POLAND — Kathleen Carroll gets emotional when she talks about Tripp Pond. Her husband says it’s because she is passionate about the place that has given their family and others so much joy.

“I have very deep feelings about this place and the people that were here before us and that we need to restore and preserve for how many generations to come,” she offered on a sunny day in August. “They’ve taken something that is personally our most valuable thing. And it has nothing to do with money or anything because none of us want to sell.”

Carroll was referring to the unusually high water levels on Tripp Pond the last few years that have left some camp owners underwater and others, like her, unable to put in docks or enjoy the beachfronts they once had.

Up until last year, beavers were the cause of the high water. This year, some members of the Tripp Lake Improvement Association were the cause, as they worked without permits or permission to keep the water levels high for their own reasons.

The Carrolls weren’t able to put their dock into the water this summer because the water was so high, and they said it was unusable last summer due to erosion of the rock pier. The beach that was there for so many years has all but disappeared.

They’re not alone. For more than two years high water levels in Tripp Pond, also known as Tripp Lake, have flooded and damaged properties, leaving docks underwater, eroding and washing away beaches and opening the possibility of septic systems leaching untreated sewage into the lake. Some residents say they are considering lawsuits to help pay for the damage.

Despite a second consecutive summer of high water and flooding, members of the Tripp Lake Improvement Association, whose stated mission is “to oversee the well-being of Tripp Lake and its surrounding watershed in Poland Maine,” insisted the water levels were “dangerously low” and took extreme measures to ensure water levels remained elevated.

The disagreement between those who view the water as too high and those who see it as too low has erupted into a fight over the lake’s health, erosion of long-standing beaches and whether the lake’s improvement association overstepped its bounds by installing bladders to dam the water without landowner permission. State environmental officials were forced to step in.

The pond’s high water problems started about five or six years ago, according to landowners, when beavers blocked the lake’s only outlet by building a lodge. But after the beavers were removed under the supervision of a state wildlife biologist with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife between October and December of 2022, human intervention kept the water levels artificially high.

With the beavers finally gone, bright yellow bladders, the largest being 12 feet long, 20 inches wide and 12 inches high, were installed at the same location by members of the Tripp Lake Improvement Association on June 15 of this year without the landowner’s knowledge or consent.

A Maine Department of Environmental Protection official acknowledges DEP staff told the group it could put up the bladders based on information given to the staff by the group. But that consent was rescinded when the DEP learned the information the group provided was erroneous and that the TLIA actions were in violation of the federal Natural Resources Protection Act. The installation also required permission from the landowner, which the lake association did not have.

According to the Androscoggin County register of deeds the owner is Kruger Energy Inc. based in Montreal, Quebec.

According to the DEP, that initial consent was based on information provided by TLIA stating that there was an existing dam in the outlet even though there was no permitted dam there.

On July 13, DEP regional manager Alison Sirois notified Glenn Hall, chairman of the lake association’s Water Level Committee, the bladders needed to be pulled, writing, “It has come to my attention that the bladders you requested for temporary placement in Tripp Lake are not being placed on an existing dam structure.”

She instructed Hall to remove the bladders.

Responding to the Sun Journal’s request to the TLIA for an explanation, Robin Rolle, president of the TLIA, wrote, “Given the sudden, significant loss of water from the lake resulting from the removal of the dam beyond the IFW permit conditions, the Maine DEP provided approval in writing to install temporary one-foot-high bladders, for not more than seven months, to stem the flow in order to protect water quality and access to the lake.”

She continued, “The town of Poland, as owner of the property and being responsive to the members of the community, granted verbal permission for the temporary bladders to be installed. After receiving a complaint from unknown person(s) about the installation of the bladders, DEP reversed position and withdrew its permission for the bladders.”

The Sun Journal sent Rolle and Hall an email on Sept. 26 asking for responses to six specific issues, including why lake association members decided to trespass on private property to install the bladders. Rolle returned a written statement on Wednesday, but did not address most of those issues.

When asked if the TLIA had been granted permission to install the bladders on its property, a spokesperson for Kruger Energy said, “Kruger gave no such permission and was unaware of the illegal blockage of the outlet stream until we were contacted by the Maine DEP.”

Kruger acquired the property and associated flow rights in a 2009 purchase of the Mechanic Falls hydroelectric dam.

