Laudholm News

This will be the last blog entry at laudholm.org.

We began this experiment in late 2005 as an attempt to get news and information out to members and supporters more quickly. Four years and nearly 200 entries later, we can see that we have largely succeeded.

So we’ll keep on blogging, but from here on out we’ll join efforts with the Wells Reserve on a new combined website, which is set to launch within a fortnight. When the time comes, visitors to the laudholm domain will be automatically redirected to wellsreserve.org.

The best of this old blog is being folded into the new, our event information will tie directly into an improved calendar, and your contributions will be, perhaps, just a bit easier to make.

See you there.

Those who’ve studied Laudholm history know that the current barns were built in the first decade of the twentieth century, after a 1902 fire burned the old barns to the ground. Some may recall that the fire “was started by burning, wind-blown shingles from a fire at the Goodwin farm a quarter mile away.”*

A couple of years ago, Charles Lord became curious about where the Goodwin farm stood, so he asked his father’s sister what she remembered. She pointed him “just up the road.”

Not long after, Charles located a likely spot, with a few stones suitable to a foundation just visible beneath a mass of thick brush near a forest edge.

Last week, Charles led an AmeriCorps team into the woods and asked them to clear the foundation and create a new trail for reaching it. That team did an incredible job—cutting small trees and invasive plants, raking out the foundation—and today Charles led a few of us to see the site.

The Goodwin homestead appears to have been built as a typical 19th-century house-ell-barn structure near the roadside, but only the foundation survives. In the coming months, we will try to piece together some details to this story. Meanwhile, to visit the site follow the Wildlife Loop of the Yankee Woodlot Trail and watch for a wide path to a rediscovered piece of Laudholm’s history.

• *From page 16 of Joyce Butler’s Laudholm: The History of a Celebrated Maine Saltwater Farm, published by Wells Reserve & Laudholm Trust in 2005.

The Punkinfiddle 5K Run started at 9 am on Saturday, September 26. Thirty-nine runners competed in this inaugural event. Here are the results:

MEN

1. Dave Saltmarsh 18:39 2. Edward Fitzpatrick 20:03 3. Greg Foley 20:43

WOMEN

1. Jeanne Hackett 19:40 2. Katherine Reid 21:33 3. Kelley McInness 25:13

Age group winners for the women were: Meghan Brandon and Sarah Poire (30-39), Ellen Foley and Nancy Smith-Jewell (40-49), Joy Eon and Mary Rial (50-59), and Bonnie Cote and Jean Smith (60-69).

Age group winners for the men were: Thomas Beutler (19 & under), Pete Toomey and Jameson Voishnis (20-29), Jon Sevigney and Jose Perez (30-39), Bill Brown and Tom Malitskey (40-49), Paul Toohey and Jim Berger (50-59), and Michael Payne (60-69).

Congratulations to these runners and everyone else who tested themselves on the course. Thanks to Mary Bishop and Bob Winn for organizing the event.

It’s apparently a first: Yesterday the U.S. Senate agreed to a resolution designating September 26, 2009 National Estuaries Day. We’re pleased to see Senator Susan Collins as a cosponsor, along with her colleagues Sen. Gregg and Sen. Shaheen from neighboring New Hampshire. Here’s the text of the resolution (also available as a PDF):

111th CONGRESS

1st Session

S. RES. 247

Designating September 26, 2009, as `National Estuaries Day’.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

August 6, 2009

Mr. WHITEHOUSE (for himself, Mrs. BOXER, Mr. BURR, Mr. CARDIN, Mr. CARPER, Mr. COCHRAN, Ms. COLLINS, Mrs. FEINSTEIN, Mrs. GILLIBRAND, Mr. GREGG, Ms. LANDRIEU, Mr. LAUTENBERG, Ms. MIKULSKI, Mrs. MURRAY, Mrs. SHAHEEN, Mr. WARNER, and Mr. WYDEN) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

RESOLUTION

Designating September 26, 2009, as `National Estuaries Day’.

