Abrams Pond Watershed Management Plan
Eastbrook & Franklin, Maine – A watershed management plan for a small Downeast lake provides strategies to reduce the probability of reoccurring nuisance algal blooms.
Ecological Instincts was contracted by the Town of Eastbrook to develop a Watershed-Based Management Plan for Abrams Pond in response to water quality challenges that have been impacting the pond for decades. Water quality in Abrams Pond is impacted by current and historic development in the watershed, as well as by having sediment chemistry that makes the pond susceptible to internal phosphorus release from the sediments.
Abrams Pond experienced its first nuisance algal bloom in 1999 and was subsequently added to the Maine DEP’s nonpoint source (NPS) priority watersheds list as “Threatened”. The pond is surrounded by a network of gravel roads and residential development, and blueberry fields in the watershed..
Development of the watershed plan included assisting with a watershed survey, assessing impacts from septic systems, analyzing internal phosphorus loading, guiding and assisting with water quality monitoring, completing a water quality analysis, watershed modeling, and developing a watershed action plan that includes recommendations for reducing NPS pollution from the watershed and addressing internal phosphorus loading from bottom sediments.
High priority management recommendations include installing best management practices across the watershed to reduce runoff from gravel roads and shoreline properties, upgrading septic systems, and conducting an aluminum treatment to inactivate phosphorus in the sediment. This project was funded in part by a US EPA 604(b) planning grant in partnership with Maine DEP, the Town of Eastbrook, Hancock County Soil & Water Conservation District, Abrams Pond Association, Water Resource Services, and Ecological Instincts.