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Politics Raise A Potential Roadblock to Creation Of A "Maine Woods National Park and Preserve"

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Politics are being played that could impede efforts to create a Maine North Woods National Park.

In a move that astounded proponents of a "Maine Woods National Park and Preserve," the Maine Legislature has passed a resolution opposing a feasibility study into the creation of such a park.

On June 15, Maine Senate President Kevin Raye introduced a resolution, SP 519, which opposes even a feasibility study to evaluate the benefits and costs of creating a national park in the Maine Woods. The Senate voted the same day 31 to 3 to pass this resolution.

There was no meaningful notice, no public hearing, no opportunity to present any information in response to this sneak attack. The Maine House of Representatives went along without a roll call vote.

It’s not too late!

The resolution is expected to come up for another vote in each house very soon. If you live in Maine, please call now and urge your elected representatives to oppose this undemocratic action.

You can leave a message at:

Maine Senate switchboard: 800-423-6900

Maine House of Representatives switchboard: 800-423-2900

  
Partly in reaction to that move, the park's proponents launched a new website to promote such an addition to the National Park System. On that site you can find details on the 3.2 million acre site proposed for Maine's Moosehead-Katahdin region.

There's a map that shows where the park would be located, a fact sheet that lists the resource and economic benefits of such a park and which touches on potential funding mechanisms that could bring it to life, and details on recreational possibilities and wildlife resources.

There's also a 23-page Maine Woods brochure that provides further details on the proposal that you can download in PDF form, and a petition you can sign in support of the potential park.

Comments

As a citizen of Maine and someone very much in tune with the on-goings of the national parks around the country, I can tell you that this is quite a shock and I do not believe it is representative of the Maine citizenship - regardless of the vote tally. I suspect there is a lot of misinformation being based around up at the State House in Augusta, and the conversation is more about Federal vs. State rights, and not about the potential economic value of such a park creation. Additionally, the fact is likely being missed that the major of the land being proposed would be donated from the existing land owner and that it would surround the existing crown jewel of state parks in Maine (Baxter State Park). 
Thanks Kurt for covering this story. Let the alerts begin...


The insinuation that something improper, with "no discussion", occurred in the Maine legislature's overwhelming resolution against a Federal park is false. There has been more than enough "discussion" of this failed agenda for almost a quarter of a century since the NPCA openly advocated plans for five new National Parks in Maine that it had been collaborating on behind the scenes with NPS and viro pressure groups such as the Natural Resources Council of Maine, Maine Coast Heritage Trust, Audubon, and the Wilderness Society.

The pressure groups had already arranged for the US Forest Service "Northern Forest Lands Study" to promote Federal interstate Greenline land use prohibitions on 26 million acres across the four states in northern New England and New York, which ordinary people were just finding out about. This is the same region and the same agenda for which Audubon VP Brock Evans infamously extolled to "take it all" to viro leaders gathered at Tufts University a few years later.

When the lobbying and media blitz promoting this massive takeover began, no park advocates complained that it was "political", had not been publicly discussed, and that the owners of the land and people who live there had been told nothing about it. Yet now they complain about "politics" every time the rejection of this cynical, radical and massive takeover in whole or part is re-confirmed. The Restore agenda for 3 million acres is the same as one of the original five NPCA/NPS National Parks first promoted in 1988. Restore is nothing but an offshoot of the Wilderness Society led by the same activists who were behind the scheme then. There is nothing new about this.

The ongoing demands for a "feasibility study", now a quarter century later as if nothing has happened, are disingenuous. NPS new area "studies" are highly political planning and promotion events intended to build political momentum for a preconceived outcome in a process politically controlled by well-connected pressure groups and NPS. such "studies" are supposed to follow popular acceptance of the goal, which is most certainly not the case with the NPCA/Restore political agenda attempting to steamroll the property owners and communities they seek to replace with Federal control, eliminating private property rights and replacing representative government itself with NPS bureaucratic control.

Maine already went through this cynical process with the Northern Forests Lands Study and the follow-up Northern Forests Land Council which tore peoples' lives apart fighting it. No sensible person wants to have to go through that again. The activists who keep pushing this scheme are worse than stalkers; they have nothing to lose because they only have to win once. Normal people are more than fed up with the harassment.


Well, that's one way to put it.  Another is that individual citizens of this country have been fighting to protect areas like this for years.  Without thier passion and commitment to these types issues we would not have many of the beutiful parks we have today.  But, maybe that's the way some folks want it.


Which K Street "think tank" does June 19, 8:19 pm, Anonymous represent?  I suspect I already know the answer.


This anti-national park resolution does not represent the views of most people of Maine. There has been a series of independent public opinion surveys in Maine over the last decade and a half. Every one has shown that a majority of Maine citizens favor the idea of a large national park or similar public preserve in the Maine Woods. Support is substantial and growing.

Because they could not counter this burgeoning public support with facts, the sponsors of the anti-park resolution had to stoop to undemocratic procedural manipulations in the Maine legislature.

As Maine Public Radio pointed out, there was "no advance notice and no discussion" of the anti-park resolution. The sponsors are aware of the growing public support for the park idea. This was a desperate attempt to slow the momentum. The vote was held with no published notice at the very end of the legislative session. No document to review. No public hearings. No multiple votes as with a normal legislative bill to allow thoughtful consideration.

