Shoring Up The Defense

Youths seen as saviors of Maine lakes

As development encroaches into Maine's wilderness, sparking worries over the future health of the state's 2,800 lakes, a nonprofit education group is trying a novel solution to protect them: Kids.

The Maine Lakes Conservancy Institute - hoping to cultivate a generation of stewards who will look after the lakes years in the future - is teaming up with middle schools to teach students about everything from the strange, one-eyed creatures that live in their recesses to methods of monitoring and maintaining their ecosystems.

The idea behind the program is simple: If enough youths take interest in lakes now, they will become the politicians and scientists and voters who work to preserve them later. ''We are trying to instill a sense of wonder in the students about the lakes,'' said Shippen Bright, a Harvard Kennedy School graduate who founded the institute three years ago in Nobleboro.

''Education is key. It changes perceptions.''

Worries over the long-term well-being of the state's legendary lakes has mounted as demand for lakefront property soars.

For the first time, a subdivision is being built in Northern Maine's unorganized territories.

And many fear that the lakes will become so polluted and ringed with homes that they will cease to draw tourists, endangering the estimated $1.2 billion pumped into communities by vacationers and those who come to fish and boat.

But as the danger of pollution increases, environmental monitoring of the lakes has dropped.

Unlike Massachusetts, where most lakes have vigilant watchdogs through town government and nonprofit groups, the sheer number of Maine lakes can make people think ''its an infinite resource,'' Bright said.

Maine's Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program - which relies on local residents to test water quality - suffered severe budget cuts in the early 1990s.

Despite a slight resurgence of funds in recent years, the program tests fewer lakes than it did before the cuts.

''That is a problem,'' Bright said. ''If the water quality is diminished, we know the lakefront property values will go, then the municipality is not receiving much in property taxes. People care about that.''

Operating on the theory that long-term environmental solutions will require a new generation's supervision, Bright's institute teamed up with nine middle schools across the state, working with teachers to map out intensive curriculums. Under the program, each school chooses a lake to study and develops topics and workshops around it.

Officials from the lakes institute provide technical support and field trips on a boat laden with scientific equipment and study aids.

The 30-foot boat serves as a mobile floating classroom.

Students can poke an underwater video camera down to the lake's bottom. There is equipment to test dissolved oxygen in the water - a key barometer of a lake's health. Students sample water, silt, and mud, and conduct a plankton haul.

Although some students cringe when they encounter, for example, thousands of water fleas in samples of a lake they are used to swimming in, most walk away with at least a better understanding of why the lakes are important and what needs to be saved in them, students and teachers say.

''The boat is totally portable, and they have a 30-foot pole, so the kids are doing these videos in the bottom of the lake,'' said David Schumacher, children's librarian for the Skidompha library in Damariscotta, Maine.

Schumacher runs a summer environmental program for 6- to 12-year-olds and uses Maine Lakes Conservancy to teach students about lake ecology.

''It works,'' he said. ''The kids are interested.''

In Northern Aroostook county, Eagle Lake Elementary School seventh-grade teacher Lucy Devoe's students last year built a riparian buffer zone - a natural ''wall'' of plants, grasses, and shrubs to prevent sediment and chemicals from entering Eagle Lake - and conducted testing on the lake.

''It was great to see the kids' ownership of the lake,'' said Devoe, who plans on continuing the curriculum. ''They really know how to watch for water-quality issues now.''

Although many middle-school curriculums may already have an environmental component, officials at the lakes institute and the state say introducing the wonders of a lake to kids will help ensure lakes remain as pristine as possible as precious dollars dry up to monitor them.

In addition to the nine schools, the conservancy gives educational lessons to a wide range of civic and youth groups around Maine, often toting the 30-foot boat hundreds of miles to get to kids. They hope to expand all over the state.

''A lot of the kids never think of these microscopic creatures they see in such concentrations in [lake water] samples,'' said McGarry.

''First they say they are never swimming in a lake again, and then they get interested. A lot of lake associations have been at barbecues and social events - and now there is a lot more to talk about it.

''The kids are going to be the ambassadors. They are going to be the ones carrying this forward so the lakes remain clean.''

This story ran on page B7 of the Boston Globe on 8/25/2002. © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.