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Do you live, work, or recreate in the towns of Kennebunk, Kennebunkport, Arundel, or Lyman? We are seeking your input to improve the water quality of the Kennebunk River Watershed! The watershed consists of all the land that will drain water into the Kennebunk River or its tributaries. Activities, land use, and development that occur within this area will affect the water quality of the river. Currently the Kennebunk River does not meet State of Maine water quality standards. To address this issue, the York County Soil and Water Conservation District (YCSWCD), in partnership with Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve (WNERR), FB Environmental, and other community and municipal organizations, are creating a watershed-based plan to identify current problems within the watershed and provide long-term strategies to address these issues.
As a crucial step in developing this watershed-based plan for the Kennebunk River, project partners are seeking input from the public to share what they believe to be the most important water quality issues in their communities. An interactive story map presentation has been created to showcase the results of surveys and monitoring that have already been completed in the watershed and is available at https://bit.ly/33AwnOc. Please provide your feedback by reading through this story map and completing a brief survey to identify which issues you believe to be critical in your community and what actions you want to see taken to address these water quality issues in the future. Priorities identified by members of the watershed communities will be incorporated into the final watershed-based management plan.
Online public input sessions will also be held to allow for more in-depth discussions of community specific watershed issues. Three sessions will be held via Zoom on the following dates:
- Lyman: August 25th 7-8pm
- Arundel: August 27th 7-8pm
- Kennebunk/Kennebunkport: August 31st 7-8pm
Those interested in attending the online public input sessions are asked to contact Annie Cox at Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve at acox@wellsnerr.org.
This work is made possible due to a $41,600 604b watershed-based plan development grant awarded to YCSWCD in partnership with WNERR. Funding for this project was provided, in part, by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under Section 604(b) of the Clean Water Act. The funding is administered by the MDEP in partnership with the U.S. EPA.
For more information about the development of the Kennebunk River Watershed-Based Management Plan please contact Mindee Goodrum, Interim Project Manager at York County Soil and Water Conservation District: mgoodrum@yorkswcd.org or 207-432-3516.
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