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China Region Lakes Alliance The CRLA has been supporting China Lake since 1991. The CRLA stands for China Region Lakes Alliance. CRLA is a nonprofit organization that was formed to protect and improve the water quality of China Lake, Threecornered Pond, Threemile Pond and Webber Pond. Local people who were concerned about the lakes started this organization. They wanted to find out what was polluting the lakes and how to stop it. Reb Manthey is the director of this program, which is made up of representatives from China, Vassalboro, and Windsor.

General Information 1. The China Lake Association was formed by concerned citizens in the early 1990’s to help care for the lake. 2. The China Region Lakes Alliance was formed in 1995. The CRLA is in charge of helping to care for China Lake, Threemile Pond (both part of China), Webber Pond in Vassalboro and Threecornered Pond in Augusta. Reb Manthey is the director of the CRLA. Each summer she organizes groups of high school students into the Conservation Corps. This group provides manual labor to land owners who want to improve their property by planning buffer strips, placing rip-rap on the shoreline and other strategies to care for the lake. The goal for the CRLA is to effect continual long term and sustainable improvement in all the watersheds and improve the water quality in area lakes. 3. The Central Maine Bassmasters help our lake by placing trash barrels at the public landings around the lake. They also remove the trash. In the spring of 2002, they removed 50 bags of trash from around the lake! The Bassmasters host several bass tournaments on the lake each year. 4. China School students have conducted Earth Day Trash Clean-ups for the last three years. This activity is spearheaded by local volunteers and any China student can help with the clean up. 5. The 5th grade classes at China Middle School has integrated “lake lessons” into much of their curriculum. Students study wetland ecosystems and China Lake. For the last 5 years, students have learned about lake issues and have participated in “China Lake Day”. On China Lake Day, community volunteers take the students out on the lake on pontoon boats. On the lake, students conduct water quality tests and learn about the lake with hands-on lessons. The students also tour the Kennebec Water District Water Treatment plant. Volunteers from the China Lake Association, the China Region Lakes Alliance, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and the Maine Lakes Conservancy Institute help to make our Lake Day a HUGE success! See our “Lake Lessons” web site at www.china-ms.u52.k12.me.us/~asmith to learn more. 6. There is a lot of controversy about the water level of China Lake. The dam in East Vassalboro controls the water level. Today the water level is held at a more consistent rate and is higher than historical levels. Some people believe that the water quality problems would be solved if the lake were allowed to fluctuate naturally and if the water level were lower. The lake has been studied by the DEP and they believe the current levels are OK. They say the water quality problems are mainly the result of the existing phosphorus levels in the lake bottom sediments and in current erosion.

Election Day 2002 Voting Poll by Courtney I am a fifth grade student at the China Middle School in China, Maine. The week before the 2002 election, four kids, including me, each came up with ten questions or more. Then the four 5th grade teachers took all of our questions and chose ten of them for our poll. On November 5th, Election Day, the town office for China set up the voting booths at the China Middle School. When people were done voting, we asked them if they would please fill out our poll about China Lake. We were lucky to get 452 people to respond to our exit pollHere are the results from four of our questions on the poll. Question #1 asked, who people think is responsible for keeping China Lake clean? . -- 24 people said the state, 416 people said everyone, and 10 people thought nature was responsible. Three more very important questions were also asked. Question #2 asked, should China residents use more money to clean up China Lake? -- 258 people said yes and 171 people said no. Question #3 asked, should the west basin of China Lake be open to swimmers? – 255 people said yes and 221 people said no. Question #4 asked, should citizens limit the amount of drinking water from China Lake? -- 204 people said yes and 247 said no. By these results, you can already see that are many different opinions held by the people in China. In my opinion, before the poll, I would have thought differently. But as you can see by this very good data we have gathered, there are many people in China who care about China Lake.