Dear Friend:
I am thrilled to be able to introduce you to the Friends of the Cobbossee Watershed. Thrilled because, thanks to incredible support from our Board and many other community leaders, we have succeeded in creating a vital and growing community organization. Before I go further, I think it would be beneficial to give you some background on how we started and my personal interest in the Cobbossee Watershed.

Although I am a Pennsylvanian, I have been enjoying vacation time on Cobbosseecontee Lake since 1966. I began coming to the lake year-round with my parents and eventually bought my own camp on the lake. This area is very much “home” to me, as I know it is to many other non-resident camp owners.

Like many of you, I remember when Cobbossee’s water was clean and pure. I also remember when the water started to change to green and the weeds began to grow. Several years ago, I decided to quit complaining about the lake’s water quality and see what I could do to help. I started by contacting the Cobbossee Watershed District and learned about efforts made to improve our water quality since 1972. I also learned that our water quality problems were not just isolated to Cobbossee Lake, but, because all 28 lakes and streams of the Cobbossee Watershed are interconnected, were watershed-wide in scope.

Through the good work of the Cobbossee Watershed District, the Kennebec Valley Soil and Water Conservation District, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and others, we know what the problems are and we generally know how to go about combating them. But, to be successful in both protecting and improving our precious lakes and streams, we cannot depend solely on these organizations. That ‘s because this is not their problem – it’s our problem. And until we, as citizens, take ownership of water quality issues and take decisive action, the waters will not be saved.

You only need to study the cause of our water problems to understand that we can solve most of them ourselves. For example, many of the lakes and streams suffer from algae blooms – caused by phosphorous loading. We can begin to reverse this process by planting vegetative buffer zones on our shorefronts; by fixing shoreline erosion; and by properly maintaining our camp roads. Farmers can help by properly containing manure in covered and sealed manure pits.

The greatest threat facing us today is from invasive plant species that can completely take over, and render unusable a lake or stream. If we, as citizens, are diligent about inspecting and cleaning our boats prior to transporting them between waters, we can help prevent the spread of these deadly lake killers.

Governmental and quasi-governmental organizations I mentioned above have neither the financial nor the human resources to tackle all of the issues themselves. We only would be asking for increased taxes and bureaucracy (such as closing boat access ramps) if we require the government to do it all – but we don’t have to. We have our own army to mobilize - us!

(There are problems the government must tackle, such as specific point source pollution, public road maintenance, land use enforcement, etc. The Friends leaves those tasks to these agencies and others.)

The Friends of the Cobbossee Watershed was created to protect and improve the 28 lakes and streams of our watershed by mobilizing us to take matters into our own hands. We come from all walks of life: Shorefront owners and those who are not, sportsmen, business owners, nature lovers and boaters. What we have in common is a love for this region, the quality of life it affords, an interest in its economic vitality and the desire to make it better for the next generation.

These issues affect all the residents of this area. Business owners rely on the spending of vacationers and sportsmen. Non-shorefront owners would pay higher taxes if the value of shorefront property declined. Shorefront owners themselves, well, that goes without saying.

In closing, I want to thank you for taking an interest in the important work of the Friends of the Cobbossee Watershed and I hope you will take the next step by becoming active in helping us to Save Our Shed.

Sincerely,

Jay Snider
President