Sand & Locke Pond Association Newsletter
August, 2005
The annual meeting of the Sand & Locke pond association was held at Arthur Ridley’s home on Saturday, July 23rd. The meeting was well attended by a good group of seasonal and year round residents. Noticeably absent was Ellie Hopkins who was attending a “Cleaner Lakes” seminar that day, I look forward to talking with her further regarding information she learned that day that I can pass on.
Officers for 2005 remained almost unchanged from 2004, Dennis Jepson will stay on as president, Chris Morris will stay on as road commissioner and treasurer, but after a several year run, Dick Hoelz is retiring, and despite being renominated for Secretary by me, John Lanoue, somehow I managed to get this gig.
Roads
As is usually the case, the primary topic of discussion was the condition & maintenance plan for the road. At times the discussion was ‘spirited’, but the primary message to come out of this is that Chris and Dennis are not tuned in to the day to day resident chattering about the deteriorating condition of this culvert, or that pothole. They need to be contacted by phone or in person, see the end of this letter for phones and addresses. Dennis and Chris are currently making a list of culverts that are in need of repair, as Chris pointed out, we need to repair any damaged culverts before filling and grading the road. Also, Chris noted that much of the needed work has not been done because aaa. The current plan for the road is to have any culvert work done by bbb and subsequently bring in 10 loads of fill and have ccc grade the road. Also discussed was the winter plowing of the road, while unbeknownst to Chris, Mike Jakes has been plowing the Sand pond portion of the road for free, Chris has been plowing the Locke pond portion from ITS 82 trail northward. It was also agreed that we should keep our speeds at 20mph or below, Kim Jakes will make signs to post on the roads.
Dues
Association dues for 2005 are the same as last year, $75 for seasonal residents and $150 for year round residents. It was brought up that between 30-40% of residents and landowners do not pay their dues, while once again the discussion turned ‘spirited’ about how to handle this, the bottom line is that if you can not pay for financial reasons, please contact Dennis about working out a work plan, an afternoon or two of work on the road helps immensely. If you can afford dues and still don’t feel like paying or working, then please keep in mind all your doing is making everyone else’s dues higher.
Speaking of road work, it was agreed that we will have at least two road work parties sponsored by Dennis, one to the the third Saturday in October and the other to be the third Saturday in June. More on this in a future mailing. Dennis reported that we currently have about $2900 in the association bank account, most of this will be used on road repair.
Environmental Report
Turning our attention to the condition of the lake. Unfortunately, there was no phosphate testing done of the lake last year, so we don’t have much to report on that front. We did have an algae ‘situation’ that developed the first two weeks of September. I took a photo of the water from the end of my dock, it can be viewed at http://www.oocities.org/john_lanoue/algae.html. I showed this photo to Ellie Hopkins who showed it to a friend from VLMA who identified at it as mega-phyton. This is not the algae typically associated with an algae bloom, so it’s hard to say if it was even a problem or not. More to come as we learn more about it. It was agreed that we will have a single mid-August Phosphate test to measure both lakes levels of phosphates. Phosphates are the single biggest contributor to unhealthy lakes. Phosphates are the result of both natural and man-made runoff of organics into the lake. Examples of natural phosphates are animal waste and decomposing trees & leaves. Examples of man-made (point source) phosphates are leaky septics, soaps, oils, fertilizer & farm animal waste. Phosphates, far and away, are the single biggest contributor to unhealthy lakes. Once a lake is overrun with phosphates, it essentially becomes swampland. The biggest difference between an eyesore of a lake like what China lake was 10 years ago and Rangeley, is its phosphate count. What can we do? AVOID RUNOFF! If you have good healthy vegetation at your shoreline, leave it there, that vegetation soaks up the phosphates in run-off water like a sponge. Areas devoid of vegetation just allow the rainwater to carry these phosphates into the lake. The good news is that we don’t appear to have a serious problem, but certainly worth monitoring. Ellie performed a secchi disk test to measure water clarity and found transparency to be at 5.1meters, even better than last year. One area of concern were several dozen dead fry found in Sand Pond, Jim eee reported 30 or so dead fry washed up on shore. Most likely this is the result of an oxygen depletion situation, but will be monitored closely.
Loon news
Locke pond has been overrun by transient loons! At one point 14 were counted, but in mid-August, we appear to be down to a mere 11. However, no nesting pairs to be found. I know other lakes were reporting this as well and the high waters of Mays floods have been blamed for wiping out many of the familiar nesting spots. Sand pond has ddd.
Yours truly,
John Lanoue Dennis Jepson Chris Morris
Secretary President Treasurer, Road Commish
22 Middleton Dr, East Shore Dr East Shore Dr
Bedford, NH 03110 Chesterville, ME 04953 Chesterville, ME 04953
(603) 557-0856 (207) fff (207) ggg