Maine lake monitoring program moving to new home
The home of former City Manager Woodbury “Woody” Brackett will serve as the new headquarters.
By John Plestina
Special to the Sun Journal

AUBURN – The Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program will soon move into its new home; a house near Lake Auburn that was a bequest in the memory of a former city manager.

The MVLMP expects to move from its current office space in Turner into the Brackett Environmental Center by the end of this month. The home of former City Manager Woodbury “Woody” Brackett and more than seven acres of property was left to the Auburn Water District in March 2002, by Barbara Brackett to honor her late husband. She died on July 3, 2001, at the age of 86. She lived in the house for 45 years. The city’s tax valuation of the property was listed at $135,000 in September 2002.

The Water District trustees considered the MVLMP’s request to occupy the three-bedroom cape in September 2002, and if the lake monitoring program’s proposal would fit the donor’s concept for the use of the property. The intention of the gift was to preserve the quality and aesthetics of Lake Auburn, which is a few hundred feet from the house. The only restrictions are that the house not be used as a residence and must be used for conservation, protection of the water quality of the lake and environmental education.

Preparations for the move are underway this weekend with volunteers cleaning the house and doing routine maintenance.

“The program has a rich history. We are the oldest citizen lake monitoring program in the United States, and one of the largest in the country,” said Scott Williams, the executive director of the MVLMP. The Maine program was founded by the state Department of Environmental Protection in 1971. Currently, there are more than 500 volunteer lake monitors hailing from all Maine counties. “Our program has been used as a model by other states.”

The DEP administered the MVLMP for two decades. Legislative cuts in 1991 reduced funding. “As a result, the DEP recognized that it would not only be unable to fund the growth of the program, but it could no longer administer it,” Williams said.

As a result, he met with the board of directors of the Maine Congress of Lake Associations. Together they established a freestanding, nonprofit MVLMP, which has maintained an association with the DEP but is no longer affiliated. “The program has become a better program because we work closely with state government, but we are not a part of the bureaucracy,” he said.

A recent accomplishment of the MVLMP is the formation of the Maine Center of Invasive Aquatic Plants, which will be housed at the Brackett Center.