Whereas the estuary regions of the United States comprise a significant share of the national economy, with 43 percent of the population, 40 percent of employment, and 49 percent of economic output located in such regions;

Whereas coasts and estuaries contribute more than $800,000,000,000 annually in trade and commerce to the Nation’s economy;

Whereas more than 43 percent of all adults in the United States visit a sea coast or estuary at least once a year to participate in some form of recreation, generating $8,000,000,000 to $12,000,000,000 in revenue annually;

Whereas more than 28,000,000 jobs in the United States are supported through commercial and recreational fishing, boating, tourism, and other coastal industries that rely on healthy estuaries;

Whereas estuaries provide vital habitat for countless species of fish and wildlife, including many that are listed as threatened or endangered;

Whereas estuaries provide critical ecosystem services that protect human health and public safety, including water filtration, flood control, shoreline stabilization and erosion prevention, and protection of coastal communities during extreme weather events;

Whereas 55,000,000 acres of estuarine habitat have been destroyed over the last 100 years;

Whereas bays once filled with fish and oysters have become dead zones filled with excess nutrients, chemical wastes, and harmful algae;

Whereas sea level rise is accelerating the degradation of estuaries by submerging low-lying lands, eroding beaches, converting wetlands to open water, exacerbating coastal flooding, and increasing the salinity of estuaries and freshwater aquifers;

Whereas in the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 (16 U.S.C. 1451 et seq.), Congress found and declared that it is national policy to preserve, protect, develop, and where possible, to restore or enhance, the resources of the Nation’s coastal zone, including estuaries, for current and future generations;

Whereas estuary restoration efforts cost-effectively restore natural infrastructure in local communities, helping to create jobs and reestablish the natural functions of estuaries that yield countless benefits; and

Whereas September 26, 2009, has been designated `National Estuaries Day’ to increase awareness among all citizens, including local, State, and Federal officials, about the importance of healthy estuaries and the need to protect them: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Senate—
(1) designates September 26, 2009, as `National Estuaries Day’;

(2) supports the goals and ideals of `National Estuaries Day’;

(3) acknowledges the importance of estuaries to the Nation’s economic well-being and productivity;

(4) recognizes the persistent threats that undermine the health of the Nation’s estuaries;

(5) applauds the work of national and community organizations and public partners to promote public awareness, protection, and restoration of estuaries; and

(6) reaffirms its support for estuaries, including the preservation, protection, and restoration thereof, and expresses its intent to continue working to protect and restore the estuaries of the United States.

The U.S. Congress has passed a consolidated appropriations bill that included the highest numbers yet for the National Estuarine Research Reserve System’s operations, while also funding a new program for the system: the NERRS Science Collaborative. The total amount appropriated is $23.5 million. The bill (H3288) now awaits the President’s signature.

Update: The bill was signed December 16, 2009.

The Wells Reserve has produced or assisted with every key conservation planning document prepared for southern Maine watersheds over the past decade. The most recent issue of the Watermark newsletter includes a chart to show which plans cover each town and watershed. You can download the watershed conservation chart here (it’s a small PDF).

If you would like to see the complete issue of Watermark—which includes stories on Sanford’s conservation plan, the updated Discovery Program, and more—you can download the full newsletter here (4MB PDF).

Ten years after first setting foot onto the worldwide web, Wells Reserve and Laudholm Trust are striding into a major redesign of their websites. The launch is scheduled for January.

Over the past few months, we have been working with iMarc, a nearby web strategy and design company, to prepare for a merging of wellsreserve.org and laudholm.org into a unified web presence. This effort is long overdue.

In the past decade, our web offerings have grown dramatically to accommodate the expectations of an increasingly wired world. Our web server delivers tens of megabytes of data every day and often responds to 500,000 page requests a month.

Our online audience is as varied as the programs and activities that fit under the Reserve-and-Trust umbrella. People depend on our websites for planning trail walks, arranging school visits, making scientific connections, obtaining maps, making donations, renting the barn, scheduling a visit, keeping current, and much more.

iMarc is crafting a site that will combine a solid database-driven back end with creative, user-focused graphic design. With the new site, we will send a clearer message to our diverse audiences, provide an ocean of information gracefully, and inspire our web visitors to support the four pillars of our combined missions.

Watch for it in just a few weeks.

[This article originally appeared in the Watermark newsletter, volume 26 issue 1, published in November 2009.]