BREWER, Maine — The city recently took an enormous step toward protecting Hatcase Pond, a pristine, spring-fed pond in Dedham that is the city’s lone water source, Mike Riley, Brewer Water Department superintendent, said Monday.
At the end of April, the city purchased a 514-acre conservation easement from The Mountainy Pond Club, which will protect it from any future development.
“This parcel is the single most important piece in the watershed since it directly surrounds the pond and has over 11,000 feet of frontage on the pond,” Riley said.
Brewer gets its water from the William Hayes Water Treatment Facility at Hatcase Pond, a 163-acre body of water situated at the southern base of Blackcap Mountain. With the new conservation easement, the city has control of about 80 percent of the Hatcase Pond watershed.
City Council members, during their March meeting, agreed to pay $700,000 to The Mountainy Pond Club – a Maine corporation established in the 1920s, now controlled by 15 camp owners – for the conservation easement.
“Preventing development on this land is critical in permanently protecting the outstanding water quality of Hatcase Pond,” the council order reads.
The club members, who have said all along they wanted the land protected from development, should be commended for their vision and conservation efforts, Riley said.
“They could have sold this land to developers for a lot more money than they received for the conservation easement,” he said. Now, “it’s always going to remain in the wild.”
By protecting the watershed, “It will help keep the [water] quality high for future generations,” Riley said.
Funds for the conservation easement were provided by the Maine Drinking Water Program’s watershed protection fund, which is providing the water department with a long term, very low interest rate loan, Riley said.
Under the program, “We could afford to [purchase the easement] without affecting rates,” he said.
Water department officials have worked for several years to acquire ownership or conservation easements with the many landowners around the pond and have made significant gains.
“We’ve gone from 30 percent ownership of the watershed [in 2004] to [more than] 80 percent,” Riley said. “We’ve made some really good progress.”
The first formal conservation easement was signed in 2007 with Dedham residents Philip and Joanne Johnson for 545 acres, or nearly 24 percent, of the Hatcase Pond watershed.
About 20 percent of the watershed, or around 350 acres, remains in private hands.
The new agreement also demonstrates to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that the city is actively fulfilling a federal requirement to protect its water quality, and by doing so is avoiding the cost of constructing a multimillion-dollar filtration plant, Riley said.
Protecting the land is critical, Riley said, adding that in the 1950s, developers planned a 100-lot subdivision around the pond that was never built.
The conservation easement “was crucial,” he said. “By placing this land under a conservation easement, we can permanently protect this critical acreage from development. This will help to ensure that we can maintain the same excellent drinking water quality for future generations that the citizens of Brewer and surrounding communities currently enjoy.”
Mayor Arthur “Archie” Verow said the city is being proactive in protecting the pond.
“It’s important to protect that primary source of water for the city,” he said. “It protects us long into the future.”