This was my backyard (below) on April 1st, 2005. It is still pretty much the same on May 20th as I write this (it was under water until July 12th!). My backyard in the spring, sometimes fall, and sometimes winter, is full of water. The recent project on the land next to mine has put truck loads of fill into these areas where the lake rises to cover them in water. A leach field for the septic system for the house under construction next door has been partially under water for three and a half months. All of this water connects as the photo below shows (click here for a lager shot). The water in the Chester/Stimson building site, the water in my backyard, and the water of Silver Lake, all connect. At the time of this picture and as of today, this is where Silver Lake is. Silver lake has become my backyard. The fill put into this area, with permits from the DEP, has caused my land to be covered with more more water than it otherwise would. You cannot put twenty trucks full of dirt in what becomes seasonally a pond 4 feet deep without the pond having to go somewhere else. That "somewhere else" is my land since the permit also allowed the damming of the wetlands by cutting them in half with a filled in driveway. A special condition of the permit was that a culvert be put in to allow water to flow from one wetland area to another, but this was not installed despite my pointing it out to DEP in February. I raised my concern to the "project manager" (the person who issued the permit) that it had not been installed long before and anticipating the regular consequence of the spring snow melt and the lake's seasonal march into these sand dune areas. DEP staff inspected the site, found it in compliance, and later admitted that perhaps they "...should have read..." the permit before making their inspection for compliance.
You can see the building site in the middle of the photo, a light brown area. A full basement has also been allowed in what is an underground water table in the sand, a water table from which I, and others along our road , get our drinking water.
The photos below are my backyard through various years, starting before we moved our house (1977) to avoid losing it to the beach erosion.When we did move it, we tried to minimize the impact on the wetlands. The recent permitting, renders useless that effort by the huge amount of damage inflicted not only to the dunes on this site but also where a road was put in to circumvent a trespass lawsuit, to the wetlands by filling in a large area, and to the pitch pine forest cleared as well. While the rules were not nearly as restrictive when we moved our house, and we were trying to save an old house, it made sense not to destroy that which we liked about the area, it's natural characteristics. Our neighbors have cut down a huge area of relatively old growth pitch pines, brought truck loads of fill in, installed a leach field which is now half under water in flooding areas (pond zones clearly indicated on DEP maps and visible on town web site linked aerial photos from the Maine GIS- click in until you get Popham and then keep zooming in looking for the tennis court- the purple and black areas are wetlands and ponds). All of this has increased the flooding in their neighbors yards. As kids we used to build rafts back here in the swamps. We didn't arrive until well into June because of school. Still the area was flooded. This year will be called an exception even though this same area flooded last year when the months of January, February, and March were the driest ON RECORD!
Many of these pictures have been given to the Maine DEP along with video tape of the area flooded and with people canoeing in these same areas. The Phippsburg Board of Appeals said that there were no wetlands associated with or, technically, "adjacent to " Silver Lake (See the Board of Appeals discussion leading up to their declaring that this project was not in the shoreland zone from Silver lake- click here). This is absurd and is tantamount to their looking at the ocean at low tide and declaring that there is ample land available for building in the sandy areas. Heads are in the sand and there is no sense of reality or common sense in any of this. Accommodating development is the order of the day, whatever it takes, no matter how absurd the permitting.