The process was so rushed that even state senators who are open to the park idea ended up voting for the resolution in the confustion. In the Maine House, there was not even an opportunity for a vote; it went under the hammer. The sponsors knew that if this had been a fair and open process, there would have been major opposition from legislators and the public to the resolution.

One observer, in today's Forecaster newspaper, asked the right questions: "was Baxter State Park a good idea? Was Acadia National Park a good idea? Would a North Woods National Park be such a bad thing? What’s wrong with studying the feasibility of a national park? Defy the dirty tricksters in Augusta. Think about it."

As has happened over and over in the history of national parks, local anti-park forces are fearful and defensive. They are hoping against hope that two defunct and closed paper mills in northern Maine will be sold and reopened. An anonymous group of Chinese investors is looking at that, but they insist on getting the mills for free, getting state and local tax breaks, getting more federal subsidies, getting union concessions, and having the public assume liability responsibility for the mill's toxic landfill, which will cost an estimated $17 million or more.

The Sun Journal newspaper said about this: "...the Maine Senate abandoned its capitalistic course by passing a bill authorizing the state to purchase the leaky Dolby Landfill, a problem private industry created that Maine's taxpayers must now solve."

The anti-park interests are afraid of allowing even a study of the park idea because they know that the study will show that a park would offer tremendous benefits to northern Maine. They are afraid that a park would threaten the industrialization of the Maine Woods by restoring the heart of the region. They are afraid of public lands, which would be shared, because they have grown up exploiting private lands. They are afraid that once people know the truth about these benefits, they will embrace a park in the Maine Woods.

That is why they oppose the right of philanthropist Roxanne Quimby to donate 70,000 acres to the people of Maine and America to become a national park. Many of these are the same people who claim to defend private property rights -- except for Roxanne Quimby. National park opponents in Maine are like those in other regions where vast global economic forces have passed them by. They are trying in vain to cling to a Maine Woods that no longer exists.

For decades, the Maine Woods was owned by a handful of families and companies that kept the land intact and provided local jobs. No longer. Since 1998, more than 10 million acres of the Maine Woods have been sold, most to transnational corporations and real-estate speculators.

These landowners are:

-Fueling global climate change by cutting down the forest and converting it into short-lived products, such as paper and biomass, which almost immediately release their stored carbon.

-Harming native wildlife with real-estate developments, such as Plum Creek corporation’s sprawling proposal to develop an area of the wild Moosehead Lake region as large as the City of Portland, Maine -- an area designated as critical habitat for the imperiled Canada lynx and other sensitive wildlife.

-Eroding wilderness values, by subdividing and developing wildland lakes and streams, building logging roads, erecting power lines and mountaintop energy projects, and expanding off-road motor vehicle access — including to the legendary Allagash Wilderness Waterway.

-Undermining local communities by closing mills, mechanizing jobs, and failing to economically diversify, all while degrading the natural values of the Maine Woods that could be the foundation of a sustainable economy. The two giant paper mills in Millinocket and East Millinocket, which once employed over 4,000 people, have closed and may never reopen, or may open only for a short time with massive public subsidies and a tiny fraction of the original work force.

Sadly, my fellow Mainers who oppose a new national park seem to have little to offer northern Mainers but continued economic decline. They have no meaningful solutions for local communities that need alternatives to replace lost timber and paper jobs. Rather than hope or ideas, they put forth disinformation, fear and opposition to positive change.

As a student of the history of national parks, I realize that this is the way it has been with almost every past national park campaign throughout U.S. history. Beloved national parks such as Grand Teton, Grand Canyon, Olympic, Redwood, Kenai Fjords, and even Acadia in Maine, faced bitter opposition from entrenched interests when they were first proposed. So did Maine’s iconic Baxter State Park.

Today, even the one-time opponents of those popular parks acknowledge that they were mistaken. As a native and lifelong Mainer, I believe the people of Maine deserve better. Fortunately, we have a choice. We can protect the heart of the Maine Woods as a beautiful national park and preserve. It will restore and protect the forest, keep the land open for public recreational access, and diversify an economy that is in desperate straits.

Those who oppose this vision should either offer a better solution or stop trying to keep us from building a better future for northern Maine.

For accurate information about the proposed Maine Woods National Park & Preserve, see www.mainewoods.org.


The youth deserves a voice in this matter, we who have recently entered into this insecure job market (and will remain in it a good deal longer than the rest of you) should be able to say whether we want to preserve this land in the form of a national park and explore new job opporunities, or save this land for private timbering. I for one favor a NP (and NP job opportunities) over the currently faltering timber industry. Even if the gov. rushes in with funds to buy up the mills waste site (a lemon), it is only a quick fix. Corporate-welfare does not belong in a free market, and it will only save industry for as long as the state is willing to hold its hand and pull it up.


Tea Party Republican!!


Let's see if I'm getting this correctly read on the west coast: People of Maine will no longer be coming to Yosemite, Crater Lake, The North Cascades. These are lands reserved for people on the west coast and Mainers, not willing to anti up for the good of the whole country won't be expecting other states to set asside parks for them.
Pretty sad.


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