The Alphabet Soup of Conservation:
How Confusing Can It Get?
by Mike Little
In the Belgrade Chain of Lakes there are six lake associations for eight lakes. They are, from the top of the chain, the East Pond Association (EPA), the North Pond Association (NPA), the McGrath Pond/ Salmon Lake Association (MP/ SLA), the Watson Pond Landowners Association (WPLA), the Belgrade Lakes Association (BLA) for Great and Long Ponds, and the Snow Pond-Messalonskee Lake Association (SP/MLA). And, outside the Belgrade Chain, but in the region, there is the Summer Haven Lakes Association (SHLA).
These groups are active in protecting the water quality of their individual lakes and in protecting their lakes from invasive plants. If you are not a member of the association on your lake — you should join today! You can call the BRCA office at 495-6039, and we will give you the contact for your lake.
Spanning the entire region (as its name says) is the Belgrade Regional Conservation Alliance (BRCA) a membership organization working in many areas of environmental protection. The BRCA has several major components:
- It is a land trust: The Mountain, French Mountain, and Mount Phillip are BRCA properties. The BRCA also protects land through conservation easements that prevent development on privately owned lands.
- The Conservation Corps is a BRCA program that puts high school kids to work protecting all our lakes.
- The BRCA Watershed Program works to remedy Non-Point Source Pollution threats to our lakes.
- The BRCA Milfoil Program works with the individual lake associations to coordinate Courtesy Boat Inspections at all our public ramps.
A couple of other lakes acronyms you may run into are: COLA = the Congress of Lake Associations (a statewide group you should also support); VLMP = Volunteer Lakes Monitoring Program; and MCIAP = Maine Center for Invasive Aquatic Plants.
And land trust acronyms encountered in our region might include: KLT = Kennebec Land Trust; MLTN = Maine Land Trust Network, TNC = The Nature Conservancy, or SWOAM = Small Woodland Owners Association of Maine.
Mike Little is executive director of the Belgrade Regional Conservation Alliance. He can be contacted at 495-6039 or brca@gwi.net or visited at the BRCA Office, The Boathouse, Belgrade Lakes Village.
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