March LakeSmart News
Greetings!

Although many of our lakes are still covered in a healthy layer of ice, it's time to start thinking ahead to the 2023 LakeSmart Season! So, while we slog around in our mud boots and await ice-out, start mulling over what your lake association needs this year - materials, training, technical assistance, and let us know.
See below for:

  1. 2023 LakeSmart Training
  2. Call for Outreach Materials
  3. Spring Conferences of Interest
  4. New Online Resource for LakeSmart Teams
  5. Does your lake have Gold LakeSmart Status?

Happy Spring!

Caroline
2023 LakeSmart Training
Mark these online evaluator training dates on your calendar! There will be two Zoom sessions covering 1) New Evaluator Basics: Lake Science Intro & How LakeSmart Works and 2) Installing and Using Survey123. The first will be presented by Caroline Murray twice on May 5th at noon and May 10th at 6pm. The second is a Survey123 presentation by Becky Schaffner, GIS Coordinator for DEP, and is scheduled for May 18 at 5pm. Recordings will be uploaded to our website following the live online presentations. 

Click the links below to register:
  1. New Evaluator Basics, May 5th @ Noon
  2. New Evaluator Basics, May 10th @ 6pm
  3. Installing and Using Survey123, May 18th


Please let Andrea (astevens@lakes.me) know if you are interested in hosting an on-site LakeSmart evaluation training, the third part of our LakeSmart training series.

Is your lake still thinking about hosting a LakeSmart program and want to know more about it? Maine Lakes staff can travel to your lake association meeting to present “What is LakeSmart?”, where we illustrate some basic lake science principles, a few pertinent challenges facing Maine Lakes, and how the LakeSmart program works to mitigate some of these challenges. Reach out to Andrea (astevens@lakes.me) or Susan (sgallo@lakes.me) if you are interested in a visit from us.
Call for Outreach Materials
If you need any LakeSmart Outreach materials (Lake Books, Lakeside Living: Caring for Your Septic System brochures, Protect Your Pond brochures, Common Shrubs of Central Maine Shoreline booklets, LakeSmart brochures/posters, LakeSmart Laker’s Dozen handouts) - contact Drew (dmorris@lakes.me).

Maine Lakes staff can also bring any requested outreach materials to the Maine Lakes Conference in China, Maine on June 17 for easy pick-up.

If you need LakeSmart Signs, Medallions, 2023 Stickers, or LoonSmart Stickers, reach out to Andrea or Caroline.
Spring Conferences of Interest

Consider attending the 2023 Maine Sustainability & Water Conference at the Augusta Civic Center on March 30. The one-day event will have concurrent sessions on a variety of water-related topics including (but not limited to) cyanotoxins, Salmonid habitat, PFAS, and municipal resilience. Of note, is the afternoon session on septics, where John Eliasberg, LakeSmart Coordinator at Georges Pond, will be co-presenting on a study done at Georges Pond, a LakeSmart Gold Status lake, to determine septic system vulnerability. FMI and to register, click here.


The Joint Maine Lakes Conference: Together for Healthy Lakes will be held on June 17th, 2023 at the China Lakes Conference Center. We want to remind our LakeSmart volunteers that you will receive a discounted registration price of $15, which can be selected during the online registration process. FMI and to register, click here.
New Online Resource for LakeSmart Teams

The online Dropbox Evaluator Toolkit has been relocated! The new toolkit is still in progress, but will contain evaluation forms, homeowner follow-up templates and examples, Survey123 training videos, and a selection of LakeSmart outreach materials. It can be accessed at lakes.me/lakesmart-evaluator-toolkit.
There are no login credentials required to access the materials, we just ask that you do not disseminate the page URL. Our goal is to make accessing these materials EASY for our evaluators and coordinators! Please feel free to reach out to Caroline (cmurray@lakes.me) with any feedback and content suggestions.
Does Your Lake Have Gold LakeSmart Status?
Will your lake reach LakeSmart Gold Status in 2023? A reminder for all our lake associations that when 15% of the lakefront properties at your lake earn a LakeSmart Award, your lake achieves Gold Status. Maine Lakes will recognize this milestone by giving you two signs that can be posted in prominent locations on the way to your lake (photo). To achieve Gold Status is an enormous accomplishment and creates even more visibility for LakeSmart and the lake-friendly practices it encourages.

Why 15%? In Everett Rogers 2003 book, Diffusion of Innovations, he found that when 15% of a community adopts a new behavior or idea, it becomes the “norm” and starts to spread on its own. When lake-friendly practices become the norm, encouraging property owner participation in LakeSmart gets a little bit easier!