by Woody Trask

This report summarizes the findings of the 2025 water quality monitoring program for Taylor Pond in Auburn, Maine (MIDAS ID#3750).

Clarity readings and water quality measurements were conducted monthly from June through September by Woody Trask with additional clarity readings taken June into October by Michael Heskanen.

Since 2004, Taylor Pond Association has been collecting its own water samples and performing most tests. Phosphorus analyses are conducted by the DHHS Health and Environmental Testing Laboratory.

Result summary:

Whereas 2024 was a very good year number wise for Taylor Pond, 2025 was a pretty normal for all properties tested. Color and clarity values were average for the year in spite of having excellent values in September, the numbers most likely due to drought conditions resulting in little runoff into the pond. The highest clarity reading was 6.1 m, slightly lower than the high of 6.25m in 2024. The average of all clarity readings was 5.0m which is 0.65m lower than last year’s average reading but higher than the historic average of 4.76m. On average, the water had more coloration than 2024 with an average color value of 25 versus 2024’s value of 18.75. 2025 experienced few rain events which created drought conditions resulting in the lowest water level experienced in recent memory.

The average 5 meter core sample phosphorus reading of 10.25ppb was slightly lower/better than last year’s average but slightly higher than the historic average. The average 12 meter bottom phosphorus reading of 31.75ppb was quite a bit higher than in 2024 and higher than the historic average. This could be due to less dilution due to low water conditions.

Values for pH and alkalinity where all within the normal range of variation from the historic mean. The conductivity was higher than both last year’s reading and the historical average.

The average surface temperature taken at 1 meter depth was 23.6oC (74.5°F), which is 1.2°C (2.6°F) cooler than last year’s record high and only 0.4°C (0.7°F) higher than the average for the past 16 years.

There were no algal blooms reported in 2025.

“Ice-in” occurred on December 23, 2024. The “ice-out” date was April 13, 2025, which happens to be the historical average going back to 1969, giving a fairly average “ice cover” period of 111 days. Longer periods of ice cover are considered beneficial to the health of ponds

Learn about plants that thrive on the shoreline of lakes and ponds and how they can improve water quality across the whole pond!

Taylor Pond Association has been working closely with Androscoggin Valley Soil & Water Conservation District on a federally funded watershed grant for Taylor Pond and is pleased to announce this free workshop which will occur at the Taylor Pond Yacht Club on August 25.

Funding for this workshop, in part, was provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under Section 319 of the Clean Water Act. The funding is administered by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection in partnership with EPA. EPA does not endorse any commercial products or services mentioned.

To find out more information and to register.

By Dana Little

Taylor Pond hosts a diverse range of aquatic flowering plants. People often ask if these green “weeds” are overtaking the pond. These plants have lived in our pond for thousands of years, appearing here after the glaciers retreated 10,000 years ago. Most are flowering plants, not algae, which do not flower and are more abundant in salt water. One notable flowering species is the Fragrant Water Lily (Nymphaea odorata). I enjoy swimming up next to the flower and inhaling the pleasant scent. 

Most flowering plants in Taylor Pond lack the spectacular flowers of Fragrant Water Lily. More commonly they have small green flowers that are easy to miss and difficult to appreciate. Perfoliate Pondweed (Potamogeton perfoliatus) is a typical representative. It grows in shallow water, up to 12 feet long, and its green flower hardly pokes above water when fully grown.  

Perfoliate Pondweed (Potamogeton perfoliatus) with flower at the tip. 

Michael Heskanen and I perform a yearly census of the plants of Taylor Pond looking for invasive species. You may see us slowly cruising the shoreline in the summer peering into the water. In 2024 we found over forty different species of flowering plants.  Most importantly, we found no invasive plants.  The most common invasive plant in Maine is Variable Leaf Milfoil. This plant grows up to 12 feet in length and can form dense mats on the surface that can impair boating, fishing, and swimming. The introduction of a single fragment can result in the infestation of the entire pond.  

Many of the surrounding waters, including Lake Auburn and the Basin, Thompson Lake and others, have invasive plants. Maine recommends that boat owners moving between bodies of water carefully clean off any mud or plants from the boat and trailer, drain off any water from the boat and motor, and allow the trailer and boat to dry in the sun to kill any invasive plants or animals.  

