Plum Creek hearings to begin Dec. 1

ROCKWOOD – The long-awaited public review of Plum Creek’s massive development proposal for the Moosehead Lake region will finally begin next month under a schedule approved by state regulators on Wednesday.

Members of the Land Use Regulation Commission voted to hold four public hearings on Plum Creek Timber Co.’s plan during the first three weeks of December.

Public hearings are currently scheduled for:

. Saturday, Dec. 1, in Greenville.

. Sunday, Dec. 2, in Augusta.

. Saturday, Dec. 15, in Portland.

. Sunday, Dec. 16, in Greenville.

The Dec. 1 meeting in Greenville will kick off what is widely expected to be the largest and one of the most closely watched regulatory reviews in LURC’s 30-year existence, and perhaps in state history.

“We’re ready to go,” said Luke Muzzy, senior land asset manager for Plum Creek.

Seattle-based Plum Creek’s application for 975 house lots and two large resorts near Moosehead is the largest development plan ever proposed in Maine.

Since first filing the application with LURC in April 2005, the company has twice re-written aspects of the plan, although the number of proposed house lots has remained the same. But the latest plan also includes a company proposal to permanently protect more than 400,000 acres of forestland in the region through a combination of easements and land sales to conservation groups.

The application is so massive that LURC was forced to hire outside consultants – paid for by Plum Creek – to help the staff process the application. And on Wednesday, each commission member was expected to receive four large boxes of pre-filed testimony from interested parties.

Review of Plum Creek’s lake development concept plan will consume much of December and part of January for the commissioners.

Beginning Dec. 3, the commission will hold two weeks of work sessions with officially recognized intervenors and interested parties on the application. More than 30 parties have been designated as intervenors, meaning they will have a seat at the table during the work sessions.

Under the schedule approved Wednesday, the commission will then take a break from Plum Creek meetings after the Dec. 16 hearing in Greenville but will reconvene the week of Jan. 14 for additional work sessions with intervenors.

The work sessions are open to the public, but comments from non-intervenors will be taken only during the four public hearings. Likewise, commission Chairman Bart Harvey urged intervenors to refrain from speaking during the meetings devoted to hearing comments from residents.

“With that I don’t think we need to take any more time on Plum Creek because we certainly are going to be spending a lot of time on it beginning in December,” Harvey said just before moving the commission on to its next agenda item. “We have a lot of homework to do.”

Public hearings were slated to begin on Plum Creek’s proposal last weekend, but the commission reluctantly postponed the meetings after the company made additional changes to its application.

The hearings are expected to attract large crowds given the controversial nature of Plum Creek’s proposal, which has generated intense debate over how best to promote economic development in the North Woods without spoiling the region’s natural beauty.

Cathy Johnson, the North Woods project director for the Natural Resources Council of Maine, said she was pleased that the commission had agreed to hold four public hearings. But NRCM, which has been one of the most vocal critics of the development plan, worries that holding the meetings in December near the holiday season will result in smaller crowds.

“We hope people understand how incredibly important this issue is and that they will take time to come to these hearings,” Johnson said.

For information on Plum Creek’s development plan or the upcoming public hearing schedule, go to http://www.maine.gov/doc/lurc.