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Welcome to Downstream
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July 2012
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 The Great Bay Dialogue has changed its name to the Great Bay Initiative to better reflect the action & effort taking place. There are many new resources on the website & new action team meetings are scheduled.
Visit the website for
more information
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NH Coastal Adaptation Workgroup
Salmon Falls Watershed Collaborative
Let's Connect! 
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Photos
Wanted!
 | Burrito Dinner on Rye Beach A great summer night!
By: Tim Farrell |
Do you have an eye for capturing nature at her finest?
Do you know how to capture the Seacoast Lifestyle?
Do you love to show off to your friends & family your keen photographic eye?
Submit a photo on PREP's Facebook wall & we may choose it to be featured in an upcoming issue of Downstream.
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Think Blue Exeter!
Exeter has gone to the DUCKS! Exeter has launched a new educational outreach program about the harmful effects of stormwater pollution. Keep an eye & an ear to local TV & radio for the ducks & THINK BLUE EXETER!
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| Is Water Worth it To You?
Join in EPA's 40th Anniversary Celebration and take part in the "Water is Worth It" Video Project.
Submit a 15-second video clip explaining the important role water plays in your life.
This is your chance to tell the US why our water in the Seacoast matters to you!
Follow this link for more info & to fill out the entry form.
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Welcome!
Welcome to the June issue of Downstream, Your Estuaries Partnership News. Summer has arrived! The kids are out of school, our roads are busy with tourists and our opportunities for enjoying our watershed are endless! Summer is also a popular time for us to tend to our gardens and lawns with fertilizers.
This month we take a closer look at a research project that is investigating a very pressing issue for our watershed - non point source pollution. Non-point source pollution is essentially pollution that comes from anywhere other than a discharge pipe - it's runoff from developed areas that contains fertilizers from our lawns, oil from leaking cars in parking lots, dog waste, cleaning supplies, litter and more. With the rains we've had this early summer the issue of runoff is quite visible to all of us.
However, there are a lot things each of us can do to help prevent the pollution. Our Clean Water Music Series is helping to promote those things, check out the "Get Involved" section on www.CleanWaterMusic.com for ideas.
Always remember that all water flows to somewhere, whether it's a small stream in your backyard or the rain running down your street, so we need to do our part to be sure that the water that runs through our lives stays clean and pollution free. As always, thank you for reading and caring!
 Jill Farrell Community Impact Program Manager
The Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership (PREP) If you have any recommendations on how we can improve our newsletter, or have any news you would like to share, please e-mail us and we'd be happy to incorporate your ideas into a future issue. |
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Scientists around Great Bay Collaborate with Local Citizens to Address Pollution
If you've tuned into the local papers lately it's hard to miss the ongoing coverage and debate about the excess nitrogen that is impacting the Great Bay estuary (check out NHDES's Riptide E-Info for a library of recent articles). Beyond the natural sources of nitrogen (e.g. lightning strikes, rainfall and decaying matter), nitrogen enters Great Bay and its watershed in two ways: from "point sources" such as a wastewater treatment facilities, and "non-point sources" such as leaky sewer lines and septic systems, fertilizer from agricultural fields and lawns, pet and livestock waste and airborne particles from cars and power plants that come down in the rain and runoff our roads and parking lots. While point-sources, such as the sewage effluent emerging from the pipe at a wastewater treatment facility can be easily monitored, non-point sources of nitrogen vary greatly and are spread widely across the landscape and therefore can be very difficult to study.
However, since 2010 the Great Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (GBNERR) has been collaborating with fellow scientists and regional stakeholders to better understand and address this significant and growing problem. GBNERR staff members like Steve Miller and UNH faculty and staff like Bill McDowell and Michelle Daley have been working to expand the role of the Reserve through collaborative research. This
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Seeking out "hot spots" for non-point source nitrogen can be tricky
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innovative research approach uses an integrated process that combines the scientific methodology with a diverse group of stakeholders so that the research results can be directly applied to helping municipalities and land managers. The range of stakeholders collaborating on the project include: municipal planners and decision-makers, representatives from regional non-profits and local business owners. The perspectives and experience of these stakeholders throughout the research process has resulted in improved project objectives, modified research questions and final products that will identify potential "hot-spots" of non-point source nitrogen. The project will help towns focus pollution reduction efforts on areas where they can be most effective and make the greatest contributions to reducing impacts and protecting local sources of drinking water.
