Thanks to the efforts of the Lake Auburn Watershed Protection Commission, great strides have been made to protect and maintain Lake Auburn’s water quality and provide clean and safe drinking water to the community members of Lewiston and Auburn. A few major ways LAWPC has done this focus on land protection and management.
Land Conservation
When Lake Auburn Watershed Protection Commission was formed in 1993, one of the priorities was to conserve as much land as possible in the watershed, focusing on the shoreline of the Lake and Basin as well as that of the inlet streams. Many land projection projects occurred within the first year of LAWPC’s inception, and to-date, nearly 2,500 acres of land have been protected by LAWPC, which makes up over 20% of the watershed, or over 26% of the total land area in the watershed.
Conservation Statistics:
Total watershed area: 12,041.3 acres (18.8 square miles), including water bodies
Fee Properties: 1,730 acres Conservation Easements: 290 acres Life Estate Land: 449 acres
Total acres protected: 2,469, 20.5% of watershed
Lake Auburn shoreline owned by LAWPC: 54,867 feet (10.4 miles), 76.8% of total lake shoreline
The Basin shoreline owned by LAWPC: 18,629 feet (3.54 miles), 69.9% of total Basin shoreline
Lake Auburn Watershed Overlay District
The City of Auburn has long had provisions protecting local natural resources, such as Lake Auburn, and over time Auburn Water District has called upon the City to help implement protection for its constituents’ sole drinking water supply.
In 1973, at the request of the Auburn Water District, the Auburn City Council adopted the Lake Auburn Watershed Overlay District. Overlay Districts generally provide comprehensive provisions to define land usage and control measures focused on a specific land area. The original Lake Auburn Watershed Overlay District had defined the Lake Auburn Watershed itself and provided guidelines for agricultural use, waste disposal, erosion control, and construction within the watershed. These guidelines reflected concerns that non-point pollution and phosphorous levels were increasing in the Lake, and that these forms of pollution were just as great a threat to water quality as bacterial contamination.
While the original Watershed Overlay District was created over 50 years ago, Lake Auburn Watershed Protection Commission has played a critical role in ensuring this provision of Auburn’s Zoning Ordinance is continually updated to ensure the best protections for Lake Auburn’s water quality. As per the Interlocal Cooperation Agreement of 1993, LAWPC has the responsibility to review allowable land uses in the watershed to verify they are consistent with watershed protection goals and to implement ordinances and regulations. Over time, LAWPC has dedicated time and financial resources to various studies and watershed protection plans to ensure the best available important and strategies for protection have been presented to Auburn City Council to ensure the Overlay District is also continually updated as new information is available. The Watershed Manager assigned to Lake Auburn Watershed Protection Commission holds responsibility in the process of permitting any land activities occurring within the Overlay District, ensuring regular collaboration between the entities to effectively manage land use and activities.
The most recent amendment to the Lake Auburn Watershed Overlay District was the subsurface wastewater system inspection guidance added in July 2024. This update involved background research on phosphorous levels and septic system impact to water quality along with regular correspondence between LAWPC and the City of Auburn’s Planning, Permitting and Code Department and Auburn City Council to ensure effective language based on best available data to protect water quality. Upon adoption of this specific ordinance, the City of Auburn called upon LAWPC to implement a program to provide assistance to residents in the watershed in regard to the septic system inspections. An assistance program was adopted in February 2025 by the LAWPC to ensure successful implementation of the ordinance. The continued partnership between Lake Auburn Watershed Protection Commission and the City of Auburn allows for strong and sustained protection efforts of the Lake Auburn Watershed and the cities’ drinking water supply.
[Click here to view the full Lake Auburn Watershed Overlay District provision.]