IP land sales fit divestiture plan, spokesman says 90,000 acres in Maine already sold

MACHIAS – International Paper Co.’s recent $1.5 million sale of 8,000 acres of Washington County timberland is part of a strategic plan to sell or trade approximately 130,000 acres of its Maine holdings, according to a company spokesman.

Patrick Flood, the northern region operations manager for IP’s forest resources division, said approximately 90,000 acres of the company’s timberland has been sold to date and he anticipates selling an additional 40,000 acres. IP acquired 1.4 million acres in Maine when the company merged with Champion International in June 2000, he said.

The divestiture plan does not include the roughly 25,000-acre conservation easement on the Machias River that IP currently is negotiating with the Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission, Flood said.

“That’s really a conservation effort,” Flood said. “The other sales are primarily to timber interests.”

Flood said IP began the first phase of a strategic analysis of company assets shortly after the 2000 merger. That included identifying lands that fit the company’s long-term plan and those that did not, he said.

The analysis covered IP’s land base in Maine, New Hampshire and New York and the guiding principles included productivity cycles and proximity to mills, he said.

Flood said the company is marketing 171,000 of its 196,000 acres in New Hampshire through a public process that includes the Trust for New Hampshire’s Future. In Maine, the company is happy when the buyer turns out to be another company in the timber business, he said.

The Washington County sale and a similar-sized sale in Townships 10 and 16 in Hancock County were to H.C. Haynes, a Winn timber-harvesting company.

Haynes purchased 8,349 acres in Whiting, Edmunds, Northfield, Marshfield and Whitneyville for $1,588, 125.

Haynes sold the bulk of that land – 5,140 acres in Whiting and 1,084 acres in Edmunds – to Orland Dwelley & Sons Inc. of Waite.

Dwelley said Thursday that he’s just about ready to begin cutting the property, but isn’t sure what he’ll do in the long term. The acreage includes some frontage on Rocky Lake and Orange Lake, he said, and there is quite a bit of second-growth forest that will be ready to cut in 15 to 20 years.

“There’s been a lot of work done in there and they spent a lot of money thinning those trees,” Dwelley said. “I just think it’s an awful nice piece of land.”

Dwelley turns 63 today and said his son could harvest the piece in 20 years.

“I won’t cut it hard,” Dwelley said. “We’re not going to cut it a bit different than we did Gardner Lake and anyone who wants to is welcome to take a ride up to Gardner Lake.”

Dwelley’s 33-lot residential subdivision on the Gardner Lake peninsula is nicely done, according to Joel Pickelner, land protection specialist for the Quoddy Regional Land Trust.

Dwelley transferred 137 acres of the Gardner Lake property to the Whiting-based land trust for use as a wildlife sanctuary and kept hundreds of acres undeveloped.

Dwelley said he didn’t plan to subdivide the Gardner Lake peninsula when he purchased it, but had to move in that direction because there wasn’t enough wood to help pay for the land.

And he said he’s quite proud of what he did with the Gardner Lake project. The timber harvesting he did isn’t visible from the water and anyone who has driven down to the point of the peninsula can see that he didn’t strip the inland portion, he said.

Wood gives you back what you put in and if you cut it right, you’ll have a good yield for your next harvest, Dwelley said.

“I won’t make a mess in there,” he said. “And when I’m done, I think the people in those towns will probably think I ain’t a bad little fella at all.”

Calls to H.C. Haynes were not returned.

IP’s sale to Haynes was the third large transfer of company timberland in Washington County during the last eight months.

In April, DMG Enterprises of Dennysville purchased 2,681 acres of IP land in Cutler, Trescott and Whiting. DMG sold the timber rights to that property to the Georgia-Pacific Corp. in Woodland.

In May, IP sold 6,000 acres in Addison, Columbia, Columbia Falls and Jonesboro to Worcester Holdings LLC of Columbia.