The task force charged with identifying a more workable way to manage the Allagash Wilderness Waterway will travel to Aroostook County on Saturday to gather feedback from the public and to visit the controversial waterway.

The Allagash Wilderness Waterway Working Group will hold three meetings – two of which are public hearings – in Ashland and Fort Kent on Saturday and Monday.

The panel will hold the first public hearing from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Saturday at Ashland High School. The group will convene again in the Fort Kent Town Council chambers at 3:30 p.m. Monday for a work session, followed by a public hearing slated to begin at 6 p.m.

Panel members are expected to spend much of Sunday on the waterway and plan to camp overnight.

Created by Gov. John Baldacci this spring, the task force is charged with studying alternative options for running the Allagash Wilderness Waterway. The nine-member panel plans to examine the management structures of other public recreational areas in Maine and nationwide and to present Baldacci with a list of recommendations.

Stretching through 92 miles of commercial forests in northern Maine, the waterway is a destination for thousands of outdoors enthusiasts seeking multiday canoe and kayak excursions in a “wilderness” setting.

But the federally designated “wild and scenic river” also has been mired in controversy for much of the 40 years since its designation. Conservationists pushing for fewer roads, bridges and other signs of civilization along the waterway often clash with local residents concerned about losing access to a river that is central to the regional culture and history.

The Allagash working group is not expected to tackle many of the specific issues, deferring instead to the waterway’s future managers. Nonetheless, the task force likely will hear more than an earful from local residents during the two public hearings.

Don Nicoll, the group’s chairman and a longtime Allagash user, said the members want to get feedback from area residents as well as hear their suggestions on ways to improve the waterway’s management.

“One of the reasons you have a hearing like this is to get people talking about what is really on their minds and get them thinking about how to address” the issues, said Nicoll, former chief of staff for the late Sen. Edmund Muskie.

Nicoll said the group would use Monday’s work session to continue discussing other management models, including the independent authority that runs Baxter State Park.

One issue sure to come up during the public hearings is the July 4 incident in which two lawmakers – Sen. John Martin, an Eagle Lake Democrat, and Rep. Troy Jackson, an Allagash Democrat – and several others used bulldozers and chain saws to reopen a road in the waterway.

Martin, who serves on the governor’s task force, and Jackson had the permission of landowner Irving Woodlands to fill in ditches and remove downed trees on the Old Michaud Farm Road. Irving voluntarily closed the road in 2003 as part of an agreement on the waterway.

The lawmakers’ failure to notify the state and their use of heavy equipment and chain saws in a restricted zone, however, infuriated some conservationists.

Martin subsequently apologized for the incident during the working group’s last meeting, saying he realized his actions only fanned the flames of the controversy.

Department of Conservation spokesman Jim Crocker pointed out Wednesday that the working group has nothing to do with the Old Michaud Farm Road controversy, even though Martin and Irving’s local land manager, Anthony Hourihan, serve on the committee.

Irving did not do anything outside its rights as a landowner, Crocker said. And the Land Use Regulation Commission has said none of its statutes were violated. But the complicated issue is still under review by the department, he said.

“We are still investigating and talking and haven’t come to any conclusions about whether charges will be filed,” Crocker said.