As part of its effort to improve communications with members and the lake community, the Lake Wentworth Foundation unveiled a redesigned web site.  The new site — located at lakewentworth.org — is more informative, easier to use, and offers a more attractive look.  It includes information about the Foundation’s mission, its property holdings, and its most recent project, the Lake Wentworth/Crescent Lake Watershed Plan.

The site features a link to a live web cam on Lake Wentworth and links to other lake and conservation-related resources.

The website was developed by Online Creative Group of Wolfeboro.

The Lake Wentworth Foundation recently adopted a revised Land Acquisition and Management Policy, replacing one that was developed more than a decade ago.  The new policy provides clear criteria to guide trustees in making decisions to acquire or protect parcels with conservation easements.

Through land acquisition and conservation efforts, the Foundation seeks to protect water quality within the Lake Wentworth/Crescent Lake watershed, preserve open space, protect natural habitat of wildlife or plants, preserve or enhance the viewshed, and preserve natural areas for passive outdoor recreation and scenic enjoyment by the general public.

Property can be protected in a number of ways: through acquiring conservation easements, by accepting donations of parcels, through outright purchase or by securing back-up easements in partnership with other conservation organizations.

While the Foundation will seek donations of land and conservation easements as the principal means of land and water quality protection, in appropriate circumstances, the Foundation may agree to purchase land or conservation easements through targeted fundraising and/or use of available funds.

Click to view the complete Land Acquisition and Management Policy.

NOTE: The following article summarizes a report on the 2011 septic and stormwater surveys prepared by the consulting firm Forrest Bell Environmental for the Steering Committee of the Lake Wentworth/Crescent Lake Watershed Management Plan. A full copy of the consultants’ report, complete with photos, is available on this web site at: http://lakewentworthfoundation.org/dir-plan/resources

As the summer of 2011 neared its end, a score of dedicated Lake Wentworth Association shore representatives fanned out along the camp roads distributing notices of an upcoming survey that would invite property owners around Lake Wentworth and Crescent Lake to share information about their homes – all this in the interest of supporting the development of a management plan for the watershed that surrounds both lakes.

In the weeks that followed the notification, those same shore reps revisited their neighbors, this time accompanied by environmental consultants gathering data about the location and age of residential septic systems. With the owner’s permission, the consultants also evaluated each property for signs of erosion and other damaging effects from runoff into the nearby lake or stream.

Threats to the water quality of the two lakes had been previously identified in a diagnostic study undertaken by NH Department of Environmental Services (DES) in 1999, and the study had recommended that a sanitary survey be conducted in order to better understand the role that septic systems may have in determining the water quality of the lakes.

That understanding is important because a failing septic system can be detrimental to human health, aquatic life, and water resources. Septic system effluent typically stores a thousand times the concentration of phosphorus typically found in lake waters, which means that even a small amount of effluent can have a major impact on nearby waters.

In addition, an outdated or improperly maintained septic system can result in the delivery of disease-causing bacteria and nutrients to nearby water bodies, causing gastro-intestinal illness in swimmers or severe ecosystem dysfunction for fish and wildlife. Untreated septic waste can also contain chemicals and hormones used in pharmaceutical and personal care products, which can have severe impacts on aquatic life.

Now, a dozen years after the diagnostic study, the Lake Wentworth Foundation has partnered with the Town of Wolfeboro, DES, and the University of New Hampshire to develop a management plan for the entire Lake Wentworth/Crescent Lake watershed. When completed sometime in the fall of this year, the plan will have identified current and potential threats to the surface waters that feed and make up the two lakes. The hope is that, in subsequent years, funding will be found to begin chipping away at the sources of the nutrients that are slowly undermining the health of the lakes and their tributaries.

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