Chocorua Lake Conservancy and Green Mountain Conservation Group have partnered to present “Rain Gardens, Barrels & Buffers: How We're Protecting Lakes & Rivers—and You Can Too!” Please join us via Zoom meeting on Tuesday, September 29, 7PM Eastern Time. Register for the Zoom meeting here.

GMCG and CLC will share their recent initiatives to promote Best Management Practices (BMPs) and protect water quality in lakes, rivers, and streams. BMPs protect water resources through the reduction of pollutant loads and storm water run-off using structural designs such as rain gardens, vegetated buffers, drainage ditches, swales, retention walls, and basins.  BMPs also include proper septic system maintenance, and being mindful about what goes into the ground in developed areas.

For the past two years GMCG has been working with private residents and businesses around Ossipee Lake to build structural BMPs to capture and infiltrate storm water runoff, a major contributor to nutrient loading causing algal and cyanobacteria blooms. Funding for this project is provided in part by a Watershed Assistance Grant from the NH DES with Clean Water Act Section 319 funds from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. GMCG Outreach Coordinator Moselle Spiller will share photos and video from recent installations around Ossipee Lake including rain gardens, water bars, vegetated buffers, and rain barrels.

CLC has installed berms and swales next to Chocorua Lake designed to protect the water body from the impact of the heavy traffic on Route 16. CLC will share video footage of the BMP currently in practice at Chocorua Lake and background on how and why the project was conceived. Special guest Robert Craycraft (Lakes Monitoring Program Coordinator at UNH Cooperative Extension), will join the meeting to offer scientific insight into how BMPs work and offer a Q&A session with attendees.  

Everyone has the power to make a difference and help protect our shared water resources. Learn about how you as a resident of the watershed can make simple lifestyle changes and do-it-yourself improvements to your property and land that will have a positive impact on the environment. 

GMCG’s motto is “Healthy Waters, Healthy Communities.” Since 1997 GMCG has worked to protect shared natural resources through research, education, advocacy and land conservation. 

The Chocorua Lake Conservancy (CLC) is a volunteer-led, nonprofit land trust founded in 1968. The mission of the Chocorua Lake Conservancy is to protect the scenic and natural resources of the Chocorua Lake Basin and surrounding area through conservation practices, land protection, easements, maintenance of lands for public access, and the development of a community of support.

Register for the Zoom meeting here: https://bit.ly/2Do7WJi

Banner: Volunteers at Camp Marist in Effingham built a dry well this August with an inner rain garden designed to intercept and infiltrate storm water runoff before it hits the beach area on Ossipee Lake. Photo: Vinny Gschlecht