I arrived at the Nov. 7 and Nov. 21 Brunswick Town Council meetings through the rectangles of Zoom. And I arrived also prepared to share a few short thoughts in support of the proposed extension of the recent emergency moratorium on development in the Maquoit watershed, and then, on the 21st, in support of the town’s taking on a bond to purchase 283 undeveloped acres in that watershed.
In both meetings, we Zoomers with comments to make got first to watch and hear from some of the many citizens in attendance at the meetings. I settled in to listen. And, as comment followed comment, I was moved by what I heard. Bayside residents, fishermen, parents, grandparents, lifelong Brunswickians and those who hoped to be town-lifers approached the microphone and implored the Council to act on behalf of a bay and watershed that they see as crucial to our town, a watershed also sick and imperiled. No one stepped forward to argue otherwise.
By the time I got unmuted to offer support for each, I felt part of a wave of people excited to get on to a great town project and realization.
Knowing where you are
If you’ve turned to this essay, it’s likely that you live in one of a few watersheds — Maquoit Bay’s (fed by Bunganuc Stream, the Great Gully Stream and the waters of Maquoit Woods), Middle Bay’s (fed by Miller Creek), Harpswell Cove (fed by Mere Brook). Or you live in the much larger and longer, multi-town Androscoggin river-shed. And if you spend time on foot and are attuned to how land slopes and turns, it’s also likely that you know what ‘shed you’re in, and, perhaps, where its neighbor ‘sheds begin. I take both to be good news — that you care about local lands and waters; that you know where you are.
Each of us likes to feel located, both in the immediate and the past, I think. I live, for example, in Meadowbrook and the Mere Brook ‘shed near Outfall 19, and I come from a family with Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts roots. I can point to these places on a map. And the finer the grain of that map the better. Maps with contour lines and the blue traceries of perennial and seasonal water have long been favorites.
A relatively new favorite comes from Maine’s Geologic Services: LiDAR mapping, product of an intense barrage of laser beams that “read” the earth closely, offers also an overlay of contour-lines, set at the pleasing interval of two feet. That’s detail! I am — optimistically — nearly three contours tall in this map-world. Pleasure No. 2 visits when you click on a contour, say the one marking 84 feet above sea level on the map in Crystal Spring Farm’s ‘hood. Bing, a tracery comes up showing the 84-foot contour as it connects across land. And that contour line invariably wiggles; it is never a straight line. It takes only a little sussing to realize that when the rain falls or the snow melts, these lines show us the little declines where the water goes. LiDAR link to Maquoit watershed: maine.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?
Some time at play with the layered LiDAR landscape then limns how the Maquoit watershed and that of Mere Brook nestle and begin next to each other. It is, if you are of such a mind, close to possible to use this map to stand astride these sheds, one foot in Maquoit, the other in Mere. “Here,” you might say to self, “is where two small worlds begin.”
Seeing these watersheds as small worlds is a healthy habit, both for self and for the environment. It emphasizes connection and effect. Located in a ‘shed, we are no longer isolate, and, as we trace water’s flow, it becomes clear that the touch of what we do reaches all the way to the sea. We are of a place.
Running off – A few introductory usage questions
In a sharp, little dell in the Maquoit Woods, or a shallower gully near my house, the water appears transparent. But attuned to the invisible by my various science tutors who help me see and know water more fully, I know also that this water carries our land-choices to the sea. Do we fertilize? Do we try to kill what we deem unlovely with various herb- and pesticides? Should we be free to do so?
These particular questions raise larger ones: Do we, in short, care beyond the arbitrary lines of our properties, what we “own?” Does our care extend to our aquatic bloodstream, the waters that make their winding way through our lands, and then to the bays we prize as both resources and places of transcendent beauty?
This seems a town moment when we can begin to see ourselves as living in a ‘shed rather than (or in addition to) living at a number on a street, a shift to holistic thinking with our many connections arrayed around us. It truly can be a watershed moment.
Sandy Stott is a Brunswick, Maine resident, chair of the town’s Conservation Commission, and a member of Brunswick Topsham Land Trust’s Board of Directors. He writes for a variety of publications. He may be reached at fsandystott@gmail.com
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