This collaborative project is in its second year of a three year grant with final results anticipated in October 2013. This kind of collaboration between scientists, stakeholders, and decision-makers is extremely important for making local policy and landuse decisions that support local economies, foster healthy communities and protect natural resources. To be looped into the project's newsletter that shares project updates and results as they become available visit this site. |
Seacoast Musicians Unite to Promote Clean Water
The PREP Clean Water Music series is in full-swing. After hosting a
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Singer, Song Writer Martin England on stage at PREP's Clean Water Music Event
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full-house at The Press Room on Thursday June 14 with featured performances by Martin England and Back on the Train we're excited to announce our next event will be held at the Wakefield Opera House in Sanbornville, NH on Friday July 14 and we'd love to see you there.
Created to unite Seacoast residents on the importance of caring for our lakes, rivers, marshes and Great Bay & the Hampton/Seabrook Estuaries, PREP's Clean Water Music Series offers both bands and fans from across our watershed the opportunity to have a great time while celebrating the places we love!
To learn more about upcoming shows, view band bios and learn more about what you can do to reduce your impact on our watershed, visit CleanWaterMusic.com. On behalf of PREP, we would like to thank all of those who continue to work with us to protect and preserve the places we love. If you have any questions, or would like to get involved with PREP's Clean Water Music Series either as a volunteer, performer or sponsor, please contact Jill Farrell.
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Watershed WatchOur Watershed Watch feature is dedicated to sharing our partners' latest research and reports. If you have, or know of a report you would like us to feature in an upcoming issue of Downstream, please contact us and we will be happy to include it.
Crommet Creek Conservation Area Management Plan
By: Great Bay Resource Protection Partnership
The Crommet Creek Conservation Area is located in Durham and Newmarket. The Management Plan for the area was released in April 2012 and is intended to provide individual conservation property owners guidance in stewardship and management decision making from a landscape, ecological perspective. This advisory document was developed by the Great Bay Resource Protection Partnership and represents an innovative approach to coordinating land stewardship activities at the watershed scale.
Eutrophication Issues in the Gulf of Maine. By: The Gulf of Maine Council The Gulf of Maine Council's EcoSystem Indicator Partnership (ESIP) has released the fourth of seven indicator-specific fact sheets. The fact sheet summarizes data from the Gulf of Maine for four key indicators of euttrophication (i.e., nutrient over-enrichment)- nitrogen and phosphorus, chlorophyll, water clarity, and dissolved oxygen - along with a snapshot of the indicator data. The data are also available through the ESIP Indicator Reporting Tool and can be mapped with other indicator data or graphed to show trends.
Read the initial fact sheet here. Healthy Watersheds Yield Economic Benefits
By: US EPA
 These days, economic considerations seem to dominate national and global conversations is any arena. It may seem strange to appraise the "value" of a healthy watershed in the same way one would assess the value of a house, a school, or a power plant, but there have been numerous cases when maintaining the functionality of a natural system represented significant benefits and cost reductions compared to any alternative system built by humans. The figure below is from a short EPA fact sheet that discusses the benefits of maintaining healthy watersheds from an economic perspective. The upper portion of the figure demonstrates the benefits of New York City's decision to conserve a neighboring watershed to provide the massive amounts of drinking water to millions of people, rather than open the watershed to development and attempt to replace lost ecosystem services with a water filtration plant. The factsheet explains other benefits of preserving natural systems that may not be obvious and may be taken for granted until they are lost. |
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PREP's Clean Water Champion
Molly Bolster & The Gundalow Company
PREP's Clean Water Champion is a monthly feature that profiles people and partners working to make a difference around our watershed. We had asked the Gundalow Company's Executive Director Molly Bolster to be our clean water champion this month because of her work with the Gundalow Company and its commitment to stewardship of environmental health and preservation of history in the Piscataqua region. She humbly requested that the Gundalow Company as an organization take the title of clean water champion, and described an organization that plays a critical role in engaging the community. Aboard the beautiful new gundalow Piscataqua, citizens of the Piscataqua region can sail with Molly and gain an important perspective on the place they call home.
