What YOU can do to Help Protect Newfound Lake and its Wildlife
1. Landscape Wisely - Select plants and trees that don’t need extra water, fertilizer, or pesticides.
“A well-landscaped yard offers benefits beyond personal enjoyment. Carefully designed and well-maintained, a home landscape also benefits the environment by creating wildlife habitats, reducing erosion and runoff, and filtering water.” Learn more about how you can improve your landscape while reducing your impacts on rivers and lakes. Buy this book today on our website.
Conserve water – don’t overwater your garden or lawn, as this may cause fertilizers to leach into water bodies.
2. Protect and retain shorefront, and riverside vegetation, and prevent loss of wetlands. These are important wildlife habitats, as well as provide bank and shore stabilization. They are also buffers that “trap” pollutants before reaching the lake, by removing chemicals, and by settling out soils. And, buffers will prevent waterfowl from making your beach or lawn their playground!
Wave action from boats can cause shoreline erosion. Buffer plantings of native flowers and shrubs can help reduce erosion, and also provide wildlife habitat.
3. Keep soils chemical – free. Never pour unwanted chemicals on the ground, as soils cannot purify most manufactured chemicals. Use non-toxic products outdoors whenever possible.
4. Minimize fertilizer applications, which can stimulate aquatic plant and algae growth (just like your lawn!). In some extreme cases, algal growth will diminish water transparency and can cause unpleasant smelling and sometimes toxic “scum” or “algal blooms.”
5. Clean up after your pets as pet waste can contaminate surface water.
6. Maintain your septic system properly. Faulty septic systems can be a primary source of water pollution around streams and lakes. They are loaded with nutrients and can also be a health threat when not functioning properly. Effective January 1, 2009, Senate Bill 384 requires that the NH Dept. of Environmental Services and local authorities be notified when a septic system is found to be failing during a site assessment of developed waterfront property.
7. Don’t dump leaf litter or leaves into the lake. Compost the material or take it to a proper waster disposal. Do not fill in wetland areas. Reduce beach enhancement areas as sand contains phosphorous, smothers aquatic habitat, and gets transported away by currents and wind.
8. Recycle used oil and antifreeze. Most towns offer an annual hazardous materials collection day.
9. Use Best Management Practices when building, cutting trees, excavating or doing any work near the shorefront, to prevent erosion and sedimentation from reaching any stream or waterbody. For more information, click here.
10. Protect buffers to streams and the lake. Be familiar with your town setbacks, and the Comprehensive Shoreland Protection Act.
Click the poster for full-size pdf version
11. Reduce impervious surfaces. Landscape and re-develop with consideration for how water flows on and off your property. Divert runoff from impervious areas (roof, driveways, parking areas) to a level vegetated area or rain garden so the water can be slowed, filtered and absorbed as groundwater recharge, and not cause erosion into the lake.
12. Get involved – in water quality monitoring and in being a steward in your town. IF you see problem activities, contact your town Selectboard to investigate.
