UPDATE: Cyanobacteria identified in Webber Pond

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Cyanobacteria toxins at levels harmful to adults, children and pets were identified, on September 2, in water samples taken on the south shore of Webber Pond. These are the first persistent scums that have been reported this year.

If you see scums, please keep people and pets out of the water, particularly if there are brown lines in the scums. If anyone gets in the water, please have them shower ASAP and rinse off any pets that get in the water, since they may lick toxins off their hair.

Please let us know about any scums you see by a post to the WPA Facebook page, a private message, or an email, so that we can take a water sample and test for toxins. Let us know the location/address of the scums. If they are by your property, please give us permission to access the water from your dock or land to take a water sample.

Submitted by Susan Traylor, chairman of the water quality committee for the Webber Pond Association.

Webber Pond Fishway update (August 21, 2025)

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Vassalboro resident Nate Gray, of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, at the Webber Pond Dam, the beginning of Seven Mile Stream. (The Town Line file photo)

by Matt Streeter

The Webber Pond Fishway upgrade is now well underway. Excavation has begun at the stream side (entrance) to the fishway, and concrete pours began on August 18. Sandbags have also been placed at the lake side (exit) of the fishway, to manage water as excavation works its way up in that direction. Construction is proceeding as planned, and in-water work should be completed no later than September 30, as scheduled. The order for the new gates will most likely be delayed until next year, and so they will probably be installed next summer. Likewise, the installation of the new gatehouse will be completed after the gates are in place. We are grateful for people’s patience with the bridge closure and detour. It has been essential for safety at the job site since work is taking place so close to the road and bridge. For more information on the fishway construction work, contact Matt Streeter, mstreeter212@gmail.com or 207-337-2611.

Webber Pond water quality update (August 14, 2025)

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This photo is from July 28, 2024. It is being shared so you know what to look for. If you see this kind of persistent scum, please report it to the water quality committee of the Webber Pond Association, with photos, please, so they can determine if a toxin test is needed. Notify Susan Traylor at birchpt@aol.com. (contributed photo)

Webber water quality update, as of August 9, shows the good news to be that this year’s water quality has been better than last year’s. The August 4 reading of 1.9m/6.2′, is the first time we have been below the 2m that signifies an algae bloom. Last year the reading this week was 0.79m/2.6′, which is a severe algae bloom.

Last year we saw light green scums as early as June 3, but they tended to dissipate after a few hours, These dissipating scums continued through the end of July, when they started to last.

We have only started to see dissipating scums this week.

Strangely, part of the reason for better water clarity this year is the drought, since rain causes runoff, which increases phosphorus in the water, which feeds algae and cyanobacteria. The higher temps in the 90s forecast for this past week could offset that.

Please let the water quality committee know if you have any questions. You can contact Susan Traylor at birchpt@aol.com.

Webber Pond water levels dropping

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Seaward Mill Stream from Three Mile Pond to Webber Pond. If you look carefully, you can see way more rocks than water. (contributed photo)

Why are Webber Pond’s water levels dropping?

According to a Webber Pond Association official, there are three factors affecting Webber water levels:

– Limited rain since early June – two inches shortfall vs. normal rain levels in June, another two inches in July, and a three-inch shortfall predicted for August (less than .85 inch for the whole month).
– Much less water inflow from Seaward Mills Stream since Three Mile Pond is facing the same lack of rain.
– Water levels went down from six inches above the spillway after the 1.9 inches of rain on June 28, to 0.5 inch over the spillway on July 31, a loss of 5.5 inches, due to weather and less inflow.

On July 31, the contractors for the new fishway asked for boards to be removed from the dam so that the water would be below the spillway in order for them to build a coffer dam in order to excavate for the deeper entrance to the lake in the new fishway design.

Unfortunately, the lake association* had not been informed in advance this would be required, so the association didn’t have time to give people a heads up. The contractor wanted to take the level down six inches, but the association insisted on no more than three inches below the spillway.

* The Webber Pond Association owns the dam.

Webber Pond Dam construction update

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Vassalboro resident Nate Gray, of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, at the Webber Pond Dam, the beginning of Seven Mile Stream. (The Town Line file photo)

As of July 23, the construction area of the parking lot at Webber Pond Dam has been blocked off.

Construction began on Monday, July 28, and at that time the Dam Rd. was closed. Detour signs will be in place to direct traffic around via McQuarrie Rd. The goal is to complete construction of the fishway as quickly as possible, but depending on conditions the road may stay closed no later than September 30.

