WILTON – Wynn Muller smiled wide as he steered his boat toward a mom and dad loon teaching their baby to fish on Wilson Pond under Tuesday’s late afternoon sun.

They hooted as the boat approached. “That’s their way of saying ‘you’re in our territory, get out,'” Muller’s wife, Sandy, translated. She beamed.

The Mullers are self-avowed Wilson Pond lovers. President of Friends of Wilson Lake, or F.O.W.L., for short, Wynn spends hour upon hour in the summer either enjoying the lake, or coming up with ways to protect it. And now, he says, his work and that of other lake lovers has paid off.

Wilton’s pond has been recognized this summer by the state Department of Environmental Protection as having the most LakeSmart properties in the state.

The LakeSmart program is described on the DEP Web site as a way to recognize lakeside property owners who manage their land in a particulary lake-friendly fashion. To Muller, it’s more than that. For him, it’s a no-penalty way to learn if property owners – himself included – are doing what it takes to care for a lake.

And it’s an incentive to do better.

“We didn’t pass the first time,” he said, explaining that even the president of F.O.W.L had a lot to learn at first when it came to caring for the lake.

A LakeSmart certified official looked at their property and found it lacking the right kind of barriers to keep rainwater from flowing into the pond.

As Muller explained it, one of the most effective ways landowners can help keep lakewater clean is to do whatever they can to keep the rain that falls onto their homes, driveways and lawns from getting into the lake. Natural chemicals found in the ground and pollutants from cars, pesticides, and homes aren’t good for the fish and plants in the lake, he said.

Planting berry bushes near the shore helps prevent water from getting through, and also filters what water does make it past. Planting bushes or laying gravel under gutters helps absorb rainwater from the roof. Landscaping around the driveway helps shunt oily water away from the lake.

It’s all about preventing erosion and pollution, Muller said.

The LakeSmart program isn’t about preventing people from having fun on the lake, he said. He said he and Sandy love puttering around in their motorboat, as do many families along Wilson Pond. Instead, it’s about learning to landscape in nature-friendly ways, doing little things that end up making a big difference.

For the 14 Wilson Pond landowners who have received LakeSmart awards so far, Muller said, it’s about preserving something close to everyone’s heart.

“Almost everyone really cares about this lake,” he said. “They want to do whatever they can so we’ll have a lake for our grandchildren, and their grandchildren, as well.”

Nearly one-third of the 80 properties along the lake are involved in the LakeSmart program now, he said. Though only 14 have won awards, another 10 or so are in the process of implementing DEP suggestions to meet the LakeSmart recommendations.

The good thing about the program, Muller said, is that it rewards people for taking the time to improve their properties, but does not penalize people for failing to do it.

“It’s always better to reward, than to punish,” he said. Some people – especially old-timers – worry if they sign up to have their property evaluated and the evaluator finds them lacking, they’ll be fined – or worse. But Muller said that’s not the case.

The point of LakeSmart is to teach, not punish, he said. Linda McGowan, who received a LakeSmart award this summer, said she had no idea how to make her property more lake-friendly until she got connected to LakeSmart through Muller. “I had no clue,” she said. Now, she and husband, John Knight, are on the bandwagon, she said, and plan to do even more next summer. “Even though we have earned the award, we strive to do even better and live up to that,” she said.

She said she thinks the changes – putting in more shrubbery, not mowing all the way down to the water – have made the property more attractive, too. “It isn’t terribly hard – it’s a very natural thing,” she said.

In his generation, Muller said, green expanses of perfectly manicured lawn were considered the only really respectable way to care for a yard. But that’s not the best thing for the land, he said, so people need to relearn.

“We mow the small area we use, and that’s all,” McGowan said. “We use (the lake) all the time. We have guests all summer long.”

Her only wish is that Wilton’s Kineowatha Park could be made more LakeSmart, and that other property owners around the lake not currently interested, would get interested.

“That’d certainly be something we’d like to discuss,” Town Manager Peter Nielsen said Tuesday of the Kineowatha Park suggestion.