Maine should buy easements along River

The Machias River Project is about as straightforward a proposition as you’ll find. It will ensure perpetual public access to the river while expanding fish and wildlife protections. It is an opportunity made possible by the current landowner’s belief that conservation and economic opportunity are a good mix. That owner, International Paper, also respects Maine’s longstanding tradition of public access to private lands and has already gone the State one better in setting standards for harvesting along its waterways.

Some say that’s enough, but we’ve all learned that land can change hands frequently in Maine (as we’ve been seeing recently Down East) and that we need to protect what we value while we can. In this case, that calls for taking IP up on its offer to make those stream bank standards permanent and to improve upon them, and it calls for making public access to the Machias River a right of every Maine citizen – no matter who manages the surrounding forests in the years to come.

This is a remarkable opportunity because so much of this river system is in one ownership. Certainly, we’d look back in frustration were these lands to be broken up into many parcels, the prospect of protecting a whole river system made immensely more difficult and expensive.

Last month, thanks to the support of Maine’s governor, senators and representatives, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a $2 million grant to the Machias River Project. The funds came from a federal source that supports the purchase of habitat for endangered species, in this case the Atlantic salmon. The funds will help do that and more as well.

Other federal dollars have already come to Maine. Last March, $1 million was granted through the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to assist blueberry operations in water use and management and to help the aquaculture industry improve fish containment technology and marking protocols. Nearly $1 million dollars was paid to blueberry farmers to purchase excess production. Still other public funds have helped address siltation problems on seven Maine rivers, set up watershed management councils, and continue research. More funding, state and federal, is needed for all of these efforts.

Like habitat protection, however, every one of these initiatives from assistance to blueberry growers to better penfish management and increased stakeholder involvement are goals established in Maine’s own Atlantic Salmon Conservation Plan.

This is a point to be underscored – these are federal dollars meeting state-identified goals. Gov. King has said, “the Machias River Project will be a huge boon to furthering the Atlantic Salmon Conservation Plan habitat protection goal … truly a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

A recent editorial in the Bangor Daily News noted that habitat protection alone will not ensure the survival of Maine’s salmon population and that is certainly true. It is also true that all these other efforts – and there are and should be many – will be of little help to this particular species if the salmon’s most essential habitat, where they spawn and rear their young, is compromised.

But we all lose when one set of initiatives is played off against another. We need to understand that habitat protection is only one initiative among a number of important projects that are moving forward.

Each involves securing the needs of wildlife and safeguarding what humans value. This is why the editorial was correct in speaking out for the interests of those whose livelihoods depend on agriculture and aquaculture (as the BDN has on many occasions). The state has recently adopted new water use management plans and a bond issue will go before voters this November seeking funds to assist with irrigation, both initiatives are part of the state plan. Clearly, the plan recognizes that the need for riparian protections must be balanced with the needs of industry in these watersheds.

Where the editorial erred was in assuming that progress on one front would forestall progress on others. And it was wrong as well to suggest that no additional habitat protection is necessary. The Machias River Project involves conservation easements along the river, tributaries and headwater ponds (which means International Paper will continue to own the underlying fee interest). While the state will hold timber rights in a 250 foot strip along the stream banks, the rest of the 1,000 foot corridor will continue to be managed for timber by the landowner. Widely accepted, scientific study shows that fully functioning, riparian buffers are the most effective means of maintaining high quality aquatic habitat.

There is no better way of providing long-term security to juvenile and spawning Atlantic salmon -and all the species dependent upon the river corridor than this project. Neither existing state regulations nor International Paper’s voluntary standards will do this. Regardless of who owns these lands in the future, the Machias River Project will ensure that the streamside forest continues to filter pollutants, cool waters with a maturing canopy, and provide shelter and food for a host of species.

The Machias River Project will benefit a variety of wildlife from trout and salmon to partridge and deer.

It will respect the traditions of timber management and public access, maintain the character of the river and the quality of adventure for those canoeing its waters. And it will do this not only while International Paper holds title, but for all the years to come.

Steven D. Koenig is executive director of Project SHARE, a salmon restoration group based in Cherryfield