Kennebec Water District trustees approve tree harvesting plan for China Lake

WATERVILLE — The Kennebec Water District board of trustees approved a plan Thursday to remove trees on land the district owns along China Lake.

The plan includes a contract with Comprehensive Land Technologies Inc. to conduct the harvesting. The South China-based company specializes in commercial land clearing and woodlot management.

One change was made to documents to indicate the tree removal is intended to improve and maintain water quality by establishing an “uneven mixed species forest,” said Karl Dornish, a KWD trustee.

“Because of some of the criticism we’ve had,” Dornish said, “we wanted to say in all the documents that we’re doing this for water quality.”

The plan was modified last month to incorporate suggestions from a letter sent to the district by a group of property abutters and others who help manage the lake. One of the concerns they expressed was that removing too many trees closer to the shoreline could allow for more runoff and harm water quality.

After receiving the letter in December, the board of trustees met with district staff members and opted to make three changes to the harvesting plan on lakeside land the district owns on the South Narrows peninsula. Those changes affect the shoreland zone, which is land within 250 feet of the lake.

The harvest plan stipulates no more than 35% of the trees within 100 feet of the lake can be be cut.

Provisions were also added to prevent harvesting in areas with steep slopes to avoid the destabilization of soils. Trustees also agreed not to remove more than 30% of the timber from the land.

The water district’s board of trustees voted in 2019 to have the district’s property along the lake included as part of the state’s Tree Growth Tax Program, which allows KWD to receive tax credits totaling up to $40,000 a year, General Manager Roger Crouse said previously.

State lawmakers adopted tax incentives in 1972 to help landowners maintain their property as productive woodlands and support Maine’s wood products industry, according to the Maine Forest Service.

J. Michael Talbot, a KWD trustee and the district’s treasurer, said he is satisfied with the response by district staff members to concerns raised in the letter.

“They’re going in accordance with the guidelines by the state,” Talbot said.

The district owns about 345 acres on the north and south peninsulas of China Lake, according to a forestry management plan presented in 2019 by Comprehensive Land Technologies.

The harvesting plan only proposes to cut in the 65-acre wooded area of the South Narrows peninsula that separates the West Basin of the lake from the East Basin.

A date has yet to be set for the work to begin.

KWD supplies water from China Lake to about 9,000 residential and commercial customers in Benton, Fairfield, Waterville, Winslow and parts of Vassalboro, through about 172 miles of pipeline. Oakland also buys water wholesale from the district.