FALMOUTH – The Town Council decided Monday night to fight any effort by the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to increase public access to Highland Lake.

By unanimous vote, the council also agreed to ask the state to continue stocking the lake with cold-water game fish, including salmon and trout, despite a department policy that bans stocking in lakes that lack “equitable” public access.

Councilor Fred Chase said Highland Lake, which is in Falmouth and Windham, is an ideal place to take children fishing. He noted that the town has spent a lot of money over the years protecting the lake’s watershed, which covers 8½ square miles.

“I hope (fisheries officials) see their way clear to stock some amount of fish in the lake,” Chase said.

Property owners around the lake have organized to oppose the state’s proposal to expand the carry-in boat access on Lowell Farm Road, near the south end of the lake. More than a dozen residents of Falmouth and Windham spoke against the plan at a public hearing earlier this month.

Fisheries officials started planning to expand and pave the public boat access after state Rep. Stephen Wood, R-Sabattus, questioned why the lake was being stocked with fish when it doesn’t have equitable public access.

Wood, a member of the Legislature’s Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Committee, represents a district that includes Greene, where the state stopped stocking Allen Pond several years ago because it doesn’t have equitable public access.

Equitable public access means the public can launch boats that are the same size and type used by people who live on the lake, says Francis Brautigam, a state inland fisheries biologist. Brautigam sent a letter to Falmouth last year noting that many residents have large motorboats and that fish stocking would have to cease if the boat access wasn’t expanded.

Many residents who live on Highland Lake worry that larger boats would bring invasive and costly-to-remove Eurasian water milfoil, along with increased pollution, trash, crime and partying, which have plagued boat launches in other communities.

The council’s vote pleased several members of the Highland Lake Association who attended Monday’s meeting at Town Hall.

“We support the public access as it is,” Jean Flahive said after the vote. “People use it regularly for canoes, kayaks, small boats, even swimming. We’re glad the Town Council supports that as being enough.”

Association members say stocked fish attract many ice fishermen, but they note that Highland Lake has plenty of nonstocked fish, including bass and pickerel, following recent cleanup and erosion-control efforts.

Also Monday, the council received a proposal to establish a Water View Overlay District encompassing the Foreside neighborhood east of Route 88 and the Flats neighborhood, which includes Mackworth Point.

The proposal is part of an effort to shore up a 2006 zoning change that put the town’s Board of Zoning Appeals in charge of protecting private water views. The council will hold a public hearing on the proposal on March 26.

Staff Writer Kelley Bouchard can be contacted at 791-6328 or at:

kbouchard@pressherald.com

 

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