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Narration: IN MANY DENSELY POPULATED AREAS,
LIKE THE LONG CREEK WATERSHED IN SOUTHERN MAINE,
STREAMS CAN BE POLLUTED BY STORMWATER RUNOFF
FROM IMPERVIOUS SURFACES, LIKE ROOFS, PAVEMENT, AND SIDEWALKS.
Tom Blake: For decades the community of South Portland
had an annual fishing derby at Clark's pond
which Long Creek feeds into.
But in the late '60s and early '70s the fish went away
because of all the development in the area.
Don Witherill: It was actually back in the 1980's
that I first visited that watershed.
We saw a lot of impacts from the acres of parking and roads
and everything that you would expect in
an urban environment
which really had very significant
impacts on the water quality.
Narration: MAINE DEP IDENTIFIED LONG CREEK
AS AN URBAN IMPAIRED WATERSHED,
YET MANY OF THE DEVELOPED PROPERTIES
WERE NOT REQUIRED TO MANAGE STORMWATER RUNOFF.
Ann Gosline: Landowners in the Long Creek watershed
didn't know they were in a watershed,
didn't know there was a creek running through
the land area,
didn't know there was a water quality problem.
Don: That was the challenge, was to get everybody
to come to the table and understand the problem
and then say 'yes, we have to work together to fix it',
we encouraged them to come up with a plan
or a structure for implementing that plan that we could buy into.
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Narration: TO ADDRESS THE WATER QUALITY PROBLEMS
THE U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
USED ITS RESIDUAL DESIGNATION AUTHORITY
TO REQUIRE STORMWATER PERMITS FOR THE SOURCES
OF THE POTENTIAL POLLUTION IN THE WATERSHED.
Bill Walsh-Rogalski: Conservation Law Foundation
provided us with data that showed that certain kinds
of sources were causing problems in Long Creek.
The certain kinds of sources they identified were
large impervious areas.
Ann: The city of South Portland knew
it was likely that the Conservation Law Foundation
would be filing a legal petition requiring
special action in the Long Creek watershed.
Narration: WITH GUIDANCE FROM MAINE DEP
AND FUNDING FROM EPA,
THE LANDOWNERS IN THE WATERSHED BEGAN WORKING TOGETHER
TO DEVELOP A WATERSHED MANAGEMENT PLAN
Tom: With so many different players, there are
differences of opinion, how to get there, exactly what to do.
But when everybody has the same goal of creating
a watershed that is drinkable, swimmable and fishable
it's hard to argue against that.
Narration: ONCE THE GOAL WAS SET, THE NEXT CHALLENGE
WAS FUNDING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PLAN.
Curtis Bohlen: The crazy idea was to build
an institution that used permit obligations
and allowed people to get a general permit
which is much less regulatory oversight,
to use that as a funding mechanism
to do the work on behalf of all the businesses
as well as the other landowners like the towns
and the road organizations.
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Tamara Lee Pinard: The four municipalities
worked collaboratively to enter into an
inter-local agreement to establish
the Long Creek Watershed Management District.
We wanted a structure that would allow both
public and private representation on the governing board
because both public and private entities own
the impervious surface in this watershed.
Anybody who has over 1 acre or more of impervious surface,
they need to get a permit.
So, we have 127 designated parcels and we ended up
with 97% participation and the landowners range in size
size from just over an acre to right up to 66 acres
of impervious surface.
And so how that worked out is $3,000
per impervious acre per year for a 10 year time frame.
And that $3000 is broken down to support
construction and maintenance, and that's
actual structures, retrofits of impervious surface
to treat that area before it reaches the stream;
do stream restoration projects; and good housekeeping
pollution prevention which is vacuum sweeping
of all the properties and streets throughout the watershed.
Ann: As the idea evolved, it became very clear to
landowners that participating in this project would be
much more cost effective for them and would be
better for the environment.
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Narration: THE CUMBERLAND COUNTY SOIL AND WATER
CONSERVATION DISTRICT COORDINATES THE IMPLEMENTATION OF
THE WATERSHED PLAN. SEVERAL PROJECTS, INCLUDING ONE
TREATMENT FACILITY THAT SERVES SEVERAL LANDOWNERS AND
THE TRANSFORMATION OF AN EXISTING DETENTION BASIN INTO A
GRAVEL WETLAND, HAVE ALREADY BEEN COMPLETED.
HABITAT RESTORATION IS ALSO UNDERWAY.
Chris Baldwin: So what we've done is come back
and tried to restore that original, as best we can
in a commercial setting, that original stream setting.
And that involved first installing boulders, root wads,
other things like that, creating some new meanders...
and the second part of it was a huge riparian or
bank side planting where we brought in over
1000 perennials, bushes and trees.
And in this way we'll providing a lot of shade
to this section of the stream, and a lot of future habitat
for different bugs and fish and
whatever else might come up the stream.
Matt TenEyck: We expanded our buffer zones
on this hole because it's the leading edge of Long Creek.
This used to be matted down and you could walk
right up and see the creek from here,
now you can't see it any longer.
Everything is growing up; all the vegetation is working very well.
You let it grow as big as it can and it's actually
soaking up everything, slowing it down
and shading the creek.
Ed Palmer: I've learned quite a bit,
the natural occurring things,
I always thought that a stream should go as fast
it could to get to a large body of water.
I've learned that slowing it down, cooling it off,
shading it, is very important to the environment.
Tamara: And we do collaborative monitoring
of the entire watershed.
So we're not, again, doing individual parcels,
we're instead, doing the stream itself
and looking at the health of the stream.
One area of the watershed where we're
seeing improvements is Blanchette Brook.
It was pretty exciting to see that after one year.
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Ann: One of the things we learned is it's really
important to bring people together early.
People from very different perspectives
came together with a really positive attitude,
a community building attitude and they came up
with a creative model that no one had thought
of at the beginning.
Curtis: This is a national problem and what makes this
project meaningful beyond the boundaries of the
Long Creek Watershed is that it is an opportunity for us
to try out methods for solving what are problems
that are repeated in literally thousands
of watersheds around the country.
Tom: It took 40 years to damage it,
and we have to have patience.
But by working together, sticking to the plan,
constantly modifying and adapting that plan,
we will eventually get to the end.
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