Acadia National Park inholding threat finally resolved

The Maine congressional delegation recently eliminated a serious threat to the integrity of Acadia National Park at Schoodic Point. Responding in part to requests of Friends of Acadia, the National Parks Conservation Association and the Hancock County Trustees of Public Reservations, and to calls from private parties, Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe and Reps. John Baldacci and Tom Allen mooted an attempt by the state of Maine to apply for ownership of 25 acres of contested lands at Schoodic Naval Base.

The base, comprising 100 acres encircled by the national park, will close June 30, 2002.

In the 1930s, park co-founder John D. Rockefeller Jr. brokered deals that moved naval facilities to Schoodic from Mount Desert Island, to make way for the park loop road. The Hancock County Trustees, a land trust founded by Harvard President Charles W. Eliot, donated two Schoodic properties to the park, which donated them to the Navy.

Seventy-five acres are subject to a reverter clause that would return the parcel to the park. The remaining 25 acres have no reverter – viewed by most as a simple omission – and the state moved this year to gain ownership.

However, on April 13 Gov. Angus King withdrew the ownership bid, emphasizing his confidence in the Park Service. King wrote the delegation, “[W]e do not see a need for the State of Maine to be named in any special legislation relating to [the Schoodic land].” He was doubtless aware of growing concerns among the delegation and strong local opposition.

National Park Service Regional Director Marie Rust smoothed the way for the state’s recusal in an earlier letter to King welcoming the state as a planning partner. The park wants to establish a research and education center, which the State Planning Office and most partners support.

Friends of Acadia opposed the state inholding as a bad precedent for national parks. Better avenues existed to involve the state at Schoodic. The 25-acre parcel is trapezoidal. Its boundaries slice buildings, parking lots, roads and utilities – an unworkable inholding.

An alternative would have reshaped the piece but would have infringed the 75 acres covered by the national park reverter. This could have pried open the hard won 1986 Acadia boundary legislation, subverting the authority of the Acadia National Park Advisory Commission established under the act. The interior secretary must consult the commission on Acadia acquisitions.

When 25 percent of the land and 20 of 41 major buildings were put into flux, park and Navy planning abruptly halted. Work on the environmental impact statement stopped. Adjacent communities grew impatient. Acadia Superintendent Paul Haertel and his staff handled a high-pressure situation with professionalism and respect for all parties, as did Base Commander Ed Williamson.

Like others, Friends worries that the base closure will hurt the economies of Winter Harbor and Gouldsboro. Creative compensatory actions must occur outside park boundaries where most of the Navy’s land and housing are located. At Schoodic Point proper, Friends supports economic reuse consistent with the purposes of a national park.

The Navy is an excellent steward. The only sure way to continue its high maintenance standard is for Congress to fully fund the park’s Schoodic addition, costing at least $3.8 million annually – the equivalent of a second Acadia National Park. The state’s political heft can help make the case. Winter Harbor and Gouldsboro will benefit.

Action turns now to special legislation to guarantee the towns’ interests in the nonpark lands, and to transfer seamlessly to Acadia the full 100 acres that the park surrounds. The land question has brought welcome statewide and congressional attention to Schoodic, its complex issues and multiple stakes.

Friends of Acadia thanks the Maine delegation for its actions, the state for resolving its end of things, and the Park Service for upholding park values. Meanwhile, Schoodic planning re-sumes, strengthened, ironically, by the fleeting bid to create an alien ownership there. The park-state agreement means the ultimate plan will be better for this national park and for the many people who depend on it in so many ways.

Ken Olson of Bar Harbor is president of Friends of Acadia.