Moosehead Lake should remain wild

As fourth-generation residents with long family ties to the working forests of the Moosehead Lake region, we urge you to help us protect Moosehead from the inappropriate development proposed by Plum Creek Timber Co.

Like many other residents, we love living here. After all, we have a national treasure in our backyard! This beautiful, forested, lake landscape with the wildlife that lives in it is also our golden goose. We have a wonderful quality of life and the precious gift of a nature-based economy. If we take care of them, our natural resources will provide us with diverse products and tourism opportunities that are self-renewing and low-impact to the environment. This is good for us and a good thing for all Mainers.

Moosehead Lake and the North Woods of Maine represent an incredible opportunity to save a natural treasure for residents and visitors now and generations to come. The better stewards of the resources we are, the more we will get back in return.

In Greenville, we have been blessed with a brisk economy for at least the last five years. This blessing has brought with it an explosion of development in the area. As the gateway to the Moosehead Lake region, we are therefore already very challenged by the current rate of growth to maintain our small-town character and way of life.

We want to keep intact our real, woods town feel with our locally owned stores, restaurants and businesses, safe streets and busy, attractive downtown. We like our quiet country woods roads, star-filled night skies, and clean, natural surroundings. This makes us unique and attractive as a tourist destination. The large-scale development proposed by Plum Creek in the Unorganized Territory around Moosehead Lake would destroy forever what is different and special about this place.

Let’s keep Moosehead Lake, the surrounding mountains, forests and waters someplace to which we can all escape. This is why people choose to live and vacation here. Let these woods remain free of the gates, traffic, crime, trash, noise, lights, pavement and pollution that would inevitably come from the large resorts, golf courses and sprawling development in Plum Creek’s plan.

Plum Creek purchased this land inexpensively, knowing it was zoned for forestry and primitive recreation. They assured us all that they would not seek to develop it. They had their chance to live up to their words and manage the forests properly, but they chose not to. They could have provided continuous, valuable timber for them and good jobs for us, but they chose not to.

Now we must take control of our future. Keeping this land zoned for forestry and primitive recreation is the right thing to do for the economy, for the environment, and for the people and creatures that live and visit here. It will allow us to preserve public access and the authentic, wild feel of the area. Of course change is inevitable so let’s make it positive change that benefits everyone.

We have the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of those in other places, to make informed choices, and to be involved in the decision-making process that affects what happens here. The water, air and wildlife belong to all Mainers. So we all have the responsibility to protect them. We have one chance to make sure that development is quality, not quantity. Let’s take advantage of this opportunity.

The Moosehead Lake area is filled with independent, creative and intelligent people who choose to live here for the way of life. We accept responsibility for our livelihood. Neither we, nor the Land Use Regulation Commission, however, are responsible for ensuring enormous profits for corporations and landowners, especially at our expense.

LURC works for Mainers and we need it to uphold its purpose and goals by protecting the natural resources we all own. Plum Creek has no inherent right to rezoning and should not be rewarded for mismanagement of these precious resources. At the very least, Moosehead and the people of Maine deserve a better plan.

I urge you to write to LURC and attend or testify at a public hearing. For information on the proposal, the hearings, and how to contact LURC, go to www.maine.gov/doc/lurc.

Please help us protect Moosehead!

Christina Pritham Liros and Joseph W. Richards live in Greenville Junction.