Lake Sunapee Protective Association


Devoted to the Environmental Quality of the
Lake Sunapee Watershed
Greetings!

Thank you to everyone who attended the Area Lake meeting on April 4th. We had a great turnout--a total of 12 lakes and ponds were represented, along with Sara Steiner, VLAP Coordinator at NHDES, and several LSPA Board members as well! We enjoyed some wonderful discussions and hope the dialogue will continue in the future. For those who missed it (or if you didn’t take notes), a short summary from the meeting is included below along with links to the presentations.
Summary of Sunapee Cyano Summit – June Fichter, LSPA Executive Director

LSPA hosted a 2-day meeting in March with scientists from the US and Europe to discuss cyano blooms and related issues, as well as, potential management options. All lakes have cyanobacteria but we are trying to understand why there has been an increase in blooms (in Lake Sunapee) over the last few years. Lake Sunapee has a specific type of cyanobacteria called Gloeotrichia that lives in the sediment and is released as temperature and light increase. While there are natural sources of phosphorus, an increase in the amount of phosphorus entering the lake exacerbates the issue. Careful management is very important, but you can't just treat the symptom and not the source. LSPA is currently updating its watershed management plan which is focusing on reducing phosphorus loading into the lake (see below for more info). LSPA is planning to increase the number of water samples collected in 2019, set up (additional) weather stations around the lake, do some sediment sampling and learn more about the food web in and around the lake. 

Click here to view June's presentation.
Update on Lake Sunapee Watershed Management Plan (WMP) – Geoff Lizotte, LSPA Watershed Steward/GIS Specialist

LSPA received funding as part of EPA’s 319 grant, administered through NHDES. The existing plan does not meet all of the requirements required by EPA for a watershed plan so it needed to be updated.  The updated plan will also allow LSPA to apply for future grant funding to implement the plan.  The 2020 plan will include more reasonable and achievable action items to be addressed over the next 10 years. As part of the plan, a water quality goal needs to be established, a build-out analysis will be conducted, and boundaries of subwatersheds will be redefined using LiDAR (light waves) which provides greater resolution of the landscape. Green infrastructure may be used to address stormwater control issues and ongoing outreach will help educate homeowners and local and state officials.

There is still funding available for 2019 so other lakes are encouraged to apply if the watershed management plan needs to be updated (must comply with the 9 elements from the EPA to get funding).

Click here to view Geoff's presentation.

Messer Pond Watershed Management Plan - John Doyle, President, Messer Pond Protective Association

In 2012, Messer Pond was designated by the state of NH as an impaired waterbody. Following recommendations from NHDES, the Messer Pond Protective Association (MPPA) created a watershed management plan which was submitted to the state and accepted in March 2016. Similar to LSPA’s watershed management plan, the main goal of the Messer Pond WMP was to reduce phosphorus loading. After conversations with the town of New London, MPPA decided to focus on the western part of the watershed. They selected five recommendations from the plan and applied for a 319 Grant to fund this effort. The grant was awarded in July 2017. A few take away messages from creating a watershed plan and applying for funding include:

  • Need to partner with town boards and DPW
  • It is a long process (so you need committed people)
  • There’s a lot of paperwork and procedures to follow

One discussion that arose from this conversation—the need for developing sampling techniques/procedures that will verify the effectiveness of the projects that have been implemented. Another topic was the impact of motorized craft on shallow lakes and ponds—and the impact they have on stirring up the sediment – which potentially leads to more phosphorus
being released into the pond .

Follow-up on Salting Study - Tracey Lesser, Professor of Chemistry, NHTI

Five students from NHTI looked at data sets from waterbodies along the I-89 corridor in the Dartmouth/Sunapee region, including Stocker Pond (Grantham), Eastman Pond (Grantham), Messer Pond (New London), Otter Pond (Georges Mills), Baptist Pond (Springfield), and Mascoma Lake (2 in-lake sites; Enfield/Lebanon). The general trend shows that chloride levels are increasing in all of the waterbodies sampled.  Eastman Pond had the most dramatic increase of 365% from 1987-2017. In all cases, except Mascoma, they found that chloride levels were highest at the inputs (downstream of culverts and tributaries), but lower from in-lake samples. The source of the increasing salt load is most likely from road salt, but septic systems may also be contributing. 

Future recommendations include sampling from ice out to ice in each year, analyzing culverts and in-lake measurements separately, and looking at well data to see if salt can be correlated with surface water levels. Lastly, it would be great to continue this partnership between NHTI and local lakes to review more data or collect new data from other local lakes.

Click here to view Tracey's presentation.

Roundtable Discussion: Reports from Other Lakes - all

  • Todd Lake has had cyano blooms for the last 2 years, including Euglena (green scum) coming from the west side of the lake (per email from Steve Snyder)
  • Kolelemook has implemented some “low salt” areas on Route 114 & Four Corners Rd—they have already seen some improvements
  • DOT needs to be contacted about these “low salt” zones
  • Members from a lake association in southern NH attended the Green Sno Pro workshop so they would be more educated/have more information when talking to DOT and the town (the workshop is not just for road agents)
  • LSPA now has a chloride probe which will give more information on chloride ions. At a cost of only $5 per sample, we encourage lake associations to use it.
Septic Systems - Susie Burbidge, LSPA Water Steward & Program Coordinator

As part of LSPA’s WMP we need to develop the methodology for a septic system survey. After researching other plans for ideas related to surveys and outreach, we also wanted to find out what information is already available. The New London assessors office provided lists of waterfront properties in the three towns around Lake Sunapee, which included properties in the Lake Sunapee watershed, not just on Lake Sunapee itself. A visit to the Springfield Town Office yielded information on the properties in Springfield on Baptist Pond and Dutchman Pond. Using addresses, names &/or map/lot number, the NHDES subsurface database was searched to find the approval date (date the application and plan was approved) and the operational approval date (approval date from field inspector). 

After this initial search, we found that approximately 46% of the properties are missing data. Before 1986, all of the records are in paper format, but after that date it's a mix between paper and electronic records. Archive requests can be made to locate missing data but only one property request can be submitted at a time. There is also a 2-week turnaround time so tracking down information on 300+ properties will take a while.
Other interesting ideas that arose from our research related to septic system maintenance, education, etc, included:
  • Hosting “septic socials”
  • Offering incentives for pumping tanks or work with local companies to offer group discounts
  • Providing list of septic service providers to homeowners (maybe a magnet or something like that)
  • Distributing info on septic systems with tax bills
  • Entering names of people who complete survey in a raffle for a gift card to a local restaurant
EPA hosts a “SepticSmart” week in September so LSPA is hoping to do some septic outreach that week too.

Septic systems are a real concern and it's an issue that all lake associations should be thinking about!

Thanks again to everyone who came to the meeting!

Stay in touch,

June, Geoff & Susie
Lake Sunapee Protective Association
63 Main Street
Sunapee, NH 03782