People often ask me if they can remove plants from in front of their property. Maine allows homeowners to hand-remove vegetation in an area 10 feet wide and perpendicular from their shoreline out into the lake. This allows a place to swim and a passage for boats. To do this, Maine requires a “Permit by Rule” from the DEP.  

Finally, I feel compelled to share with you one of my favorite aquatic plants, Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata). The purple flowers often line the shore in July and August. They make living on a pond in Maine a great blessing. Besides being beautiful, aquatic flowering plants provide places for fish to hide, consume the carbon dioxide that we exhale and produce the oxygen that we breathe.  

Dana Little 

Pickerel Weed with a background of Button Bush and a foreground of Fragrant Water Lilies.  

By Debbie Hammond 

Just in case you weren’t in the loon loop last summer, we are proud to announce the 2024 arrival of the first loon chick on Taylor Pond in a very long time. Not that the little loonlet needs a name, but online observers tossed out the names “Junior” or “Taylor” when they started circulating photos for the first time on July 12. The family of three cruised and fished the pond all summer until leaving for the winter. While we expect to see the parents back this summer, “Junior” will likely take a little tour of Maine before returning to Taylor Pond, if he/she returns at all. 

According to Maine Audubon, once a chick fledges and migrates to the coast for its first winter, it won’t return to its lake breeding grounds until it’s two to five years old. Then it may wander between lakes over a few breeding seasons before settling on a lake to breed—either the same lake where it was raised as a chick or one within a dozen miles. Once settled in a breeding territory, loons show high site fidelity—returning to the same lake each spring, year after year. Loons typically stick with the breeding territory until they lose to a challenger. Loons will also use the same nesting site repeatedly, though may move to a new nesting site within their territory if, for instance, they’ve had low success at a site or the habitat has changed.  

The loon nesting platform successfully used by this mating pair last summer has been deployed at the same location as last year, on the north end of Taylor Pond. It is outfitted with an avian guard to protect the nest from predators. Special thanks to Ray and Cheryl Tardiff for storing the nest for the winter and replenishing the branches in the avian guard. As part of the Loon Restoration Project, the nesting activity is monitored weekly and reported to the Maine Audubon Society. Keep your eyes open for nesting loons and your fingers crossed for another baby loon for the summer of 2025! 

By  Peter C. Bingham and Kristi Norcross, Co-Chairs 2025 Boat Launch Initiative 

In 2023, the Taylor Pond Association Board established a committee to explore options for boat access to Taylor Pond, co-chaired by Peter Bingham and Kristi Norcross. The committee has been researching alternatives and is hoping to establish launch access exclusive to Taylor Pond residents/property owners. Following a spring online survey, a productive in-person community forum was held last summer. The forum confirmed that while residents were highly concerned about launch access, they were also flexible about the form that access might take and overwhelmingly supportive of a solution that minimizes threats to the pond’s ecology and water quality. 

Taylor Pond residents have relied on a private boat launch on Sunrise Lane for many years. That launch closed permanently to regular watercraft launching at the conclusion of the 2024 boating season. The Cyr family graciously allowed limited scheduled launch access for two days this spring. On those dates, volunteers monitored the launching of 60 watercraft. Users made donations to use the launch, which Greg Cyr generously donated toward the development of a permanent boat launch. 

There is a clear demand for pond residents to have a permanent access point to launch watercraft, as well as a need for public safety craft to reliably access the pond. At the time of publication, Taylor Pond Association is actively meeting with Taylor Pond Yacht Club on potential access to their boat launch, which has yet to be constructed. We have proposed a model with limited spring and fall access for TPA members who are Taylor Pond residents. We are hopeful that this proposal will be mutually beneficial for the Taylor Pond Community.  

We will have a more complete update for the Annual Meeting in August or earlier if possible. We will keep members informed through email and Taylor Pond Ripples on Facebook.  

By Dana Little 

It’s been an eventful year for Taylor Pond Association. In my many years as TPA president, and even more as a pond resident, I don’t think I’ve ever been more impressed by the collaboration, effort and persistence of our membership and board members. Facing both triumphs and challenges, all have rallied around our shared mission of maintaining Taylor Pond’s water quality to preserve wildlife habitat, protect property values, and safeguard recreational opportunities.    

