It's not a lake, but...

The Penobscot watershed has many, many lakes and ponds within its boundary. In fact, the Penobscot is the largest watershed in Maine, covering over 1/3 of the state. The second annual Penobscot Riverfest happened Saturday on the waterfront in Bangor. The story is front-page news in today's Bangor Daily - read all about it here.

The watershed includes some highly developed lakes, ringed by camps, and some of the most remote lakes in the eastern US, like the nearly impossible to find Pamola and Klondike ponds in Baxter State Park. The river incoporates the 'signature' of all the various activities happening within the watershed - from human-driven change to natural processes.

The BDN article recalls times when the river was so obviously polluted that it stank. Our environmental issues now are not so obvious, perhaps, but equally deleterious. The same issues of point-source versus non-point-source pollution affect Maine's lakes, and since the water all flows downhill, eventually ends up reflected in the signature of one of these large rivers.