CLAYTON LAKE – You think walking to the mailbox at the end of the driveway is a chore?

People living in the woodland community of Clayton Lake might be asked later this year to drive 65 miles through the woods to a mailbox in Ashland.

Residents have been getting their mail at a local post office for as long as anyone can remember. Now they’ve been told that the U.S. Postal Service may erect a cluster mailbox for them at the end of Realty Road in Ashland.

The residents, who may number from three full-time residents to 60 people on different days of the year, are hoping to change the minds of postal officials before a decision to change the service is made.

For the USPS, though, the change could mean saving most of the $30,000 it pays annually to take the mail to residents of Clayton Lake and a few others at Daquaam on the Maine-Quebec border.

A decision is expected within months, according to Steve Pelletier, manager of post office operations in much of Maine.

“We have a pretty good system right now,” Kim Lynch Allen, a park ranger who lives in the remote community, said recently. “They don’t need to fix anything because it’s not broken.

“We don’t know why they want to do this because we have not received any specifics from them,” she said. “We have the smallest post office in Maine, and it works well for us.”

Residents have asked for help from U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. A meeting will be held next month in Ashland between USPS officials, elected officials and local residents.

There are 20 people in Clayton Lake, according to the 2000 U.S. Census, but the population can vary.

The community, according to Allen, includes the offices of three forestry company offices – Clayton Lake Woodlands, Wagner Woodlands and Huber Forest Products – along with foresters, people conducting wildlife studies for the University of Maine and the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, park rangers and three sets of sporting camps that all depend on the mail service.

Allen said the USPS claims there are only three people in Clayton Lake, but she has 62 people on a list to contact for the February meeting.

Pelletier said there are about 20 customers served by the contract route and at the small Clayton Lake post office. Agreeing it was the smallest post office in Maine, the postal official described it as being “one room in a building” that is privately owned.

Speaking by cellular telephone through a Quebec exchange, Allen said the small village gets mail twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Jack Beaulieu, the USPS contract mail carrier, twice a week leaves Daquaam, which is located 26 miles to the west on the Quebec border, and makes a stop in Clayton Lake before going to Ashland. On his return trip, he delivers mail from Ashland to the outpost village.

Beaulieu stops briefly at the Clayton Lake post office each day of his journey, allowing residents to purchase stamps and bring in packages for mailing.

Allen said residents of the small community rely on the mail service for banking, getting medications and many other things that people in more urban areas don’t use the mail for.

The small post office is available to residents 24 hours a day, seven days a week, she said, to allow them to get their mail or to mail envelopes.

“While this may not be a big problem for other people, it [the proposed change] is a big problem for us,” Allen said. “There has never been any discussion about this.”

The route change originally was supposed to take place last July, but intervention by Maine’s elected officials in Washington delayed the action. Residents found out about the change from Beaulieu, not from the USPS, according to Allen.

“We finally got a mailing from them last week,” she said. “They want to know where we get our groceries, where we see doctors, and where we get social services.

“It was a survey,” she said. “They probably want to tell us to get our mail where we get our groceries or where we get medical attention.”

“It’s a proposal, right now, in an ongoing process where we evaluate our retail network,” Pelletier said Friday. “We look at things like ‘do services still serve the purpose they did years ago.’

“One of areas we are looking at is the feasibility of possibly closing [Clayton Lake],” he said. “We will meet with customers before making a decision.”

Pelletier said he will listen to their concerns and look at alternatives that make service viable for the USPS and the customers.

Pelletier admitted that the alternative he was looking at is the cluster mailbox located 65 miles east of Clayton Lake, and 85 miles for those receiving mail at Daquaam.

“We don’t get anywhere near the revenue needed,” he said. “The revenue does not offset the cost.”

Years ago, Clayton Lake was a much larger community and there was a need for the mail service for the larger number of people who worked and lived there, the postal official said.

“Like any other business, we need to reduce cost,” he said. “We also need to provide service that would be satisfactory.

“It would be a win-win situation for everyone,” he said.

The change, if it comes about, would be done with a 60-day notification to the contractor to terminate the contract.

Sen. Collins has asked the USPS to “carefully consider the impact that the closing” of the community post office would have.

“It would be a hardship to those who are only able to make the 130-mile round trip to Ashland once a week or less,” Lorie Ireland, Collins staff assistant, wrote to the USPS.

“The USPS has looked at a range of ways to do this,” Dave Lackey, a Snowe aide, said Friday. “The postal service is trying to find a balance in the level of service.

“The approach which is being offered seems to make the most sense,” Lackey continued. “They are looking for other alternatives, and that is why a hearing is being held in February.”