First the triumphs: In collaboration with Androscoggin Valley Soil and Water Conservation District, TPA received an $82,818 Watershed Grant to implement erosion control projects at individual properties and private roads around the pond. (See p. 10) The grant is the result of an application filed in Spring 2024 and a Watershed Survey conducted in Spring 2023 when dozens of TPA volunteers surveyed Taylor Pond Watershed properties for areas of non-point source pollution (primarily erosion). Project Director Emma Lorusso from Androscoggin Valley Soil and Water Conservation District has shepherded the project from the start and is now working with pond residents and road associations to implement this federal grant. Property owners will receive matching funding to make improvements to reduce erosion into the pond and road associations will receive grants to do the same. Grant recipients will provide in-kind match through volunteer hours and materials. Additional in-kind match will come from the ongoing work of TPA and AVSWCD to address water-quality in Taylor Pond. In addition, TPA will provide approximately $2,000 in cash match through LakeSmart grants to pond residents. We have a busy summer ahead of us! 

Another triumph was the July 2024 arrival of a loon chick on the north end of Taylor Pond–the first to hatch in well over ten years. The family nested on the platform provided and monitored by the Audubon Society and spent the summer swimming, fishing and singing for neighbors, just like any happy Taylor Pond resident! The nesting platform is in place again this year, waiting for new or returning residents. (See p. 6) 

And the challenges: The boat launch on Sunrise Lane closed in October 2024 after serving pond residents and campground visitors for as long as I can remember. It goes without saying that access to a boat ramp is a critical issue to many pond dwellers. Many thanks to TPA board members Peter Bingham and Kristi Norcross who have been leading the effort to develop replacement boat access since Fall 2023, a full year before the ramp closed. (See p. 5)  While a permanent solution is not yet in place, they worked with Greg Cyr this spring to temporarily open his ramp for two days to put boats into the pond. They are working diligently to find a permanent solution and will report on their progress at the annual meeting.  As you can imagine, the options are few, the challenges are many, and the outcomes affect us all. With any solution, they will be working to maximize resident access and minimize the chance of introducing invasive plants, which could ruin our pond for boating, swimming, or fishing.  

Taylor Pond Association remains in great financial shape (see p. 15), thanks in no small part to the high rate of membership we enjoy and the hard work of members who generously share their time and expertise. Years ago, Woody Trask took over water quality monitoring (See p.11) that had previously been contracted out for over two thousand dollars a year (likely even more now). Since that time, we have built up a fund balance despite not raising dues in over 20 years. This has allowed us to hire independent consultants when needed to assess flooding issues and most recently to help conduct the Watershed Survey and submit a successful grant application.  Ed Gray, our long-time Treasurer who maintains our books and membership records volunteers many hours to keep us fiscally organized. Our Facebook page, Taylor Pond Ripples, is a busy online forum for information, beautiful pictures, lost & found articles that float across the pond, wildlife sightings, and other useful issues that concern residents. We also maintain a webpage that provides a wealth of information about the pond now going back 23 years at www.taylorpond.org   

I know we all believe in our mission and through individual and collective efforts, we focus on that mission year round. We could not do it without a talented team of board members, volunteers, neighbors who care about the pond (and each other) and all the members who support Taylor Pond Association financially. My thanks to all of you for your generosity-it sustains us all.   

Woody Trask

Water quality monitoring was conducted by Woody Trask and Michael Heskanen from June to October. To briefly summarize, it was a very good year and much better than 2023, especially regarding clarity and color. This can be attributed to fewer heavy rain events in 2024 than in 2023, and therefore fewer nutrients washing into the pond. It was also a very warm year, with July’s water temperature of 84.4 degrees being the highest recorded for July in the last 15 years. The high July temperature raised the average temperature for the year to 76.6 degrees, which is also a 15-year record. Algae blooms are often the result of high temperatures. Fortunately, none were observed, possibly because the phosphorus levels were too low to initiate a bloom. All other tested properties (pH, alkalinity and conductivity) were all historically normal.  

The pond was officially “ice in” on December 23, 2024, and officially “ice out” on April 13, 2025. The pond was more than three quarters of the way ice out about a week before that, but the north end tenaciously held on to its ice until the 13^th, which happens to be the historical average for ice out. 

Testing begins again in June. Let’s hope ’25 will be as good as ’24. 

Our yearly update on Taylor Pond news can be found here.