JAY – Jay High School students Jeremy Breton, Adam DeSanctis and Jenna Lord presided over an hour-long informational meeting Tuesday night on source-water quality and protection in Jay and Livermore Falls.

The meeting, held in the Jay Middle School cafeteria, was attended by close to 20 people, and began with data on the quality of water in the ponds serving the Jay-Livermore Falls Water District.

“Over 3,000 people in Jay and Livermore Falls get their water from Moose Hill and Little Parker Ponds,” said Lord, 17, a Jay High School senior. “The water is pretty safe, but we do have concerns about protecting the ponds from contamination.”

Lord speaks from experience, having spent the past four years working with fellow Jay High School students to monitor water quality in Little Parker Pond under the guidance of adviser and science teacher Rob Taylor.

According to Taylor, the project began in 1994 when he partnered with Doug Burdo of the Livermore Falls Water District to teach the students conservation techniques with the water district’s equipment – gaining valuable data for the towns in the process.

“This has been a wonderful experience for the students. They’re doing real science,” said Taylor. “Their findings have been published by the Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program.”

While data indicates that Little Parker Pond is healthy, Lord also mentioned that, since the pond plays a bigger role in the town’s water consumption than previously thought, the municipality might “want to vote on some restrictions” on use of the pond.

“Many of us don’t realize that Little Parker Pond has become a primary source for our drinking water,” said Taylor. “It used to be considered a backup, but now, when every day in summer we’re pumping up to capacity from Moose Hill Pond, Little Parker has become much more important.”

Lord noted that while most sources of drinking water have numerous surface use restrictions placed upon them by municipalities, Little Parker Pond has relatively few. “There’s no swimming, boating or pets allowed around Moose Hill Pond,” she said, “but you can do all of that at Little Parker.”

The students also mentioned that the pond’s watershed extends through both Jay and Livermore Falls and that, as general pollution increases, the town’s water supply will degrade. Susan Breau, source water program manager for the Maine Rural Water Association, explained that contaminated water sources “endanger public health and cost clients in treatment upgrades and medical costs.”

“It’s very good to protect the fish and the moss,” she said, “but public health is more important.”

In a demonstration of how watersheds become contaminated, Breau sprinkled cinnamon over plastic pigs, tractors, and roads on a plastic model landscape in the Jay Middle School cafeteria Tuesday night.

Then, she handed spray bottles to DeSanctis and Breton, who began spraying roads, farmland, and animals until cinnamon colored water trickled down in rivulets into a blue painted indentation.

“This is why it’s important to protect our watersheds,” said Breau. “As you can see, the phosphorous’ and other contaminants in the soil can be easily washed into our drinking water if we’re not careful.”