Chebacco Lake is a Great Pond owned by the Commonwealth, but Massachusetts has thousands of lakes and cannot provide case-by-case stewardship for every watershed.

Much of the day-to-day oversight therefore falls to local boards and commissions. The legacy CLWA article identified 10 agencies in Essex and Hamilton alone and approximately 20 across the four communities overlapping the watershed.

Watershed property owners, lake advocates, and nonprofit organizations such as the Chebacco Lake & Watershed Association help close that gap by building community, forming partnerships, and supporting coordinated stewardship.