NEWRY – At a two-hour workshop Thursday night, Newry and Bethel planning officials were treated to a show-and-tell presentation about keeping soil on land and out of water.
On its surface, the workshop taught by Bill LaFlamme, an environmental specialist with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, was more of a flash flood of knowledge rather than a retention pond of wisdom.
The first half of the presentation to 15 people, stressed the inherent widespread problems caused by nonpoint-source pollution, like loss of jobs, higher taxes and lowered property values, to name a few.
Following a lengthy question-and-answer session, LaFlamme quickly ran through a second PowerPoint slide show displaying different ways to control erosion and sediment problems.
The workshop, did, however, reveal a need to tweak Newry’s building permits, and, possibly, an ordinance or two.
Inside an increasingly sweltering room at the town office, LaFlamme outlined the importance of curbing erosion to protect the state’s $293 million fishing industry.
LaFlamme said the problem isn’t just eroding soil, but soil particles acting like little magnets and picking up pesticide toxins and phosphorous and depositing them in water bodies.
That’s important to know, he said, because 50 percent of land area in Maine drains to a lake; the other 50 percent to the ocean. In a state with 6,000 lakes and more than 30,000 brooks, streams and rivers, that’s important, he said.
“Whatever happens, will affect a water body,” LaFlamme said.
Phosphorous breeds algae in lakes and ponds, which, in turn, sinks the the bottom, dies, rots and sucks out oxygen, affecting fish, he added.
That’s why, he said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So, make sure you don’t have soil erosion.”
To minimize erosion, people must use best management practices, or BMPs. That’s why, LaFlamme said, the state trains contractors and certifies them.
“A BMP is a fancy word for riprap, rock-lining ditches, Gabion baskets, erosion control blankets, and the silt fence, the granddaddy of all BMPs,” he said.
Planners and Bethel and Newry code enforcement officer Rich St. John began questioning LaFlamme and each other after St. John said there’s no erosion-control best management practice embedded in Newry building permits for contractors.
LaFlamme continued the talk, saying out of 818 construction sites surveyed in Maine in 2003, the worst offenders were single-family home developers.
“Sixty-one percent had no BMP at all,” he added.
That’s when Newry Planning Board Chairman and engineer Joseph Aloisio suggested that Newry could put a line on their building permits requiring people to meet the state’s BMP requirement.
“Enforcement is the last resort; education, the first priority,” LaFlamme said.
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