For $5, a resident has offered parking on his lawn, which is directly across from the boat launch. People should park on the left side of this driveway (not the right). There is a box toward the head of the driveway where the $5 can be deposited if he is not around.

Successful completion of the watershed survey

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Volunteers and team leaders for Webber Pond. (contributed photo)

by Mary Schwanke
Webber Pond Association
Water Quality Committee

For the first time in more than 20 years a complete watershed survey has been accomplished for the 14,226 acres (22.5 square miles) of land surrounding three connected ponds in our area. Three-cornered Pond is the headwater for the two larger ponds, draining into Three mile Pond via Barton Brook, which then drains northwest into Webber Pond via Seaward Mills Stream. Twenty volunteers, including 17 local community members and three environmental stewards from the Maine Conservation Corps, joined 10 technical leaders from Ecological Instincts (Manchester), Kennebec County Soil and Water Conservation District, and Maine DEP for three full days of survey work. Teams of three spent the days walking shoreline proprieties, inspecting driveways and camp roads, and checking culverts at stream crossings for signs of erosion and storm water runoff. Runoff is the leading cause of excess external phosphorus in lakes, fueling algal and cyanobacterial blooms, including some that can release toxins harmful to children, pets, and wildlife.

In addition to the surveys of developed land conducted May 15-17, a team from Ecological Instincts has undertaken surveys of agricultural and forested lands in the watershed to help complete the picture. Only about five percent of land owners opted out of having their properties surveyed, which is great news for generating a very comprehensive data set to help us understand factors affecting our water quality. The watershed survey data, along with data from water sampling in 2024 and this summer, will be used by our professional consultants to model external and internal sources of phosphorus and generate recommendations to reduce total phosphorus in all three ponds. A summary of survey results will be shared with the public and will be used in the development of a 10-year watershed based management plan to help improve water quality.

This project is being funded by two grant programs administered by Maine DEP, the Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF) and the Nonpoint Source Grant for Pollution Control Projects (NPS) totaling nearly $100,000. Additional support has been provided by the Towns of Vassalboro and Windsor, the John Sage Foundation, the China Region Lakes Alliance, and Maine Lakes/Lake Stewards of Maine. Two additional proposals were recently submitted to the 2025 CWSRF and NPS programs to fund the project’s remaining tasks: completion of all data analyses and modeling, review and prioritization of management strategies including potential remediation options, and the writing of the new Tri-Watershed Based Management Plan by late 2026/early 2027. The plan will be used to guide watershed restoration and protection efforts over the next 10 years.

Special thanks go to our intern, Ellie Hatt, an environmental steward with the Maine Conservation Corps. She was instrumental in preparing the property lists and sector maps for the watershed survey, as well as helping with the training of volunteers for this project.

Volunteers and team leaders for Three-cornered and Three-mile ponds. (contributed photo)

PHOTOS: Remembering the past summer

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Brinley Bisson, 4, of Waterville, enjoyed some successful fishing herself this past summer. At top, fishing off a dock at Green Valley Campground, in Vassalboro,  the same place her mother, Kassandra Bisson, of Waterville, learned how to fish, and hauling in a bass, at her grandparents’ campsite, on Webber Pond.

PHOTOS: A day on the ice

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Frank Richards, of Vassalboro, recently took to the ice to do some fishing. It proved to be a succesful day. From top to bottom, showing some open water at the north end of Webber Pond, and the large island. The catch was good, a bass, and two sizeable black crappie

VASSALBORO: WPA officials explain work planned for Webber Pond

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by Mary Grow

Vassalboro select board members’ March 21 meeting featured a discussion with John Reuthe and Rebecca Lamey, from the Webber Pond Association (WPA), about the health of Webber Pond and associated water bodies.

The water level in the Vassalboro pond is controlled by an outlet dam. Water quality is influenced by run-off from surrounding land and, Reuthe explained, by inflows from Three Mile Pond, Three Cornered Pond and Mud Pond.

A history of water quality problems led to a management program developed by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection that includes an annual fall drawdown intended to flush excess nutrients down Seven Mile Stream into the Kennebec River.

Reuthe, WPA president, said warmer water has encouraged the growth of blue-green algae, also known as cyanobacteria, which can sicken people and pets.

WPA officers are working with Maine Rivers (the organization that led the opening of local streams to alewife migration) to develop a new watershed management plan encompassing the four connected ponds, Reuthe said. A plan written about 20 years ago, with help from the Kennebec Valley Soil and Water Conservation District, was not implemented and is outdated.

Because Three Mile Pond is partly in China and Windsor, Mud Pond is in Windsor and Three Cornered Pond is in Augusta, the effort will involve multiple municipalities. Reuthe and Vassalboro Town Manager Aaron Miller have already begun discussions with Windsor’s town manager.

