BRWD Watershed Program
Water Quality & Conservation
Every year Adams Pond and Knickerbocker Lake provide over 200 million gallons of drinking water to the people and businesses of Boothbay, Boothbay Harbor and Southport.
Water quality in Adams Pond and Knickerbocker Lake is directly affected by human activities in the watershed, which is simply all the land that drains to the lake.
To protect Adams Pond and Knickerbocker Lake water quality and keep water rates low, the most effective and least expensive method is to protect the watershed.
Check out this 5 minute video for a brief intro to our watershed.
Lake-Friendly Grant Program
Watershed property owners play a huge role in keeping our lakes healthy and BRWD offers a lake-friendly grant program to help.
Human development around lakes usually results in less forest cover, more hard surfaces and more runoff and phosphorus entering lakes. More runoff means declining water quality and can lead to algae blooms. Once this downward cycle is started, it can be hard to stop. By taking simple actions, watershed property owners can help reduce erosion and runoff. Projects, such as rain gutters, rain barrels, runoff diverters and mulching or vegetating bare soil, can significantly reduce erosion and the amount of polluted runoff that reaches Adams Pond and Knickerbocker Lake.