Watershed News and Events

Watershed News and Events

The Lamprey River Watershed Outreach announces

Your Water, Your Wallet, Your Watershed - Why Working Together Across Town Boundaries Makes Sense For Protecting Our Water

The 14 towns in the watershed share this common resource - water. How we protect this valuable resource varies from town to town. What can be done to have a more united effort to ensure that our surface and ground water supplies are of high quality and our use sustainable? JAttendees learned and discussed what can be done at the town level to connect with others throughout the watershed.

DVDs of the conference are available for $10 from the LRWA.

Sponsored by a grant from the Lamprey River Advisory Committee and the NH Charitable Foundation. Organized by: Lamprey River Advisory Committee, Lamprey River Watershed Association, Coastal Training Program Great Bay NERR, Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership, and the NH Water Resources Research Center

Keynote Speaker: Christine Feurt, Ph.D., Coastal Training Program Coordinator, Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve & Director, Center for Sustainable Communities, University of New England

“Protecting Our Children's Water - Engaging the Kaleidoscope of Expertise”

Erika Washburn, UNH Natural Resources and Earth Systems Science, Ph.D. Candidate

“The Lamprey River Watershed: Key Concepts, Issues and Challenges to Land Use Decision Making in the 14 Towns”

Michelle Daley, NH Water Resources Research Center, Associate Director

“Water Quality Research in the Lamprey River Watershed: Road Salt and Nitrogen”

Derek Sowers, Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership, Project Manager

“Consistency of Environmental Planning & Regulation Between Towns in the Lamprey River Watershed”

Streamwalk 2008 "Streamwalk 2008" is a Success!

We did it!!! With the help of many great volunteers the Lamprey River Watershed Association (LRWA) surveyed 99 percent of all 47 miles of the Lamprey River during Streamwalk 2008! Our volunteers located and documented many potential threats along the river corridor, including invasive species, culverts, trash and stormwater outfalls. The good news is that the Lamprey River is in pretty good shape and we aim to keep it that way. With the information our volunteers collected we will be targeting specific area and problems along the river for future projects in order to keep the Lamprey River beautiful and healthy!

Streamwalk 2008 started in June with over 60 volunteers from across the watershed, the state and even Maine attending training sessions in Lee and Epping. Volunteers were asked to look for a wide variety of potential problems along the river corridor and document the location and detail the condition of impacts or potential impacts to the river. The project specifically asked volunteers to look for areas where stormwater was running into the river, sever erosion was occurring along the banks, trash and natural debris were collecting, invasive species were taking over areas, roads and culverts may pose problems with flooding, or areas with minimal or no vegetative buffers. All of these problems were found along the river, but most were localized issues that have the potential to be remedied.

The final Streamwalk 2008 report will be out in early 2009, with all findings mapped and presented to each of the towns in the watershed, but the major discoveries were:

A large amount of stormwater runoff from parking lots, roads and buildings is entering the river without any type of filter or vegetative buffer to minimize the oils, road salt and trash that accompany it.
Japanese knotweed, and invasive shrub, is being found mainly in disturbed areas like road crossings or areas of new construction, but is also being found in heavily wooded areas downstream of these sights.
Many of the culverts near roadways are being clogged with trash and woody debris from upstream. This can make even adequately sized culverts too small, leading to an increased risk of flooding.
Erosion is not occurring along large portions of the river, and most of the documented areas where likely caused by the major floods in recent years.
Most of the Lamprey River has very good vegetated buffers to help filter pollution, slow down flood waters and make canoeing down the river more pleasant!

The success of the Streamwalk is entirely due to the tremendous work of our volunteers. Without their willingness to walk though swampy areas, survey in between all of the thunderstorms this summer or haul canoes over downed trees in the river we would not have been able to accomplish this large task. I would like thank all those that gave their time towards this entire effort.

The LRWA is currently developing future projects based on the results of this project, including invasive species removal and stormwater mapping. We will also be conducting similar survey on tributaries to the Lamprey River in the future. If you are interested in helping out or would like more information about our Streamwalk 2008 results please contact us at volunteer @ lrwa-nh.org. – Jennifer Rowden, Project Coordinator.

A Streamwalk volunteer surveying in Newmarket.

- Calendar

Flood Pictures

- May 13-16, 2006 Flooding - pictures from around the watershed