In a June 15 email obtained by the Sun Journal, Hall relayed news to the other eight members of the Water Level Committee that the DEP was requiring them to get permission from the landowner before the association could place bladders in the outlet. That exchange occurred before DEP rescinded its approval of the bladders.

Stating on several occasions their belief that the town owned the property, Hall asked in his email how the other members wanted to proceed, asking, “or do we have someone on the board with a connection to the (Poland) Conservation Commission? Or do we just go and get this done while we have a clear day today and ask for forgiveness later if needed?”

According to the time stamp on the email, 32 minutes later, Hall follows up his prior email stating,” I just spoke with the co chair of the Conservation Committee. We’re good to go.”

A few hours later, at 2:50 p.m., Water Level Committee member Jamie Rothfus responds, “I think we should do it and let them know afterwards — conservation is their game, if they are against it they need a new name!”

In a phone call with Poland Conservation Commission co-chair Barry Morgan on Wednesday, Morgan confirmed he did not give Hall and the TLIA permission to install the bladders in the Tripp Pond outlet, also confirming the commission does not have the authority to do so. “We have absolutely nothing to do with Tripp Pond.”

TLIA has repeatedly claimed that it received permission from the town of Poland and the town’s Conservation Commission to install the bladders in the outlet. But when asked by a resident if either entity had given permission, Town Manager Matt Garside wrote in a July 13 email, “Conservation did not authorize the use of bladders, neither did the town. Neither group would have any authority to do so.”

That was the same day that the DEP sent email notification to Hall with the lake association telling him the bladders must be removed. Hall then forwarded the notification to eight people in the organization.

About month later, after concerned residents notified the DEP the bladders were still in place, DEP staff did a site visit and found that the bladders had been removed, but other materials remained. Shortly after, DEP issued a letter of warning to TLIA President Rolle giving her and the organization four days to “remove all fill, namely milled lumber, hand-cut limbs, and previous beaver cuttings installed in a fashion that restricts flow leaving Tripp Pond.”

A letter of warning is the agency’s lowest level of enforcement and does not include any monetary penalties, but the letter warns enforcement action could be escalated if not complied with.

Asked about that warning, Rolle’s replied to the Sun Journal: “Volunteers from our lake did remove the bladders as directed but didn’t realize that all the sticks surrounding the existing berm needed to be removed as well. That’s when we received the warning from the DEP and immediately removed all materials.”

After several days of communication between DEP and the TLIA president, the bladders were removed on Aug. 13, and the fill material and stakes were removed by Aug. 21, according to landowners on the lake. At that time, the pier at Tripp Lake Camp remained underwater and residents noticed the flood plains also remained clogged with debris.

The water level at Tripp Lake Camp’s pier is significant because it is a massive concrete structure that’s been in place for decades and is described as an immoveable object that can be used to help gauge the lake’s water level. There are other landmarks around the lake that also serve as a gauge of the natural water level.

TRIPP POND HAS A LONG AND RICH HISTORY

Kathleen and Ronald Carroll’s history at Tripp Pond goes back more than 100 years. His father bought the property and built the camp on Jordan Shore Drive in 1922. Kathleen Carroll says she’s had some intense run-ins with newer members of the TLIA board because she stood up to them in a public meeting.

On a sunny day in late August, Ron Carroll pointed to the water just yards from their camp as they explained why they were so upset. “That area down there,” he described, “was very shallow. When I was growing up, we couldn’t go anywhere near that place with a boat. . . . We had to stay out 200, 300 yards.”

Camp owner Don Lee’s grandfather bought their camp in 1945, and it has been used by family and friends ever since. He’s among the residents who filed a complaint with the DEP, fearing his septic system could be inundated by the high water.

“Well, the biggest impact has been our loss of the beach,” he said. “We used to have sand going, you know, we could have had, when I was a child, we could have had two volleyball courts next to each other. That’s how much sand we had.” The sand is all covered and washed away now.

Lee said they rent out a small cabin on the property at times and received their first ever negative review this year because the renters had to navigate their way through water and soaked ground.

Two properties down is the Kneeland camp. Patrick Kneeland says it was his great-grandfather who purchased the property back in the 1940s and, in the ensuing years, bought two more adjacent properties, which have since been sold.

The Kneeland property has suffered among the worst of the flooding damage, keeping his family property mostly underwater. “It (the water) was always gone by midsummer,” he told the Sun Journal. “These past few years, probably within like five years, the water just was not going down.”

