full funding for the program. Gordon Wright followed up with powerful testimony about the economic and environmental devastation that invasive aquatic plants caused on his one his favorite New York lakes.
Rebecca Kurtz, the director of the headwaters program said: “Tonight I am not going to talk to you about plants or algae, I am going to talk to you about economics, pure and simple. We can spend a little bit now to protect our lakes or spend a huge amount later, with little if any success.”
According to Kurtz, preventing the spread of invasive plants and the introduction of pollutants that cause algae blooms protects local jobs, real estate values and businesses as well as the lakes. And through the RLHT’s program, prevention costs local residents as little as $5 each per year. Trying to manage invasive plants or reduce algal blooms is futile and can cost up to 1,000 times more.
RLHT provides free educational workshops, works with local lake associations, and coordinates the monitoring, inspection and patrol activities of its staff and 65+ volunteers. A workshop schedule will be on our website (www.rlht.org) by the end of April. If you would like to learn more about Headwaters or volunteer to protect our treasured lakes and ponds, please contact Rebecca Kurtz at 864-7311 x 5 or rkurtz@rlht.org
Invasive aquatic plants are bad but there is a native aquatic plant called “Bladderwort” that is also choking the local ponds and the State of Maine prohibits any action to combat it. The attitude in the State D.E.P. is that your property values can be destroyed, you can loose the recreational value of your waterfront home as long as it is a home grown native doing it. There are several treatments that are certified in other environmentally conscious states that are prohibited for use in Maine as well as sterile Carp that are also used to combat it but are also prohibited in Maine.
I’m not advocating pouring used motor oil on marshy areas to kill mosquito larvae but there has to be a compromise by the DEP to help the local property owners, especially in this bad economy to protect their investment and bring some economic life to this corpse.