Thank you and Update on the Little River
Greetings!
We hope this finds you well in the new year and you are enjoying the great snow we just received! I’d like to personally thank you for helping us make our year-end fundraising appeal such a great success! As with our campaign to protect the Little River, you all stepped up and made it happen and we are grateful for all of your continued support.
Speaking of the Little River, we are very excited that we have now occupied the former Belfast Water District Building as the Penobscot Bay Waterkeeper headquarters and office! We are slowly moving in and addressing some deferred maintenance, but we are excited to be on the river and are looking forward to making the space for the community to gather, learn, collaborate, and celebrate. We had an amazing time with our solstice celebration and office open house in December and it was great to see so many folks come out, warm by the fire, and visit with neighbors. We are trying to keep somewhat regular hours at the office, so feel free to stop in and say hi!
Many folks are inquiring about our plans for the property as a whole and we are currently in the process of refining our vision with some key conservation partners. We will be engaging the community in the process later in the spring and early summer. As you can understand, many of our stakeholders are away for the winter and we want to make sure we include as many folks as possible in the process. That said, we envision collaborating with partners to create a community-based hub that actively supports the rewilding of water and land, establishes ecological resiliency, and introduces the public to those concepts. Stay tuned for more on this and please reach out anytime if you would like to connect.
Now that the Little River parcel is protected, we are moving onto the work of fulfilling our mission of advocating for the health of the Penobscot Bay Watershed through science, public action and community engagement. In the next several months, we will begin implementing our strategic plan.
We are actively working with several partners on a variety of strategies to address ongoing pollution issues throughout the watershed and are looking to hire a full-time Waterkeeper to work with residents from around the watershed to promote clean water and healthy communities. We have a lot of great projects on the horizon and we hope you all can be part of it! Again, please reach out to me directly at any time if you’d like to chat about our work.
In the meantime, enjoy the snow and thank you so much for all of your support and we look forward to working with you in 2026 and beyond!
Onward!
Pete Nichols
Executive Director