He said he tried communicating with the TLIA but said they were elusive, with an outdated website and no contact information. The last posts on the website are dated 2019. He says his great-grandfather would be rolling in his grave, as one of the founding members of the Tripp Lake Improvement Association.

“I couldn’t believe it, because I’ve grown up here,” Kneeland said. “I’ve been here for 35 years of my life — watching my property that I love dissolve essentially.”

He too filed a complaint with the DEP. Normally, Kneeland rents out the camp to pay the taxes, insurance and for needed repairs. He hasn’t been able to rent the property out this year because of the high water level. He expects repairs to the camp to be substantial.

The Carroll camp is like a time warp of memories, with a Bates College pennant from the turn of the century hanging from the wall amid dozens of other pieces of memorabilia. Then there are photos, showing a wide expanse of beach in front of their camp that has since washed away. Photos of reunions, family members at the beach, kids and, well, memories.

In its heyday in the early 1900s, the resort Bridges Pleasure Beach at Tripp Pond was the place to be, complete with water slide, sandy beach area and lodge. Postcards show crowds of people frolicking in the water.

A ONCE UNITED COMMUNITY BECOMES DIVIDED

The Tripp Lake Improvement Association is a not-for-profit community organization started in the early 1970s. More recently it has become the focus of scorn and distrust by some long-term residents who say the group has been taken over by part-time residents who are seen to have changed the organization’s stated mission along the way.

The Sun Journal interviewed 11 property owners, two former owners and area residents about the growing friction.

Shellie Howe and her partner, Jeff Hughes, have been instrumental in documenting and informing residents of Tripp Pond on the chain of events before and after the installation of the bladders, particularly over the last two years.

Howe has lived on Tripp Pond full time since the early 1980s. Five generations of her family have made Tripp Pond their summer home since the early 1900s. She has photos of her grandfather at the Bridges Pleasure Beach resort from the 1920s, also known as Maple Grove Point, which was later divided up into lots, one of which her family bought.

Hughes dedicated nearly 30 years of his life to learning about and advocating for the protection and restoration of the river herring in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, becoming a herring warden and collaborating with the National Park Service. He also collaborated with beaver trappers and a Maine state wildlife biologist and others to try and alleviate the flooding at Tripp Pond and repair some of the damage caused by the bladders.

Howe says the emphasis for shared use of the lake, especially by members of the Tripp Lake Improvement Association, appears to have more to do with recreation, specifically the use of bigger and faster motorboats, and the ability to dock those boats closer to shore. “We have some new folks who don’t have a solid understanding of the history of the lake and what a normal lake level might look like,” Howe said. “It doesn’t appear to be as environmentally focused as what we’re used to in the past,” she added, referring to the TLIA.

IS THE WATER LOW OR HIGH?

Throughout the summer, leaders of the lake association often complained about low water levels in emails, the association newsletter and in at least one community meeting, in stark contrast to the photographic evidence of flooding at camps on the north end of Tripp Pond and at Tripp Lake Camp.

The association’s summer 2023 newsletter begins a section headlined “Mystery of the low water levels.” The first sentence begins, “There has been a lot of speculation around the lake this season as to why the water levels are so dramatically low.”

In contrast, long-time property owners say that over the last two years they’ve seen exceptionally high water levels that they have not seen in decades, and while they recognize beavers have long played a role in the lake’s varying water levels, photos show the levels have reached sustained highs that long-time residents say they can’t remember.

One owner, who suffered significant water damage to his property over the past two summers, hired an environmental engineering firm to examine the lake level and determined that the water level at Tripp Pond was too high — by two-to-three feet — after the installation of the bladders at the outlet.

“I noticed the water kept creeping up,” Howe said. “You know the water levels were getting higher and they weren’t going back down, which is really uncharacteristic for the lake. We’ve had a couple of years of unusually high water, but the lake always went back down to its normal level.”

The higher water levels have severely affected an estimated six properties and damaged another half-dozen, according to Howe and Hughes, who have spoken with owners and documented the damage. But the long-term effects of erosion — caused by higher water levels and the wakes from bigger and more powerful boats — may not be realized for some time to come, property owners said.

“The houses were affected but properties too, because properties that have steep inclines off the road, they’re not going to notice this erosion right away,” Hughes explained. “But after two or five years when the whole side of the cliff starts to seek its normal 34-degree angle and the bottom is washed out a foot, that’s going to start dropping everything up above.”

