August 10,2014, Sebasticook Lake Association Newsletter – I hope you are enjoying the summer in spite of the rain. Unfortunately the lake water quality has not been as good as in previous years, and the Water Conservation/Drawdown Committee has agreed that an early drawdown date is necessary this year.  For the DRAWDOWN, the gate will be opened on MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2014 with the goal of 8-10 foot drawdown.  The gate will  STAY OPEN ALL WINTER, which means we may see some lower-than-usual water levels in the spring 2015.  The watershed for Sebasticook Lake is 18,000 acres, so the lake will fill up………….pray for a lot of snow.  With the hope that there will be no high water in the spring, the problem with erosion may be decreased, which will decrease the amount of Phosphorus being deposited into the lake.

Phosphorus contributes to ALGAE, which we have all seen too much of this year.  Please plant buffers between your home and the lake as a barrier to run-off.  Use wood bark on paths and slopes to help hold the yard dirt in place in your yard, not in the lake. Addionally, please notify Debbie Ferrell or myself if you find any unusual or curious plants growing in your beach or on your fishing line.

Sebasticook:  Drawdown for H2O quality.  Begins:  Today.   Also some fish will go down through the fishway to outmigrate.  Both adults and juveniles.
Plymouth:  No such drawdown so small downstream bypass next to AK steep-pass is running.

How did the draw down affect the fish?

Well, yes and no…..In the big picture:  There was never a dam at the outlet of Sebasticook Lake to begin with (there of course is now) and the lake was much smaller…..the subsequent installation of the dam and increase in the size of the lake had multiple effects.  The lake got way bigger, the lake “ate” all the topsoil around its increased girth and depth and subsequently went “nuclear” green in summertime.  The lake was also deprived of its anadromous fish for at least 165 years……..politics continued to tick along……DEP came into being…a water quality drawdown was ordered to pour the noxious, phosphorous laden water out where the Atlantic could deal with it.  So, long answer short:  Yes it affects the outmigrating YOY in several ways (the drawdown) in effect “imitates” a hurricane event every year.  Suddenly the lake opens its gorge and the water pours out rapidly prompting a migratory event even though the fish might have lingered a bit longer to take advantage of the nutrient rich waters and get even bigger than they already are.  It is also very punctuated where in a natural system the fish would outmigrate over a longer period of time should they encounter the outlet flow and be “moved” the utilize it.  This has the effect of compressing the outmigration event into a smaller time window than would be encountered in a natural system.  Is it bad?  No.  Is it good?  No.  We can quantify it to some degree but we can never fully interpret the full effect the drawdown has.  Not only alewives are affected by the drawdown.  Multiple species are affected.  Plant and animal alike.  Bass get flushed out that get too close as well as eels, white perch etc. etc. and submerged aquatic vegetation is suddenly no longer submerged and whole micro-systems are stripped bare of their biota.  In a way it is a yearly Armageddon to many of the life forms within the lake.

From the top of the lake: