Park plans $3M Blackwoods project

ACADIA NATIONAL PARK – Blackwoods Campground on Route 3 in Bar Harbor, another legacy of the late John D. Rockefeller Jr., will be completely rehabilitated under a $3 million plan by the National Park Service.

Pending final approval and funding in next year’s federal budget, the campground project would get under way in fall 2004 and be done in sections so that at no time would the entire campground be closed, according to Acadia officials.

The project will include improvements to roads, campsites, utilities, drainage and buildings, adding housing for campground staff and an overall plan to revegetate parts of the campground that have been destroyed by heavy use over many years.

“It’s a huge boost for us because we’ve been submitting [funding requests] for this work for years and finally got it,” Judy Hazen Connery, a resource manager for Acadia, said Tuesday.

“Every once in a while you have to go in and do some major maintenance and basically that’s what we’re talking about in this project,” Connery said.

The Blackwoods funding has been approved by the NPS as part of Acadia’s budget request for fiscal 2004, which begins in October, but still must be approved by Congress, Connery said.

The second Acadia campground on Mount Desert Island, Seawall Campground in Southwest Harbor, will undergo major rehabilitation beginning this fall under a project approved last year.

The campground projects are similar, but Seawall is expected to cost some $1 million more than Blackwoods. An estimated total of 160,000 campers stay at both campgrounds each year.

In both the Seawall and Blackwoods projects, park planners have paid special attention to retaining the historic and rustic character of the campgrounds and mitigating any negative impacts on the landscape and environment, Connery said.

Len Bobinchock, Acadia assistant superintendent, said Tuesday that the projects represent the first major upgrade of the campgrounds since they were built more than 50 years ago.

“Both campgrounds are very important to Acadia and both are in dire need of major repair,” Bobinchock said. He said Blackwoods is more popular than Seawall and speculated that the reasons could include its proximity to major park attractions and to the town of Bar Harbor.

The park also operates a small, more primitive campground on Isle au Haut.

In addition to the proposed physical work at Blackwoods, the park intends to change its policies on the use of generators to reduce noise from the machines and improve the camping experience for all visitors, according to Connery.

The park plans to reduce the time that generators can be used each day at both MDI campgrounds. Officials ditched a proposal to ban generators outright after hearing from the public, Connery said.

She said RV owners told park officials they would have to take their mobile homes into the park’s parking lots and roadways to use their generators. “We don’t want to be just [moving] the problem from one place to another,” Connery said.

Mirroring other changes at Seawall, collecting firewood would be banned at Blackwoods, and RVs would be limited to 35 feet in length and 12 feet in width.

The Blackwoods project includes:

. Rehabilitating all restrooms and the ranger station on Loop A of the campground. The restroom buildings on Loop B all have been recently replaced or rehabilitated as part of other projects, according to the park’s environmental assessment report on the project.

. Campsites would be rehabilitated and standardized and handicapped-accessible sites would be moved closer to restrooms and paths.

. The drainage and utilities systems would be upgraded and rehabilitated, including replacement of some of the old culverts and installation of a new wastewater system pump.

. Replacing destroyed vegetation and allowing natural revegetation by closing some sites or blocking off problem areas. The environmental assessment concludes that revegetating the campground would have myriad benefits, including establishing a privacy screen, better definition of campsites, erosion control, beautification and habitat improvement.

Blackwoods Campground was first envisioned by Rockefeller in 1929, but was not fully constructed and opened to the public until 1946, according to the park study. The land was donated by Rockefeller as part of his plan to construct the Otter Creek causeway and Blackwoods motor road in the 1930s.

Rockefeller, who also created the famous carriage road system on MDI, donated the land that would become Blackwoods Campground, as well as thousands of other acres that eventually would be named Acadia National Park.

More than 80,000 visitors camp at the Route 3 facility.

Copies of the Blackwoods project report can be obtained by contacting Connery at 288-8721 or by writing to Connery at P.O. Box 177, Bar Harbor 04609. She also will accept e-mailed comments at judyhazenconnery@nps.gov.