AUGUSTA – Members of a legislative committee failed to reach a consensus on how to preserve land around Katahdin Lake on Thursday despite weeks of work to craft a compromise palatable to conservationists and sporting groups.

The Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee will submit a divided report to the full Legislature next week, although the majority of members supported splitting the 6,015-acre property to allow limited hunting opportunities.

Disagreement over snowmobiling inside Baxter State Park prevented the committee from endorsing a single plan with a majority vote, however. The divided vote left several members concerned about the bill’s fate once it reaches the House and Senate.

“I don’t think we did our work here like we should have,” said Rep. Arlan Jodrey, a Bethel Republican. “We got too tied up in the emotional side of it.”

Committee members have been struggling for three weeks to salvage the plan to add the 6,015-acre property to Baxter State Park.

The deal as originally proposed would be financed entirely by $14 million in private donations, only part of which has been raised. But the deal requires a two-thirds vote from the Legislature because it involves the sale of 7,400 acres of state-owned forests.

What at first was billed a no-brainer for lawmakers has since become mired in politics, with the state’s powerful hunting and sporting lobby on one side and on the other advocates for “backcountry wilderness” free of guns and motorized recreation.

Three of the 13 committee members voted Thursday to support the deal as originally proposed, which would transfer all of the land to Baxter State Park. Members of the park’s governing body have indicated they would ban hunting and other “traditional uses” based on their interpretation of park creator and former Gov. Percival Baxter’s desires.

Predicting that scenario was doomed in the full Legislature, the majority of the committee supported nearly identical plans to split the property into two zones.

The southern portion, which encompasses 4,040 acres and includes Katahdin Lake, would be annexed into Baxter and managed as a wildlife sanctuary. The northern 1,975 acres would transfer to the Bureau of Parks and Lands and remain open to hunters, trappers and snowmobiles.

The current owners of the Katahdin Lake land – Gardner Land Co. of Lincoln – sweetened the deal to address concerns about the loss of acreage for traditional uses.

The Gardners agreed to give the state the option to acquire an additional 8,000 acres on the lake parcel’s eastern edge. If the state were unable or unwilling to acquire the land, the Gardners then would sell a permanent conservation easement on the property to ensure continued public access.

But the majority vote fell apart when committee member Sen. Kevin Raye proposed making the deal contingent on Baxter officials’ agreeing to groom the Perimeter Road for snowmobiles in winter. Snowmobiles now are allowed on the road. It is not groomed, however.

Raye, a Republican from Perry, described the grooming as a compromise to help make the deal more palatable for local businesses and residents affected by the closure of 4,040 acres to hunting and snowmobiling.

But Attorney General Steven Rowe, who is chairman of the three-member Baxter State Park Authority, questioned whether lawmakers could legally tell the authority how to run the park. Rowe also objected to lawmakers’ using the Katahdin Lake deal to influence operations throughout the park.

“My support is waning for this plan,” Rowe told the committee. “Maybe that was the idea here, that this was the poison pill.”

In the end, Raye and two other committee members voted for the dual-zoned scenario contingent on grooming the Perimeter Road. Five members voted for a dual-zoned scenario that merely requests that the park authority hold public hearings on the snowmobile issue.

One member, Dixfield Democratic Sen. Bruce Bryant, voted ought not to pass because he opposes the sale of the state-owned forests. Rep. Rodney Jennings, a Leeds Democrat, was not present.

Afterward, lawmakers as well as observers expressed optimism that a plan to protect Katahdin Lake will emerge from the Legislature.

“It remains my hope that some sort of reasonable compromise will be reached,” said Roland “Danny” Martin, commissioner of the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and a member of the Baxter park authority.

Cathy Johnson with the Natural Resources Council of Maine said dividing the property into two sections, while not the best scenario, was likely a workable compromise. Johnson opposed the idea of grooming the Perimeter Road for snowmobiles, however.

The committee’s reports likely will be brought up on the House and Senate floors sometime next week. Committee members said they expect their lawmaker colleagues to amend the bill.

“We all know that this is only the beginning,” said Rep. John Piotti, the Unity Democrat who co-chairs the committee. “An awful lot is going to occur as it leaves here and goes up to the House and the Senate.”