I am writing in response to Catherine Johnson’s OpEd “Plum Creek Version 2.0 – the devil is in the details” (BDN, Oct. 6), where she rejected Plum Creek’s revised plan for their lands around Moosehead Lake.

As a lifelong resident of Greenville, a father with kids in its school system and manager of a business that employs many local residents, I know that Plum Creek is a good neighbor who listened to our concerns when re-drafting its plan.

A plan that calls for a ratio of 99 percent conservation to just 1 percent development is the type of long-range planning the Land Use Regulation Commission has been asking for from large landowners.

One way or another, development is coming to Moosehead Lake and the Plum Creek plan is a tremendous opportunity to shape that development. I don’t see how else we are going to get the 400,000 acres of permanent conservation and public access being offered in this plan.

The worst case scenarios raised by Ms. Johnson can only be realized if LURC allowed the “loopholes” she warns about to be exploited at the site review process. My question is this: Why doesn’t the Natural Resources Council of Maine trust LURC to do its job?

Ms. Johnson and NRCM can nitpick the Plum Creek plan to death from afar without worrying about the consequences to the region if this plan is denied. What are those consequences? That development will come anyway but without the permanent public access to private lands and preservation of the working forest proposed by Plum Creek.

People need to remember that most of the land in this “part of the state that so many of us hold dear” and that we use as if it were our own is private land owned by Plum Creek. The Plum Creek plan will allow us to continue to think of their land as our own.

Craig Watt

Greenville