Town of Raymond to assume milfoil harvesting duties from RWPA volunteers

By Ed Pierce

Responsibility for the Diver Assisted Suction Harvesting Program (DASH) milfoil mitigation program will now be handled by the Town of Raymond instead of the Raymond Waterways Protective Association.

Peggy Jensen of the Raymond Waterways
Protective Association prepares to take a 
Secchi disc reading for water clarity on a
lake in Raymond last year.
SUBMITTED PHOTO

Members of Raymond’s Select Board have voted unanimously to take over this task from the RWPA following a letter sent to the town in December by Peggy Jensen, RWPA president.

“After careful consideration of all the imaginable ways to address the remaining small patches and the inevitable stray plants that may regenerate from even tiny pieces of stem or root, we have decided the best solution is to move the DASH program to the town,” Jensen wrote to Raymond Select Board members.

Jensen said that RWPA has pledged to guide town personnel in taking ownership of the boat and its necessary equipment so that it could be quickly put back into operation and in applying for possibly available grant funds. RWPA also recommended that the town consider hiring a private contractor for the work.

“RWPA will continue to monitor and mitigate any invasive aquatic species found in the upper Jordan River, from the Route 302 highway to Mill Street, and Dingley Brook, from Cape Road to Sebago Lake,” Jensen wrote. “We will continue to operate the Courtesy Boat Inspection program at four launch sites in Raymond. We hope to have continuing support from the town for this program.”

According to Jensen, RWPA is looking to expand the hours covered for the Courtesy Boat Inspection program and is seeking to hire a manager for the program this coming season.

The Raymond Waterways Protective Association was created in the early 1970s by Ernest Bickford and Ernest Knight with a mission established to monitor and preserve the water quality of all Raymond lakes.

Since the beginning of RWPA’s water testing initiatives, all of Raymond’s lakes have been placed in the “Above Average Quality” category for the entire state of Maine.

Bodies of water being monitored by RWPA volunteers include Crescent Lake, Notched Pond, Panther Pond, Raymond Pond, Sebago Lake and Thomas Pond.

Through the years since it was first created, RWPA has continued to expand its duties by adding voluntary boat inspections and conducting plant surveys for invasive plant species with a goal of ensuring water quality and advocating for watershed stewardship in Raymond.

Milfoil remains an ongoing threat to local lakes and waterways.

“All the smaller lakes and ponds have volunteers who are trained to identify the 11, soon to be 12, invasive aquatic plants that threaten our waters,” said Jensen. “We have spent years finding and removing invasive variable milfoil in Raymond’s waters, with most of it being done by a dive crew as all our divers are trained and certified for SCUBA work and for the specialized work of removing invasive plants.”

Courtesy Boat Inspectors examine boats entering and leaving the launch ramps in Raymond, and strive to prevent invasive plants such as milfoil from entering Raymond waterways, but also from spreading milfoil contamination to other lakes and waters in the state.

“They educate boaters about the dangers of invasive species including organisms we can’t always see, and they remove all plant material that they find on a boat, a trailer, and all fishing gear,” said Jensen. “There is a large group of highly trained volunteers who provide emergency survey services to any lake that has a new infestation or a suspected one. So long as there is any invasive variable milfoil in the Sebago Lakes, we will have to remain vigilant and continue surveying.”

Raymond’s Select Board voted unanimously for the town to take over the DASH invasive removal program for the 2023 season. <

Seaplanes a vital component of Lakes Region summer activities

Matt McFadden of Naples Seaplane Adventures prepares
to land on Sebago Long Lake in his Cessna 180 Skywagon.
COURTESY PHOTO

By Andrew Wing

When you think about what the ultimate off-road vehicle is, you probably do not imagine that you see them every summer. Odds are if you live in either Windham or Raymond, that ultimate off-road vehicle is the seaplane.

Every summer, seaplanes frequently fly in and out of Sebago Lake. However, we usually just admire from afar and take in what we are watching. We don’t take the time to think about everything that goes on behind the scenes when it comes to flying seaplanes, such as the challenges of landing on water, what kind of cargo they carry, and the simple fact that there is an entire organization dedicated to seaplane pilots called  the Seaplane Pilots Association.

This summer is actually going to be a big one for the Seaplane Pilots Association as they will be celebrating their 50^th anniversary. Since 1972, the SPA has been protecting and promoting the water flying community through its advocacy and representation of the seaplane community. It’s the only organization in the world solely focused on representing the interests of seaplane pilots, owners and operators.

The SPA is dedicated to promoting safe seaplane operations and to protecting the sharing of our nation’s waterways with other user groups. Their goal is to take your passion for flight to a whole new level and make your dreams come true as you get to live a life of adventure and discovery through water flying.

The SPA obviously does a lot of work in the state of Maine when it comes to finding waterways to land on like our very own Sebago Lake, and also offering safety seminars for seaplane pilots like Matthew McFadden. McFadden moved to the Lakes Region area 21 years ago to learn how to fly seaplanes, and he did so at Naples Seaplane Service.

For his first nine years there he worked as a flight instructor teaching how to fly seaplanes and for the past eight years he has been operating Naples Seaplane Adventures where they offer scenic seaplane rides right off the causeway in Naples. There, as both a commercial pilot and certified aircraft technician, McFadden does everything that the business requires.

Another seaplane pilot in the Lakes Region area is Peter Marucci. Marucci currently runs a scenic business out of Colonial Mast Cove Campground in Naples under the name of Mast Cove Seaplane Base on Long Lake. Marucci’s parents bought the campground 44 years ago when he was a teenager, and he started working as a mechanic before ultimately becoming a pilot, and with his parents owning a campground, he found that to be a great place to have a seaplane.

There are many challenges when it comes to actually landing a plane on water, and both McFadden and Marucci are experienced pilots when landing aircraft in the Lakes Region.

“The challenges to landing on water over land are several,” said McFadden. “The surface conditions can obviously be very rough at times, and this requires using different kinds of techniques to land and take off. With Sebago being such a large lake, it’s very common for it to be rough and unsafe to land on unless in a protected cove out of the rough water.”

Marucci agreed.

“The first important thing to know is how to read the water, and the second is that there’s no brakes,” said Marucci. “The most difficult thing is learning how to handle the airplane while it’s docking on the water, and because of that, I always try to keep my skills polished and land on Sebago Lake a couple of times a year.”

Just like landing on water is very different from landing on solid ground, flying a seaplane is different from flying a regular plane and through hours of training, Marucci has acquired that skill.

“It’s not about flying the airplane, it’s about the skills of handling the airplane on the water,” said Marucci. “It comes with time as wind and weather conditions change quickly, and after 18 years, I am still learning.”

Another general assumption when it comes to seaplanes is that they are just used for flying passengers in the summer, but McFadden said that they are used for much more.

“As for the cargo some seaplanes carry, it can really be a laundry list at times,” said McFadden. “They may need stuff at camp on a lake, like fishing supplies, and or passengers. You name it, it probably has been hauled in the air by a seaplane.” <