PREP: How long have you been a champion for clean water? Molly: The Gundalow Company's mission is to protect the Piscataqua region's maritime heritage and environment through education and action. For the past ten years we have used the gundalow Captain Edward H. Adams as our dockside classroom teaching thousands of students and the public about the rivers in the Great Bay Estuary, and gundalows that promoted the economic development of the riverfront towns. The man for whom the boat was named -Edward H. Adams - was a champion of the local waters in the 1940s when he gathered support to oppose the construction of a giant dam across Great Bay that would have destroyed the rivers and bays. By naming the gundalow for him, the intent was to help people understand the frailty of our rivers and to connect the region's history with the need to protect it for future generations. So you could say the gundalows have been water champions since 1982 with the launching of the Captain Edward H. Adams. The Gundalow Company built the gundalow Piscataqua in 2011 to be the sailing classroom for the next generation of river and bay stewards - so we like to think that the Piscataqua is a new champion of the waters that will carry a message that celebrates the past, present and future of our rivers and bays. PREP: How'd you get started in protecting clean water?
Molly: In 1992 I joined the board of the Piscataqua Gundalow Project which was the group that built the Adams in 1982. At that time the organization was struggling financially and Strawberry Banke agreed to acquire the vessel. In 2002 I was part of the group that founded the Gundalow Company and I became the executive director in 2003. My love for the water goes back to my childhood- I grew up sailing with my family on the Maine coast and have worked with boat programs off and on for 35 years.
PREP: What's your favorite thing to do with or on water?
Molly: Few things give me more joy than being out on the water on a beautiful boat. Better still is the joy I feel when watching others -especially children - discovering and defining their own relationship to boats and spending time on the water. I strongly believe that we gain a whole new perspective of our "sense of place" on land when we look back at the shore from the deck of a boat.
PREP: What's been your proudest moment as a clean water champion?
Molly: My proudest moment so far (and I hope there will be more) was on December 10, 2011 when the Piscataqua was launched into the river with people cheering, bagpipes playing and cannon firing! It was an affirmation that from now on, locals of all ages will have the opportunity to experience our rivers from the deck of a historically significant vessel. I am proud to be part of the group that shared this vision and has made it a reality. What's one simple thing you would tell somebody to do to protect the places around the Seacoast they love? Molly: Spend time with kids: Teach a child how to row, sail, swim or paddle. Join Molly & the Gundalow Company aboard the new gundalow Piscataqua on one of their public sails. Visit their website to book your trip!
Follow the Gundalow Company on Twitter @gundalow
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Partner Focus: Moose Mountain Regional Greenways' 8th Annual Paddle Event
On Saturday, May 26th, Seventy paddlers guided their kayaks and canoes past wetlands, conserved forests and farmland along the Branch River, then turned up the Salmon Falls River at the confluence toward a grilled local lunch provided by Branch Hill Farm. This was the 8th year for the river paddle, and a record turnout. Moose Mountains Regional Greenways and Branch Hill Farm both have outreach and education missions, and the trip included information from conservation and water quality professionals at specific points along the river. This growing event is an awesome way to experience the regional ecosystem and learn about environmental issues that affect Great Bay watershed citizens. For more info & to become a member of Moose Mountain Regional Greenways, visit their webpage. |
The Clean Water Community Calendar
As the Community for Clean Water, one of PREP's goals is to keep you informed on the latest outings, conferences, workshops and FUN happening around our watershed so that you, your family, friends & neighbors can get involved!
Below is our run-down for July. If you have, or know of an event that you would like us to feature in an upcoming issue of Downstream, please contact us!
Final Study Presentation for Climate Ready Estuaries COAST Project
Date: 6/28/12
Time: 6:00pm - 8:30pm
Where: Hampton Falls Town Hall, 1 Drinkwater Rd. Hampton Falls
Economic Evaluation of Options to Reduce Storm Surge and Sea Level Rise Coastal Flood Hazards in the Hampton-Seabrook Estuary, NH. The results of a hazard mapping and economic impact study of potential impacts to municipal and private real estate resulting from projected future increases in sea level and storm surge will be presented. The meeting will focus on the costs and benefit of strategies for adapting to changing conditions to prevent/minimize coastal flooding damages in Hampton, Hampton Falls, and Seabrook.
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!
July 9th Water Sustainability in NH for Water Professionals Date: 7/9/12 Time: 2:00pm - 5:00pm Where: Dept. of Safety - Fire Academy, 99 Smokey Bear Blvd., Concord, NH Hosted by the Governor's Water Sustainability Commission & NH Listens as part of the state-wide conversation about the future of water sustainability in NH. This specific session is for professionals, organizations and communities already working on issues of water sustainability.
