Groups debate use of Allagash ‘Wild’ moniker reconsidered

AUGUSTA – If the designation of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway as a national wild and scenic river gets in the way of the state’s management, it may be time to get rid of that federal moniker, Sen. John Martin told the Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee on Thursday.

The Eagle Lake Democrat has sponsored a bill to change the management of the Allagash by removing it from the oversight of the Land Use Regulation Commission and by formalizing seven motorized access points on the 92-mile waterway.

He said the federal designation should go if it gets in the way of northern Mainers’ use of the river.

Martin told the committee it should consider killing his bill and forming a study committee that would review what the Allagash was meant to be, and determine how to get it there.

Martin’s comments about doing away with the federal wild and scenic designation drew gasps of astonishment from the guides, camp owners and environmentalists who packed the committee hearing room.

Many of these opponents of Martin’s bill repeatedly said the state has broken its promise to “develop the maximum wilderness character” of the Allagash. That promise was made when 68 percent of state voters approved a $1.5 million bond issue to create the waterway in 1967, and when the state accepted the same amount of money from the federal government to manage the area as a wild and scenic river.

In 1970, the Allagash became the first state-managed waterway to be designated as a wild river under the national wild and scenic rivers act. This designation was sought as part of an effort to forestall a federal takeover making the waterway a national recreation area.

According to federal guidelines, a wild and scenic river should be “generally inaccessible except by trail, with watersheds or shorelines essentially primitive and waters unpolluted.”

“If it is going to prevent what this state wants, I think I’m ready to forgo that [federal] designation,” Martin said.

When committee member Rep. Linda McKee, D-Wayne, said she thought the Allagash was for all the people of Maine and the nation, Martin responded: “They’re entitled to use it, but not to the detriment of the people who live here.” Martin’s northern Maine Senate district encompasses much of the Allagash.

He said people need to be realistic about the Allagash. It is not a wilderness area, but the state did the best it could to preserve a river in the middle of a working forest, where people should expect to hear trucks, chain saws and skidders, Martin told the committee.

He went on to say that legislation could be passed to give the federal government its money back and to get the national government out of the Allagash altogether.

That would be a bad idea, said a former state legislator who introduced the original order to investigate the best way to preserve the Allagash. Gilman Whitman, who served in the Legislature from 1958 to 1961, said the federal designation strengthens the waterway and that the partnership with the U.S. government is needed for the “continued operation of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway, with the emphasis on wilderness.”

He and the dozen others who spoke in opposition to Martin’s bill said that allowing increased easy access to the waterway breached the original intent to preserve the area as wild and remote.

Rick Givens of Millinocket, who owned Allagash Wilderness Outfitters for 34 years, said the state agreed to manage the waterway under the terms of the bond issue and the federal wild and scenic rivers act. “The state has sadly failed in these responsibilities,” he said.

Only two people, both representatives of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, spoke in favor of Martin’s bill and his revised proposal to form a study committee.

A debate over the true nature of the Allagash has been raging for years. Those who live near the waterway tend to say that it should be easily accessible for a day of canoeing, fishing or fiddleheading.

Outfitters, guides and those who live farther away, but take extended trips on the river, say that it was intended to be used for multiday canoe trips that offered solitude and that access to the water was to be gained at only two points, one each at the southern and northern ends of the waterway.

Some critics have asked the National Park Service to review the state’s management to see whether it has violated the wild and scenic rivers act by allowing 14 access points and by reconstructing a timber-crib dam with a large concrete structure on Churchill Lake.

The National Park Service sent a letter to the legislative committee opposing Martin’s bill, because it would enshrine seven access points in state statute. This would conflict with the wild river designation and state law, Jamie Fosburgh, rivers program manager in the NPS Boston office, wrote in a letter earlier this week.

Martin said it was time for a thorough study of the Allagash to end the squabbling.

The Bureau of Parks and Lands, which oversees the Allagash, supports the idea of such a study, but it is opposed to portions of Martin’s original bill, which would have remade the waterway’s advisory committee to include only representatives from northern Maine, said Tom Morrison, the bureau’s director. He testified neither for nor against the bill.

In an interview, Morrison said a study commission would be helpful because it is time to determine whether the state is in fact in compliance with the federal wild and scenic rivers act.

Such a review should determine if the tenets of state law, the 1998 Allagash management plan and the federal wild and scenic rivers act are being met. If some are not, then the committee should decide how the management should be changed.

The agriculture committee is expected to hold a work session on the bill, LD 1761, next week.