Lamey said WPA will apply for a federal 604(b) grant, referring to a program that is part of the Clean Water Act, to begin the new watershed study. Vassalboro has several residents whose expertise will be helpful, including a grant-writer, she said.

Future plans include more dam improvements, Reuthe said, in cooperation with Maine Rivers. Although the projects he and Lamey outlined will be expensive, he assured select board members WPA is not –yet – asking for substantial town funds, only for expressions of support from the select board.

Reuthe told select board members the $5,000 voters allocated to the WPA at the 2023 town meeting was spent as intended, to make the dam gates easier to control and add equipment storage at the dam and to buy water quality testing equipment.

The public hearing on amendments to Vassalboro’s Marijuana Business Ordinance with which the March 21 meeting was scheduled to begin drew no audience. Board members and planning board member Douglas Phillips briefly discussed the changes, which include renaming the ordinance Cannabis Business Ordinance. The topic will be continued at the April 4 select board meeting.

Board members also postponed a decision on repaving the parking lot at the former East Vassalboro school, now the Vassalboro Historical Society headquarters. After reviewing three proposals with cost estimates, they referred board member Rick Denico, Jr.’s, questions about the project to the expertise of public works department members.

In other business March 21, select board members unanimously:

— Left the town office hours adopted in January as they are. Miller said residents who expressed opinions are pleased, especially with the earlier opening.
— Approved closing the transfer station on Easter Sunday, as has been done in past years.

Miller said he has no new information related to the Vassalboro Sanitary District’s finances. The district has a rate increase scheduled April 1 for its about 200 customers, who have told select board members they cannot afford even present rates.

Select board members have been working on the issue since before the Dec. 14, 2023, meeting which drew more than five dozen people to discuss reasons and potential remedies for the financial problems (see the Dec. 21, 2023, issue of The Town Line, p. 2).

The next regular Vassalboro select board meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 4.

Webber Pond tests positive for blue-green algae toxins

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Blue-green toxic algae bloom.

by Roland D. Hallee

Following weeks of speculation, the test results were confirmed, on Friday, September 9, that Webber Pond, in Vassalboro, has tested positive for toxic algae blooms.

According to Linda Bacon, at the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, “scum collected Wednesday afternoon [September 7] tested positive for microcystin this afternoon, an algal toxin that causes damage to the liver.”

Bacon added, “you’ve always had cyanobacteria blooms! This year was just particularly bad.”

Concentrations exceed EPA’s drinking water threshold and their recreation standard. Bacon continued, “Rapid tests were performed on the samples at DEP. The rapid tests do not provide numeric results, but assume that the concentrations of microcystin are likely to be 100-1,000 times these limits, which is typical of scums.”

According to Bacon, it is very likely that concentrations in open water do not exceed the recreation limit, based on data DEP has collected over the past few years.

The overall message is: don’t drink water taken from an area where scums are present or have been present recently (within the last two weeks). Don’t let pets drink the water and don’t let them in the water if scums are present. If they get scum on their fur, rinse them off with fresh water as soon as possible.

Do not let children play in the scums. Scums are quite tempting as they look like paint, so children will paint the rocks on the shoreline, the dock, or whatever is nearby while having lots of fun.

If you get your water from the lake, do not use it for cooking or drinking; make sure showers are short.

Bacon said, “although water treatment systems for algal toxins are still being refined, evidence suggests that it is a good idea to have two filters on an intake line, the one closest to the lake being a coarse filter (looks like wound string), followed by an activated charcoal filter. The charcoal filters are more expensive and would clog quickly if the coarse filter was not in place.”

Cyanotoxins have acute health effects in humans. The most common Cyanobacteria producing toxin, Microcystin-LR, will produce abdominal pain, headache, sore throat, vomiting and nausea, dry cough, diarrhea, blistering around the mouth, and pneumonia

Microcystis, Dolichospermum (previously Anabaena) were observed in the sample along with Aphanizomenon.

Referring to the drawdown on Septembeer 18, “Regardless, I would remove as many boards as you can [from the dam], but I wouldn’t leave the boards out. If we end up in another year of drought, it could become a water level issue next summer. Keep track of flows and when the flow decreases to what the usual end-of-drawdown has been, begin replacing the boards.

Concerning the alewife egress from the lake, “one thing that can happen – not saying that it did – is that adult spawners get trapped and die in the lake along with all the nutrients in their bodies. It will be very important to make sure adults can leave the lake post-spawning to minimize this issue.