July 14th
PREP's Clean Water Music Series 
Date: 7/14/12
Time: 8pm to 10pm
Where: Wakefield Opera House - Sanbornville, NH
Come enjoy the contemporary a cappella sounds of Tuckermans at 9 as they peform as part of PREP's Clean Water Music Series.
For a complete list of upcoming shows, please visit CleanWaterMusic.com
July 17th How to Make the Most of Interpreting Permits & Plans Date: 6/17/12
Time: 5:00pm - 7:00pm Where: Hugh Gregg Coastal Conservation Center, Greenland, NH
This workshop is designed for conservation commissioners, planning board members, local advisory committee members and other volunteer permit reviewers. The workshop will introduce the methods of permit and plan reading and interpretation that has the best influence on the review process for watershed protection. Attendees will have a chance to share their experiences and expertise.
Hosted free of charge by PREP, Great Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve Coastal Training Program, NH Rivers Council, Piscataquog River LAC & Upper Merrimack River LAC.
July 20th PREP's Clean Water Music Series! Date: 7/20/12 Time: 8:00pm-11:00pm
Where: The Holy Grail Pub, Main St., Epping, NH Come dance to the swinging, rockabilly sounds of Raising Scarlet while learning a little more about what you can do to protect the places we love. Our first event was a full house so get there early and have some dinner and then show off your best dance moves.
July 21st Mount A's Volunteer Work Day Date: 7/21/12 Time: 9:00am - 1:00pm Where: Mount Agamenticus, Cape Neddick, ME Join the Conservation Trail Crew & other volunteers to help the landowners maintain water quality, wildlife & sustainable trails. Work on a project to protect forest and wetland habitat near Mount A. All ages and skill levels are needed & welcomed.
July 28th
Mount A's Nature Walk Series: Summer Stroll Date: 7/28/12 Time: 9:30am - 2:00pm Where: Mount Agamenticus, Cape Neddick, ME Travel from Mt. A's 3 different peaks & investigate how Mount A has been shaped & reshaped by the many people that have come through this area in the past. Repaint the picture of the past by walking down old logging roads, ski trails and along side stonewalls, old gravesites, foundations & rock piles. Reservations Required. $5 donation requested for each hike. To sign up please call the Conservation Coordinator at (207) 361-1102 or email Robin@Agamenticus.org
Thursdays in July on the Gundalow Piscataqua
Join the Gundalow Company aboard the new vessel the Piscataqua this season for live music & special presentations during their Thursday sunset sails. Thursdays, June through September, will feature either live, local music or a speaker on environmental issues or cultural and maritime heritage. The Thursday evening sails in July run 6:00pm - 8:00pm Click here for tickets & info. |
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Water Wise: July Trivia Question
Scientists estimate that global human activities have approximately doubled the amount of land-based nitrogen that flows from rivers to the sea. Prior to this change, natural conversion of inert atmospheric nitrogen to biologically-active forms of nitrogen was primarily caused by lightening, volcanoes and _______________.
The first person who submits the correct answer here will win a $25 Gift Card to Fiddlehead Farms Market in Dover & Alton, NH.
Congratulations to Sarah MacGregor from Newfields. Sarah was the first person to provide last month's answer to the question, "Who was Richard Schanda?" with "Joe Dixx" and she won a $25 gift card to Fiddlehead Farms Marketplace. Sarah was actually interviewed by Richard aka "Joe Dixx" in the 1980's for the Exeter Newsletter. Sarah is an entomologist and at the time she was working for the Town of Rye doing mosquito control and building greenhead fly traps. Joe Dixx interviewed her about the project and she remembers him being 'quite the character'! Way to go Sarah!
To learn more about Richard Schanda who's pen name for the Exeter News Letter was Joe Dixx and to read his fantastic articles about nature, hunting, fishing, season changes, wildlife and changes in the Seacoast environment visit www.joedixx.com . To see some of Joe's hunting, fishing and wildlife viewing equipment visit the Great Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve's Hugh Gregg Coastal Conservation Center. The basement level has a Special Collections room that features many amazing artifacts from Joe's personal collection.
 | | Joe Dixx doing what he loved to do |
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www.FiddleheadFarms.com
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Get $5.00 Off Your Next Purchase of $25.00 or More!
| Offer good one per customer and can not be combined with any other offer.
Valid through 8/1/2012 Promo Code: PREP3
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