I am one of the Auburn citizens mentioned in Jim Wellehan’s letter to the editor who spoke against shrinking the Lake Auburn watershed boundary at the March 21 City Council meeting.
The last geophysical and hydrologic study of the impact area was done in 1993, and even then it concluded that “correlations between the bedrock fracture analysis and the geophysical survey illustrate that there is potential for contamination of Lake Auburn via the bedrock aquifer.”
Water flow is now being determined by topography. However, any change in topography could change water flow and any development is going to change topography. Even contour maps from the Auburn Maine ARCGIS site indicate that some of the water in this parcel flows toward Lake Auburn. Also worthy of note is that Lake Auburn is currently listed on the Maine DEP Chapter 502 List of “Lakes Most at Risk from New Development.”
Councilor Dana Staples thanked citizens for attending the City Council meeting and making public comments, saying that this is how open government works. He then made a motion to table the proposal to change the watershed boundaries until a hydrologic study could be completed, but his motion was quickly squashed by the mayor without a vote.
Lake Auburn is the water source for Maine’s second largest population area and includes two hospitals, numerous schools and business, as well as private homes. We should not do anything that endangers the quality of our drinking water.
Peggy Volock, Auburn
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