Strengthening Regulatory Mechanisms to Improve Water Quality Around Bow Lake

The Town of Strafford is working with SRPC to conduct public outreach and education, as well as developing mitigating strategies for stormwater runoff and septic system management and regulatory mechanisms, to improve and preserve the water quality of Bow Lake using funds awarded via the Piscataqua Region Environmental Planning Assessment (PREPA) Grant Program. This project is intended to take an incremental and multi-phased approach to the eventual development of a Bow Lake Watershed Management Plan, knitting together several sources of funding. The first phase of the project is using the PREPA grant funds to conduct outreach and education, a parcel level septic inventory, a septic risk analysis, and a buildout analysis for the area around the lake.

Outreach and education will play a major role in this phase of the project, with the project Steering Committee holding multiple public engagement events, distributing educational flyers and other materials, and working with residents around Bow Lake to help them better understand the goals of the project, as well as provide education on stormwater runoff mitigation and septic system management best practices.

Between September and December 2025, the project Steering Committee, with the assistance of SRPC, will be distributing a septic outreach survey in hard copy and electronic formats to collect data on individual parcels that will assist the project team in developing stormwater and septic system mitigation strategies.