NORWAY — The Lakes Association of Norway recently facilitated the building of a bridge on Scout Lane that will prevent additional tons of road material from washing into Lake Pennesseewassee via Gibson Brook.

 The road has washed out several times since 2022, most recently last year following a “hundred-year storm” that brought heavy rainfall in a short amount of time. 

The completed bridge on Scout Lane in Norway over Gibson Brook seen Aug. 28. The Lakes Association of Norway was instrumental in completing the project to save a washed out road and prevent more road fill from filtering into Lake Pennesseewassee. Evan W. Houk/Advertiser Democrat

In what Susan Jacoby of the Lakes Association called its “most ambitious project to date,” volunteers, including President Sal Girifalco and Vice President Jim O’Brien, along with engineering support from Alice Goodwin, worked hundreds of hours to secure a 319 grant from the federal Environmental Protection Agency and prepare the project.

The project was completed with the support and cooperation of the property owners on Scout Lane.

“The cooperation of property owners is essential towards trying to remediate the multiple issues we have,” Girifalco said.

The association is seeking to remediate several more erosion sites on the four lakes that are Norway’s “key asset,” he said.

“They provide recreation for people from all over, draw customers to local businesses, and provide property tax revenue to the town,” he said. “Preserving them is critical to everyone in town.”

It took three days for the Poland Corporation, of West Paris, to finish the excavation by first damming the brook to pump the water around the road while it was rebuilt. The bridge replaced a 3-foot culvert with a 15.5-foot opening.

A Stream Smart study was conducted to determine the necessary width of an opening to hopefully future-proof the road, according to Girifalco.

“It became a critical project,” he said. “The weather is only getting more unpredictable.”

He noted that a property owner who has lived in the area for 40 years said the road washout is a “new occurrence.”

“Since Dec. 2022, ‘hundred-year storms’ struck a few times each year,” according to the 2024 Lakes Association newsletter. “At major stream crossings, culverts were overwhelmed, repaired, then hit again, carrying hundreds of tons of fill into our lakes. Large plumes of sediment were seen on both Pennesseewassee and Hobbs Pond following storms.”

“To make matters worse, last summer set the record for consecutive days of measurable precipitation, and 2023 had a significant increase in heavy rainfall events of more than 1” of rain. The saturated ground lost absorption capabilities which led to more polluting runoff.”

The National Climate Assessment puts most of its Northeast focus on the here-and-now impacts of the extreme snow and rain days already happening but predicts this extreme precipitation will continue to increase in frequency and ferocity under all climate change scenarios heading into the future.

“For example, the amount of rain that falls during the heaviest downpours has increased by approximately 60% in the Northeast since the 1950s – the largest increase in the United States,” last year’s assessment reads.

The Associated Press notes that: “according to the vast majority of peer-reviewed studies, science organizations, and climate scientists: the world is warming, mainly due to rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. By far, most of the increase in temperature is the result of human activity. That includes the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas; deforestation; and raising livestock.”

Scout Lane in Norway after Gibson Brook washed it out, sending tons of road material into Lake Pennesseewassee. A new bridge has been installed due to the efforts of the Lakes Association of Norway. submitted photo

The Lakes Associations of Norway was founded in 1971 with the stated mission of protecting the water quality of its four lakes: Lake Pennesseewassee, North Pond, Hobbs Pond, and Sand Pond.

Its 2020-29 Watershed Protection Plan details five facets of its multilevel protection plan: water quality monitoring, courtesy boat inspections, invasive species screening, outreach, and watershed management.

The watershed management portion is the most recent addition to the association’s efforts, partly due to a study by lake scientists ten years ago that predicted that slow-acting watershed erosion “would eventually present an even greater danger to our lakes than invasive plants,” according to the newsletter.

“Water runoff carries nutrients like phosphorus into our lakes promoting algae growth which can lead to oxygen depletion and greater lake harm,” reads the newsletter. “Unfortunately, water quality monitoring shows that our lakes, like most others, are seeing such effects.”

Now with extreme rainfall events and sudden flooding, the road washouts and instant erosion has become more of a problem to contend with, according to Girifalco.

The Lakes Association’s long range plan is to conduct surveys and develop protection plans for all our watersheds, as resources allow. Surveys have already been completed for Lake Pennesseewassee (including the North Pond Bog), North Pond, and Hobbs Pond. Another survey is planned for Sand Pond.

Lake Penesseewassee is considered “threatened” by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection’s assessment.

Like many other lakes in Maine, Lake Pennesseewassee’s water quality is threatened by phosphorus enrichment. Phosphorus is the nutrient that controls the level of algae production in lakes. Small increases in phosphorus can cause lake algae populations to increase resulting in a decline of water clarity. High levels can cause dense algal blooms, which can create a biological and chemical reaction that depletes the oxygen from the bottom of the lake, according to the association.

The association has already completed a formal watershed survey and 319 grant remediation of North Pond.

For more information about the Lakes Association of Norway, visit norwaylakes.org