2020.06.22 Council Agenda Item 6

The Highland Lake Leadership Team (HLLT), established in 2018, is a partnership between the Town of Windham, Town of Falmouth, the Highland Lake Association, as well as other stakeholders. The team was created to improve and maintain the water quality of Highland Lake for the benefit of the residents, the Towns and future generations. The HLLT’s recent efforts have focused on the bacteria bloom Highland Lake is experiencing as well as overall degraded water quality.

The Highland Lake Leadership Team (HLLT), has overseen the creation of an updated watershed management plan that provides a strategy and schedule for reducing phosphorus loading to the Lake in the next ten years. The HLLT is seeking support from the Town Councils in Falmouth and Windham to support the plan via a resolution. The resolution would include the following as support of the plan: The Town of Falmouth supports the 2020-2030 Highland Watershed-Based Management Plan and delegates the Highland Lake Leadership Team to oversee the implementation of the action items within. The Plan is adopted as a guidance document to be consulted and implemented by the Town to the extent that such implementation is consistent with, and supportive of, Town assets, actions, programs, ordinances, policies, and procedures, and to the extent that implementation actions may be approved by the Town on a case-by-case basis.

Town Council support of the Plan would give clear guidance to HLLT and staff that this is an important effort that will require future volunteer, staff and financial resources. 

One of our partners, Cumberland County Soil and Water Conservation District (CCSWCD), has acted as our technical consultant in the drafting of the Plan. Heather Huntt, CCSWCD Project Manager submitted the following overview of the project. 

Management Plan
CCSWCD wrote and completed the 2020-2030 Highland Lake Watershed-Based Management Plan in March of this year. It has been approved by the DEP and EPA and adopted by HLLT who will take the lead in seeing it implemented. It includes action items for the next 10 years broken into three phases. The goal is to implement these actions to reduce the amount of phosphorus washing into Highland Lake while simultaneously continuing to explore the cause(s) of the picocyanobacterial blooms and possible future ways to reduce their occurrence. Phosphorus reduction is key as it affects water quality (can lead to lower water clarity and dissolved oxygen) and is an energy source to algae and picocyanobacteria.  

Implementation “319” Grant Proposal (an action item of the Plan)
Following the Management Plan’s action items, a proposal for EPA Section 319 Clean Water Act grant funds administered by Maine DEP was submitted by CCSWCD through the HLLT on 5/15 for the Highland Lake Protection Project, Phase IV. The proposal is requesting $102K in federal funds and focuses on addressing water quality impacts from private roads and horse farms in the watershed. We hope to hear by August if it has been funded.

Additional Action Items for 2020
While HLLT waits to hear if the 319 grant proposal is accepted, a few additional Management Plan action items are hoped to be pursued this year. These include: 
•    Completing an Education and Outreach Plan to encourage watershed residents to decrease phosphorus loading into the lake,
•    Conducting private road workshops to encourage the formation of road associations and discuss maintenance incentives, and 
•    Continuing investigative water quality monitoring to record phosphorus levels and potential picocyanobacterial bloom causes. 

The management plan and resolution are attached.