Ossipee Watershed
- The Saco River is 135 miles long and drains 1,703 square miles of forests and farmlands from Crawford Notch New Hampshire, to Portland Maine, emptying into the Atlantic Ocean.
- The 18.5 mile long Ossipee River and Ossipee Watershed area feed into the Saco River just beyond Cornish Maine
- The Ossipee Watershed is a sub-watershed of the greater Saco Watershed – an extensive watershed that commences in the White Mtn. National Forest at Saco Lake and flows to Saco Biddeford Maine
- The Saco River supplies drinking water to roughly 250,000 people in 35 towns
- GMCG regularly shares the water monitoring data of the Ossipee Watershed with our downstream neighbors.
- The Saco River Corridor Commission has been instrumental in protecting public health, safety and quality of life for the state of Maine since 1973. A wonderful video on the Saco River Corridor: Protecting Maines’ Water
- [Source: Green Mountain Conservation Group Watershed Happenings 2/1/14]
The Green Mountain Conservation Group received a $65,000 grant from the Department of Environmental Services to hire a qualified consultant to help develop a watershed management plan for The Danforth Pond watershed (towns of Freedom, Eaton, Madison) and the subwatershed of the lower bays of Ossipee Lake (towns of Freedom, Effingham, Ossipee). The plan will identify sources of phosphorous inputs to the lakes (storm-water runoff, septic loads, and natural sources) and it will characterize the lakes’ vulnerability to those nutrient loads.
Funding for this project will be provided by a Watershed Assistance Grant from the NH Department of Environmental Services with Clean Water Act Section 319 funds from the U.S. Environmental Protection, and is contingent upon Governor and Council approval.
Upper Saco Valley
From the source of the Saco in Crawford Notch toward the Hiram Dam more than 100 river miles to the southeast, this area includes the towns of Harts Location, Jackson, Bartlett, Chatham, Conway, Albany, Madison and Eaton in New Hampshire and Fryeburg, Denmark and Brownfield in Maine.
New Hampshire’s Water Assets Under Pressure
Water Extraction
Granite State Rural Water Association
Nonprofit membership association which provides onsite technical assistance, training, source water protection, and legislative representation for NH’s water and waste water industry. GSRWA staff travel onsite to help administrators, clerks, and water and waste water operators with the day-to-day management of water and waste water utilities.
