Water Quality
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Lakeside Notes
The Endless Generosity of Maine’s Volunteer Lake Monitors
By Scott Williams
VLMP Executive Director
We never cease to be amazed at, and are truly grateful for, your seemingly bottomless generosity. You not only donate substantial time, and personal resources in order to help all of us monitor and protect Maine’s lakes, but increasingly, many of you also provide generous financial support for the VLMP.
It was just a few years ago, following much discussion, that we created the annual appeal, in which we asked the public, including our volunteers, to consider making a donation to the program. The response was wonderful, and a little unexpected. Many of you welcomed the opportunity to make a contribution to help us support your work and to facilitate the growth of the program. We also discovered that many lake associations throughout Maine were willing to support the work of a volunteer monitor on their lake with an annual contribution to the VLMP.
Since its inception way back in the early 1970’s, the Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program has provided training, equipment and technical support to volunteer monitors and their lake communities—all free of charge. During the financial ups and downs of the program’s history some have suggested that one way of helping to ensure financial sustainability for the program would be to change this policy and pass our costs on to the monitors, especially considering that it now costs from $350-500 to train each new volunteer, provide them with basic monitoring gear, manage their data, send them newsletters and an annual report, provide technical assistance, and more. And that’s just for the first year!
But by keeping the program free for our volunteers, we are fulfilling our side of an agreement with you. We provide training, equipment and support, and in return, you donate your time, the use of your boat, send us your data, and frequently report the findings of your monitoring efforts to your lake association and watershed community, year after year. Many of you are stalwart stewards of your lake and watershed and the data that you gather is the cornerstone of efforts to protect both.
Government funding, which has historically been the primary source of financial support for the program, has been flat-funded for several years. As a result of this, donations from the public, lake associations, towns, and volunteers have become increasingly important in helping us to continue our practice of training and supporting volunteer monitors without charging a fee.
Obviously, we believe in the importance of this program, as do you, our volunteers. You demonstrate your commitment in so many ways. Undoubtedly, your lake association appreciates the work that you do for your lake and watershed community. But they may not fully appreciate the value of having a local grassroots expert like you (and us) available to help them monitor the health of their lake. And perhaps they don’t realize that you are part of a larger network of people throughout Maine who have a great deal of collective knowledge and understanding about lakes – and that the VLMP provides you with ongoing information about hundreds of Maine lakes, as well as personal technical support. And all of this is available to them free! It’s an incredible bargain for your lake association.
You can help your lake association learn more about your good work, and the work of the VLMP. We’re confident that once they understand the value that all of us provide them, they will recognize the importance of supporting the VLMP, which, in turn will ensure that we are able to continue to support your efforts. You can move this mutually beneficial relationship forward by asking your lake association to make an annual donation to the VLMP. To help you make the request, we’ve drafted a letter that you can present to your association. The letter was included in the spring mailing packet that you recently received. If you misplaced it, it can be downloaded at: www.MaineVolunteerLakeMonitors.org/support, or—you can use this article to make your case, if you wish. If there’s anything that we can do to help with this, please feel free to contact us.
Thank you very much for all that you do for your lake, and for all Maine lakes. We look forward to hearing from you this summer, and hope to see many of you at the Annual Lake Monitoring Conference on July 11th which, as always, is provided to certified volunteer monitors free of charge!
Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program
vlmp@mainevlmp.org
24 Maple Hill Road, Auburn, ME 04210
(207) 783-7733
www.MaineVolunteerLakeMonitors.org
copyright 2010 Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program | website comments to: vlmp@mainevlmp.org
