Friends of Messalonskee

The Friends of Messalonskee is a nonprofit, volunteer Organization founded in 1990 to promote the preservation of the lake.

The Friends work to educate the public and promote the responsible use of the lake. Activities include wildlife preservation, testing & promoting water quality, promoting the practices which protect the lake ecosystem and encouraging safe recreational use of the lake.

The last lake in the Belgrade Chain of Lakes in Kennebec County, Maine. Messalonskee Lake contains approximately 39 billion gallons of water, . The lake’s water flows into the Messalonskee Stream at the town of Oakland, which in turn flows to the Kennebec River, then to the Atlantic Ocean 45 miles South near Bath, Maine.

Scenes on Snow Pond

The lake is a 9 mile long, narrow, natural creation, resulting from continental collision and glacial scouring. A dam originally built in the town of Oakland in 1905 increased the lakes size.

The lake is officially named Messalonskee Lake but also commonly known as Snow Pond (named after Philip Snow who hunted the area around the lake in the mid 1700’s) and less commonly as Nine Mile Pond. More history of the lake can be found on the Lake Information page.

This historically recreational lake has substantially developed shoreline and is located in a watershed that is experiencing rapid residential growth. This puts tremendous pressure on the ecosystems of the lake.

Scenes on Snow Pond

Friends of Messalonskee Lake

Promote Your Page Too

Milfoil Activities in FULL SWING.

After our successful Milfoil Mania educational event at the Oakland boat launch in June, our planned milfoil mitigation and control activities are actively in progress now.

This includes the construction of eight benthic barriers that will be placed in our targeted control areas. The first will be in a shallow cove that is near Juniper Lane in Sidney. This area of milfoil is blocking the access to docks on the shore and requires the boats to move through the heavy growth to get to open water. Our objective here is to create a milfoil free channel for access to the lake...

We also have confirmed that we will be able to lease a Diver Assisted Suction Harvester in August to use near the Oakland Boat launch to remove patches of milfoil in that area.

We encourage you to continue to support these efforts through your volunteer work and financial assistance to the extent that you can. It is only through your support that we can make this a sustainable program.

Mike Willey
President

Our Benthic Barrier Builders hard at work.

Maine Milfoil Initiative Comes to Messalonskee Lake

You may have seen the article in the Morning Sentinel about the planned increase in activity in controlling the spread of Variable Leaf Milfoil on Messalonskee Lake. This program will potentially bring more funding to our efforts BUT we need help. In order to meet the requirements for the federal grant we need additional IN-KIND donations. We are looking for the following.

Donations of time for volunteers to work on these activities:

Mapping and Documenting the current infestations
Benthic Barrier Construction and Installation
Promotion and Recruiting of Volunteers
Project Management resources for the summer activities
Also, we are looking for additional IN-KIND donations that can be used to help get our matching federal funds. In particular we would like to find a 24 to 26 ft Pontoon Boat that we can use as a platform for our milfoil mitigation work.

All Dontations are Tax Deductible as the Friends of Messalonskee is a Non Profit 501c3 organization.

If you can help in any way contact:

Friends of Messalonskee
P.O. Box 532
Oakland, Maine 04963

Lorne McMillan – Treasurer – 207-649-2556
Mike Willey - President – 207 314 1489

Arial view of Messalonskee Lake

NEWS – Updated October 6, 2011

Milfoil removal efforts continue on
Messalonskee Lake
Groups spends 4 days working to take out infestations

OAKLAND -- Brian Michaud is a hard hat diver who specializes in underwater construction and deep sea diving.OAKLAND -- Brian Michaud is a hard hat diver who specializes in underwater construction and deep sea diving.

While he wore a wetsuit recently, he didn't need a hard hat; his work environment was four feet of fresh water in a cove on Messalonskee Lake.

Michaud's job was to suction a thick infestation of milfoil from the silty bottom.

For the full story, please see this Morning Sentinel Article.

The Snow Pond Messalonskee Lake Association has changed its name to Friends of Meassalonskee. This change recognizes that the lake is used by all area people and the issues surrounding the lake effect everyone. The Friends of Messalonskee will continue to focus on the important issues that affect the preservation of the lake and its environs including invasive plants, water quality, recreation etc.

On August 13th the Friends of Messalonskee will hold its second annual Milfoil Awareness Day to help everyone identify, understand and help to manage this menacing invasive waterplant. The event will take place at the Oakland Boat Landing from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm and will include boat rides to look at milfoil areas on the lake.

At 11am we will hold a short "Friends" meeting which is open to all interested parties followed by a lunch hosted by "Friends of Messalonskee."

“Milfoil Awareness day,” and hosted by the Friends of Messalonskee, will be held Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Oakland Boat Launch off Old Belgrade Avenue.

Milfoil is an aquatic plant species that grows quickly, can choke out other plants and interfere with recreational activities such as swimming and boating. The invasive plant is often spread from lake to lake by boaters using different lakes.

People who attend the Saturday event will learn more about the invasive plant that has taken root in the lake. We invite people from the other Belgrade lakes to come for information regarding what this stuff looks like, to come out and learn how to prevent it. It’s an effort to raise the visibility level and educational specifics of what can be done.
Area Lake residents can learn how they can help in the control efforts in their own time. Variable Water Milfoil identification will be instructed as will a couple of easy state agency approved methods for removing the Milfoil that is choking parts of Messalonskee. This hands-on tutorial lead by the Belgrade regional Conservation Alliance will provide information and knowledge on the plant and its habitat.

Last summer Benthic barriers ,which are underwater mats that block sunlight and kill milfoil ,were placed in the lake. Boats and divers were also used to manually rip the milfoil out or by using a suction-harvesting machine. Three key locations were managed last summer: a spot at the south end of the lake and two areas near the Oakland Boat Launch.

Dr. Daniel Buckley, chairman of the biology department at the University of Maine at Farmington, has previously mapped milfoil at the lake in 2010 , this map will be on display for attendees to view.

Questions contact :
Ned Hammond 660-5069
Edward Pearl 465-3799

Milfoil Activities

We now have Four 10X30 ft barriers installed in the cove by Juniper Lane in Sidney. This area is a shallow area with boat and swimming access being blocked by heavy milfoil infestations. We chose this as our primary project this summer for barriers and we have now installed four of them in a channel between the boat dock at the camp of Marilyn Eccles and the open water.

Since it was pretty windy today, we need to go back and get in the water and make sure they are in position properly and that they lay on the bottom but so far so good.

Thanks to Ned Hammond, Steve Swartz, Shirley Brook, Dave Corwin and the rest of the Hammond family for helping on this project today.

We expect to lay a few more in this area before the summer is over and have the DASH boat available after labor day.

(Click on an image below for a larger view.)