Save Kittery Waters
We are a grassroots movement of Kittery, ME volunteers who are dedicated to improving and ultimately protecting the quality of the Spruce Creek Watershed through community education and outreach. We seek to educate our community about how to save our most valuable, celebrated, and enjoyed natural resources.
TAKE THE CREEKSMART PLEDGE!
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
Sign up for our mailing list using the form below. You will learn about our meetings and volunteer opportunities.
#savekitterywaters
Take the CreekSmart Pledge!
We're thrilled to have you follow along and share in our #CreekSmartKittery campaign.
Will you take the the Creek Smart Pledge?
When you sign the pledge, you'll receive a nifty yard sign demonstrating your commitment to our community.
In partnership with the Town of Kittery and funded by a Maine Community Foundation grant, we’re running our #CreekSmartKittery campaign. Through the campaign, we're educating our community on practices that we can all adopt to protect and preserve the health of Kittery's waters.
CreekSmart Reprise!
Did you miss our #CreekSmart launch in July? No worries! We’re reprising our CreekSmart campaign launch with Town Council Chair Judy Spiller and Great Bay-Piscataqua Waterkeeper Melissa Paly at Rice Public Library on October 25. 6-8pm
Stay in Touch & Get Involved
Want to know how you can help save Kittery’s waters? We would love to share with you how you can help.
And by the way, we promise to keep your information private.
What’s the problem?
Ulva intestinalis, or more commonly gut weed, is the algae blooming all over our waters. In high concentrations, gut weed feeds upon and sucks up the nutrients in our waters. Then it grows at a fast rate. The result is lower salinity and light in our waters for other life. The watershed suffers. It also means decreased enjoyment for our community. Gut weed is just one instance of algae negatively impacting Kittery’s waters.
What causes the blooms? A number of factors, prominently the excess nitrogen in our creek due to contaminated runoff and lower levels of salinity impacted by local climate change.
But we if we get this right, we CAN make a difference. By adopting a stewardship mindset, we can adopt yardscaping best practices and share them with our neighbors. We can become Water Reporters to monitor the algae. We can actively advocate for Town development plans that carefully blend economic development with conservation.
The possibilities are endless, and with our community's help, the future is bright!
Aerial footage from this video are credited to Jim White of Spruce Creek TV. GoPro footage credited to Gary Sredzienski. All clips are from the 2021 bloom.
Aerial View of the Algae Blooms
Aerial video stills of Heron Point on June 23, 2021, an aerial map of Spruce Creek, and another aerial still of Goose Point on June 23, 2021.
Sources: Video stills from aerial footage by Jim White of Spruce Creek TV. Map from Lower Kittery, 1635-1700 and Google Maps with markers for approximately 10 offshoot creeks and coves.
