Featured Lake
Tumbledown Pond (Franklin County)

Thanks to Sarah Nelson & Amanda Gavin for contributing this article!

Tumbledown Pond – One of Maine’s High-Elevation Lakes

Tumbledown Pond sits at 818 meters (~2700 feet) elevation, just below the peaks of Tumbledown and Little Jackson Mountains. A popular, but challenging, hike on public lands leads to the pond, but it serves as more than an incredible viewpoint—Tumbledown Pond has been part of long-term research that began in the 1980s and provided early evidence of acidification in Maine’s lakes and ponds. A set of High-Elevation Lakes in Maine (HELM) lakes have been sampled most years since 1986, some years by helicopter, and some years on foot, or even skis. Because of the long-term monitoring at these lakes and others in the US EPA’s Long-Term Monitoring network, we have been able to see that the sulfur pollution that largely causes acid rain in the northeast has declined dramatically. The Clean Air Act Amendments reduced sulfur coming from coal-burning power plants and other sources by about 90% since 1990. As a direct result of policy changes, sulfur in HELM lakes has also drastically reduced. This is a big success story – when we regulate pollutants, we can see changes in the environment and improvements in water quality.

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What's New?
Maine Lakes - Fact & Legend

“Flying at Mt. Kineo”

Earlier this year, Scott Williams brought to our attention Daphne Merrill’s book, The Lakes of Maine: A Compilation of Fact and Legend. Published almost a half-century ago, this 263-page tome contains an interesting assortment of lake facts, history and trivia. Although it has been out of print for years, the book’s publisher has now given us permission to post on this website a scanned version of the work.

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Did You Know?
Is it a Lake?    
    Is it a Pond?

People often ask: What is the difference between a lake and a pond? Back in 2010, Linda Bacon (ME DEP) wrote an informative article in VLMP’s Water Column newsletter *. Quoting Linda, “One classic distinction is that sunlight penetrates to the bottom of all areas of a pond in contrast to lakes, which have deep waters that receive no sunlight at all. Another is that ponds generally have small surface areas and lakes have large surfaces…..Some of Maine’s large and deep bodies of water are indisputably lakes. Others are ponds – small and shallow. But there is a transition between the two where the definition becomes fuzzy…..The one distinction that has any legal application is the designation of a body of water as a Great Pond. Maine state statutes define lakes and ponds greater than ten acres in size as Great Ponds…..” Read more about the differences between lakes and ponds HERE.

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Fridays at 4 for Lakes Webinars
Presented by Lake Stewards of Maine

Summer webinars covering a wide range of lake related topics are approximately one hour in length and a include Q&A session.

Attendance is free, but registration is required.

Aug. 12 - Breana Bennett (Maine CDC) presents Heavy Metals, PFAS, Cyanotoxins in Maine Lakes - How Maine CDC determines much is too much chemical contamination in fish tissue and how that is considered in deriving fish consumption advisories? Also: What are challenges developing advisories for harmful algae blooms?

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Current Conditions

Click here to view current water quality conditions on a representative sample of Maine lakes during summer, or view which lakes have experienced ice-cover in the fall and ice-out in the spring.

Get Involved

The majority of data on lakesofmaine.org comes from certified volunteer citizen scientists. If you are interested in finding a monitoring opportunity, please visit Lake Stewards of Maine or contact our office at 207-783-7733. Email is stewards@LakeStewardsME.org