'CreekSmart' effort to improve Kittery's Spruce Creek to hold kickoff event

KITTERY, Maine — A resident-led push to preserve and protect the Spruce Creek watershed is being revived by the grassroots Save Kittery Waters group with a call to action to protect the town’s water supply.

The volunteer organization is taking on algal blooms that surface atop Spruce Creek each summer, and the pollution sources that seep into the watershed, with a new initiative aimed at citizens called the “Creeksmart Campaign."

Patricia Lynch, former executive director of The Music Hall in Portsmouth and chairperson of the steering committee for Save Kittery Waters, noted the efforts will revolve around informing residents on how their actions, for better or for worse, impact the watershed.

“This is a collaborative effort. None of this can happen without everybody picking up a piece of the tent and moving it to higher ground,” she said. “Right now, the planet is asking for our help. We’re trying to answer that plea from the home that sustains us all.”

The CreekSmart Campaign will hit the ground running Monday night with a free public launch event at the Kittery Community Center’s Star Theatre, the beginning of its efforts to educate residents on how they can change their habits and not pollute the watershed.

The “smart” in CreekSmart Campaign, according to Lynch, is an acronym for several tips on how residents can best protect Spruce Creek, a list that includes mowing lawns high, not using harmful lawn fertilizers, avoiding pesticides, restoring vegetation around the watershed and taking care of their sewer systems.

Save Kittery Waters’ awareness-raising campaign is partnering with the Rice Public Library, along with organizations and businesses in Kittery, to promote best practices for the future vitality of Spruce Creek. The organization is planning a public watershed walk in the coming months to highlight the importance of safeguarding it, and is planning to work hand-in-hand with residents in implementing action steps to lessen pollution into the creek.

“In order to walk it back, we’re each going to have to take steps,” Lynch said of preserving the environment. “Now is the time. We must all confront this as the challenge of our time.”

Spruce Creek, a nine-and-a-half-square-mile coastal watershed, is primarily located in Kittery, though roughly 10% is situated in Eliot. The creek drains into seven freshwater streams — Barters Creek, Wilson Brook, Fuller Brook, Hill Brook, Hutchins Creek, Chickering Creek, and Crocketts Brook — and feeds into the Spruce Creek estuary, which then drains into the Piscataqua River.

Due to fecal contamination, in 2014 the Maine Department of Environmental Protection classified Spruce Creek’s water quality as “impaired,” and its shellfish beds have been closed off since 2005.

The causes of the algal growth in Spruce Creek, according to Melissa Paly, the Conservation Law Foundation’s Great Bay–Piscataqua waterkeeper, is most likely tied to nitrogen pollution. The contamination comes from a number of sources, including from septic systems discharge, fertilizers, lawn chemicals, and stormwater runoff, which Paly added is the cause of roughly two-thirds of nitrogen pollution in Great Bay’s waters.

To address the algal blooms in Spruce Creek, which has limited swimming, kayaking and other recreational activities, the town will embark on water quality monitoring beginning in early August, a process to detect nitrogen pollution.

Atmospheric nitrogen, Paly added, comes back to earth’s surface during rainfall, landing on paved surfaces and flowing into storm drains before being emptied into the nearest wetlands.

Paly will serve as the guest speaker of the CreekSmart Campaign’s launch event.

“Without people starting up in their own towns and cities, speaking up and taking action and convincing their friends and neighbors to take action, we’re not going to turn this around,” she said.

The CreekSmart Campaign is a reboot of sorts of the former Spruce Creek Association, a residential group that called attention to the high bacteria levels in the creek. Their outcry led to the town taking on a federal grant-funded watershed restoration project starting in 2008.

The current CreekSmart initiative, set to last through October, is being funded with a $6,000 grant from Maine Community Fund.

Town Council chairperson Judy Spiller will introduce Paly as the Monday night event’s guest speaker.

“What I think the purpose of all this is to say is that as an individual, you can have an impact on the world around you,” she said.

The CreekSmart Campaign launch will begin at 7 p.m. Monday.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Get 'CreekSmart': Save Kittery Waters aims to improve Spruce Creek