Tripp Pond is a feeder source for Hogan and Whitney ponds downstream. While Tripp Pond had artificially high water for two years — due to the beaver lodge blocking the outlet — downstream ponds were experiencing low water levels. In July of 2022, while the water level was rising on Tripp Pond, the water level had dropped 18 inches on Hogan Pond.

THE NEED FOR CONSENSUS

“It is not uncommon to have competing arguments over water level heights on Maine’s lakes,” says Colin Holme, the executive director of the Maine Lakes Environmental Association based in Bridgton. It’s a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving and restoring Maine’s lakes, ponds, rivers and streams and offers a long list of education and services to lake communities.

“However, the most passionate supporters of a high or low water level regime are usually a small portion of the landowners on the lake,” he adds. “Those advocating for higher water often want better access to their shallow waterfront or dock for boating, while those advocating for lower water want a better beach. These arguments are based on the lakefront property owned by the individual and not whether they were born in Maine or elsewhere.”

Scott Lindsay agrees for the most part with Holme but has a much more intimate knowledge of what’s going on at Tripp Pond. He was injected into the fray as the regional wildlife biologist with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

The agency became involved because of the beavers and was responsible for determining what should be done with them.

“When I first got involved in this, I kept handing it over to the lake association. I said, you people have got to make some adult decisions and get together and give me some consensus of what you want. It never happened.”

It was Lindsay who suggested a water level committee be formed to investigate what the water level should be, at a packed public meeting in Poland.

“I said, you need to have people from both sides of this involved in this, so you have representation from everyone or else it’s just not going to be effective,” Lindsay recalled. “You have to engage multiple interests in that, and you have to work on a compromise. Never, never happened.”

Agreeing on a water level for Tripp Pond will be difficult with competing interests, but Holme with the Lakes Environmental Association feels it is a necessity. “To resolve this issue, the association and the whole community needs to come up with a water level management plan. The plan should allow for normal seasonal fluctuation but include target water level heights based on historical water levels. This can often be determined by looking at the black lines on rocks along the shoreline or data collected by individuals from the past. If such a plan can be crafted and agreed upon, then it needs to be followed.”

Many complaints about the boat ramp at Tripp Pond have surfaced throughout this water level debate and fixing the ramp area to make it more accessible would relieve some of the complaints, landowners say.

To help boaters who are unfamiliar with the lake, marker buoys can be used to mark low spots and establish wake zones, which could also be posted on the lake.

Howe and others interviewed for this story say they would like to see the Tripp Lake Improvement Association held financially accountable for the property damage caused by the flooding. “And at this point we don’t know what the long-term impact to the lake is, the erosion has been significant, ” Howe added.

She and others said they would like to see the DEP partner with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to restore the outlet to its natural state, “and help us assess the overall health of our water flow and provide education to property owners on why flow matters.”

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection still considers this case open as of late September, with Rob Wood, the director of the Bureau of Land Resources, stating, “The DEP required TLIA to remove the bladders, the stakes holding the bladders in place, and sticks that had been placed below the surface in the same location as the bladders and stakes.” He said the agency was still receiving complaints at the time.

“The fill materials were placed in the stream by TLIA and were therefore required to be removed. DEP staff conducted two site visits in late August. At the conclusion of the second site visit, staff determined that all man-made fill had been removed from the stream. If the Department is alerted to any additional man-made fill that has been placed in the stream, staff will investigate accordingly.”

Lindsay, with the Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, said he’s not inclined to wade into the fray at Tripp Pond anytime soon, but understands he has a responsibility to do so, if the need arises. “I think the only way that we would intervene again — and statutorily we have the authority to do that — is when there’s property damage occurring, and the source of that is wildlife-related.”

For now, the beavers are not active at the outlet, but the colony remains in the area. Most camps around Tripp Pond have been shut down for the winter at this point in the season and all but a handful of owners have also left for the winter. Those who remain and a few caretakers say they will watch over the scenic lake until next spring, looking for signs of beaver activity and monitoring and documenting water levels.

Editor’s Note: On Oct. 11, the TLIA board notified Glenn Hall that they had voted to officially disband the Tripp Lake Water Level Committee. It’s the same day TLIA President Robin Rolle submitted her response to the Sun Journal’s questions. 

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