Maine's lakes and ponds are a treasured cultural and economic resource. And now for the first time, the state has issued online "scorecards" that show individual water bodies' environmental conditions.
Monitors have been collecting data on water quality and other issues for decades, but the information may not be easy for many people to access or interpret, said Jeremy Deeds, with the lakes assessment program at Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
Instead, the scorecard indicates how well, or poorly, lakes are faring on issues such as shoreline conditions, water quality, invasive plants and runoff pollution.
"What we wanted to do is summarize all these different aspects of lake condition and efficiently convey a picture of lake health," Deeds said.
The graphics are color coded — blue for good, yellow for fair, and red for poor or at risk. Some conditions are shaded in gray, indicating unknown.
Deeds said the state has scorecards for about 1,200 Maine lakes and ponds that have the best monitoring data.
The department and lake associations hope the tool will encourage people to take more of an interest in lake health and possibly volunteer to monitor bodies of water and help fill in some of the missing data gaps.
"One of the overarching goals here is to give people a little bit of information and realize how they can get involved," Deeds said.
The public can search for individual lakes and get more information on conditions at the Lake Stewards of Maine website.
