Collins Pond West Side Road Association Meeting, June 11, 2022 Windham Public Library, 217 Windham Center Rd, Windham, ME Agendas and proxies have been emailed or mailed to members. Important: Town of Windham is requiring residents of all private roads by a 2/3 vote to continue winter maintenance. A directed proxy of approval was included in the mailing. You are encouraged to attend but if unable to would you please return a signed proxy to an officer or board member. In addition, we are soliciting for the open position of Secretary/Clerk. If the position remains unfilled it will be necessary to contract the position thus decreasing the amount available for road improvements.

Collins Pond Improvement Association Annual Meeting June 25, 2022, 9:00am at Sherry Andre’s Residence, 5 Wedgewood Drive, Windham ME. Directions: off of 115, turn onto Running Brook Road; follow up and around end of Collins Pond. Take right at top of hill onto Collinwood Circle. Go to to end of road. Wedgewood Drive is on right- go straight down and it is the red/brown house, #5 on right at bottom of road. Paddle Directions: dark red/brown house with lots of windows with all white railings on the eastern side of the pond – straight across from Emerson/Fern beach and to the left of the little cove

Agenda

• Convene & Introductions
• Secretary’s & Treasurer’s Reports
• Grants & Other Funding
• Dash Boat/Milfoil Control Efforts
• Pond Donations
• Dam Report
• New Business
• Election of Officers & Board

Town Meeting On Thursday, May 19, 2022 to learn more about the June 14, 2022 Referendum vote on the North Windham Sewer Project.

https://www.windhammaine.us/Calendar.aspx?EID=6058

Two crews from New England Milfoil will be on Collins Pond again this year helping to control the infestation of Hybrid Variable Leaf Milfoil. These crews are currently on the lake working from July 5th through July 15th. The Collins Pond Improvement Association has been working since 2006 to reduce the spread of this non-native, invasive plant in our lake. With the help of grants from a variety of sources including the Maine DEP and the Town of Windham we have been able to hire New England Milfoil crews for the 8th year to augment the work our own volunteer DASH boat crew is able to accomplish. Hand-pulling these plants is slow work and must be done each year. Eventually it is hoped that enough of the large concentrations of plants will be removed that less maintenance will be required.

One of the most frequently asked questions posed of biologists in the Lake Assessment Section of Maine DEP, is what makes an inland body of freshwater a lake or a pond? About half of the 6,000 lakes and ponds that have been assigned a state identification number have been named, many having two or three names. At least thirty have one name with the word lake in it and the other with the word pond. For example, Bryant Pond is also known as Lake Christopher and Dexter Pond sports the name Wassookeag Lake! It is often these dual names that make folks wonder exactly where do we draw the line in Maine?

One classic distinction is that sunlight penetrates to the bottom of all areas of a pond in contrast to lakes, which have deep waters that receive no sunlight at all. Another is that ponds generally have small surface areas and lakes have large surfaces. So a combination of surface area and depth are considered from a technical perspective. 

Some of our waters are definitely lakes – they are both large and deep – indisputably lakes. Others are ponds – small and shallow. And there is a transition between the two where the definition becomes fuzzy. If we held to the depth distinction, some ponds would become lakes mid-summer when algal populations limit light penetration to the bottom. The surface area distinction makes no sense for seven-acre waters that are 50 feet deep (like Maine’s kettle ponds), or for 400-acre waters that have emergent vegetation across their entire surface. 

So to answer the question above: no definitive line exists between lakes and ponds. The one distinction that has any legal application is the designation of a water as a Great Pond. Maine state statues define lakes and ponds greater than ten acres in size as Great Ponds. If an impounded water is greater than thirty acres in size it is also legally considered a Great Pond; impounded waters less than thirty acres that were greater than ten acres before dammed are also Great Ponds. 

Thus there is no exact technical distinction between lakes and ponds. All lakes and ponds provide critical habitat for other living creatures – aquatic macroinvertebrates, plankton, fish, wildlife and vegetation – and all need protection, so that clean fresh water continues to be one of Maine’s premier natural resources.

Information provided by Linda Bacon at the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

Posted on: March 16, 2021

Local Rabies Case

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention has recently identified a of a case of animal rabies in a fox in Windham.  If you have any questions, please contact Maine CDC, Division of Disease Surveillance at 1-800-821-5821.   If you see a stray domestic or wild animal acting strangely please reach out to our Animal Control Officer, Jacqueline Frye, at 892-2525.

I would like to publicly thank Rodger Patterson for all the amazing work he has done this year as well as years past seeking out grants to help us in our mission in the control/eradication of invasive species in our Pond.

Please click here to read Rodger’s final report for our Windham Watershed Protection Grant.

I wish you all a very safe and Happy Holiday

Cheryl Rawson, CPIA President

Windham Open Space Master Draft Plan is now available to view. Please see the link below.

https://www.windhamopenspace.com/open-space-plan-1st-draft

August 25, 2020

I just got done paddling the lake with Karen Hahnel. Karen is one of our contacts with the Invasive Aquatics Plants Division of the Maine DEP. She tries to stop out once a year to check in on our progress with the Milfoil mitigation. We spent time surveying all around the lake. She pointed out several native plants that grow to the surface such as Bladderwort and Water Marigold. These may be mistaken as an invasive due to their dense growths and sometimes floating plants.

We talked about the excessive amounts of Eel Grass and Water Celery that is a common complaint this year. This is being seen in other lakes as well. Anything can dislodge the grass or it can be a natural occurrence. The DASH boat has only worked when we have surface support to corral the plants that get away from the diver. I am sure we don’t get them all but we aren’t responsible for the large amounts of grass floating up on everyone’s shorelines. Karen mentioned that the ducks like to eat these various grasses and probably contribute some to the floating plants.

Karen also mentioned that the loss of water clarity which I have noticed diving is also being seen elsewhere due to the heat and lack of rain which seem to encourage algae growth. We see algae each summer but it is a little worse this year. I don’t know what the secchi disk readings have been, I only know what I see, or can’t see as well, when diving. Less water flow through the lake contributes to this lack of clarity.

As far as a report from the DEP, this is just a casual paddle each year to see how things are progressing. Karen was happy to see that we continue to work at this project each year. The funding is stable this year. Recent news articles have said that boat sales are up this summer so hopefully that means boat registrations are also up. Those fees are what support this grant program. Karen took a few samples of plants with her. The invasive plant we have was identified years ago as Hybrid Variable Leaf Milfoil. We haven’t noticed a flowering part above the water previously but she took a sample of one with this part of the plant called a Bract. We didn’t notice any other troublesome plants, though. The milfoil we remove is a reddish plant but the other natives are generally green with a different appearance.