Bill seeks to ban northern park Legislator wants state to annex federal land

Acadia State Park?

If an Aroostook County lawmaker has his way, the federally owned and operated national park on Mount Desert Island and all other federal land in the state would become the property of Maine.

This would be just one result of a legislative bill being sponsored by Rep. Henry Joy, however. If passed, LD 73 also would prevent a new national park from being established in the northern part of the state and would repeal a state law that allows the United States government to establish national forests within Maine’s borders. In fact, the only permitted use for federally owned land in Maine would be for strategic military purposes.

Joy said Friday that the main purpose of his bill is to protect the economic well-being of the residents of northern Maine by blocking the proposed establishment of a national park in the Maine woods. The reason he included the provision about Maine taking over existing federal lands, he said, is to “give it some teeth.”

For Ken Olson, however, it is this provision that makes the bill so perplexing. Olson, who is president of the nonprofit group Friends of Acadia, questioned the ability of the cash-strapped state government to take over management of the 47,000 acres of rugged coastal terrain that make up the Acadia park.

“This is a very small-minded bill,” Olson said Thursday. “It’s very selfish and strange.”

According to Olson, it would cost Maine around $2 billion to buy Acadia outright from the United States government and then another $61 million over the ensuing decade to maintain the current level of operation at the park, which is visited each year by roughly 2 million people.

Combine these expenses with the possible loss of $140 million that the park generates annually in the state’s economy, Olson said, and the result of Joy’s bill could be a $3.3 billion cost to the people of Maine.

The people of Maine, however, are who Joy said he’s trying to protect by making establishment of a northern Maine national park against state law.

“It [would take] away from the livelihood of the people up here who depend on the natural resources industry,” Joy said. “That’s the big thing.”

Jym St. Pierre of RESTORE: The Maine Woods, a group seeking to establish a northern Maine national park, was critical Friday of Joy’s legislative pursuits. He said that most people support RESTORE’s goals.

“He’s got a history of putting in silly bills like this,” St. Pierre said. “I think what’s going on here is political posturing.”

As far as taking over existing federal properties, Joy said Maine could avoid the expense of managing them by having such work done by private companies. He acknowledged that Maine is not in a position to take on any added significant financial responsibilities.

“The government doesn’t have any money,” he said. “Make it pay for itself.”

Rep. Bob Crosthwaite, another co-sponsor of the bill whose district abuts Acadia, said Friday he also is opposed to a national park in northern Maine. Crosthwaite said, however, that Acadia has a “tremendous economic effect” on the state and that he has no interest in seeing it become state property.

“I just bought three season passes” to the park, he said.

Crosthwaite, who also holds a seat on the Ellsworth City Council, said he co-sponsored the bill to help generate conversation about the proposed national park in northern Maine. He said it might be possible to amend the bill so that Acadia and other federal lands remain U.S. property.

“It really would affect how life is lived in the northern half of the state,” he said of the proposed park. “I think we want to keep it as it is.”

Despite their opposing views, Olson and Joy agree that the bill, as it is written, is likely to fail. Olson, however, said he intends to testify Monday in Augusta against the bill when the Legislature’s State and Local Government Committee holds a public hearing on it at 1 p.m.

“This bill is not going to go anywhere,” Olson said. “[But] we’ve got to waste a lot of time putting out this fire.”