MILLINOCKET – Bill Miller has nothing against snowmobiles, hikers, cross-country skiers and bird-watchers, but all-terrain vehicles are a big headache to the Prentiss & Carlisle vice president.

ATVs, he said, cause tens of thousands of dollars of damage and littering annually on the 1.05 million acres his company manages or owns in Maine. Their illegal presence also raises huge liability concerns and are responsible for tearing up roads, pathways and sensitive lands that help keep hundreds of forestry workers employed.

So when the Katahdin Area Access Working Group met for the first time Tuesday at the Northern Timber Cruisers club to discuss landowners allowing more access to their lands, Miller had a question.

“They have [illegal] access to our lands now, and we have to bear up the cost of it,” he said. “Why would we want to provide them with more at an additional expense?”

Distributing ATV trail maps regionally or nationally also would likely increase illegal off-trail ATV usage, he said.

ATV use, landowners said, differs significantly from snowmobile use in that ATV riders go all over the place, not just on trails, in every season except winter.

Nevertheless, Miller and representatives for four other major Katahdin region landowners listed conditions that might make ATV access more palatable:

. Compensation – Landowners currently pay for repairing the damage done by ATVs or other vehicles on their property. Increasing ATV registration fees or other taxes to pay for ATV damage might alleviate the problem, they said.

. Enforcement and control – ATV groups must prove that riders will stick to trails, use proper safety equipment, safely police their own and ensure that police or other law enforcement officials devote significant effort to nailing malefactors.

. Insurance liability – Landowners refuse to be held liable for damage or injuries incurred on trails on their property.

. One-stop leadership – Landowners want one clear authority responsible for attending to all trail concerns.

State conservation officials and local sportsmen expressed enthusiasm for the meeting, which drew 18 people. They said it was a good first step toward filling the giant doughnut hole that is the local ATV scene. Organized trails exist in most every other part of the state except Katahdin.

“This can happen here,” said Robert W. Duplessie, assistant to the commissioner of the Maine Department of Conservation. Duplessie organized the meeting through Town Manger Eugene Conlogue and Town Councilor Matthew Polstein, who acted as a co-moderator with Duplessie.

“We really wanted to hear what the landowners had to say, and we did,” said John Raymond, a town resident who is leading efforts to create and consolidate trails into a single trail system for all users – snowmobilers, ATVers, cross-country skiers, hikers and bicyclists – throughout the region.

“We found the parameters that they want to work within,” Raymond added. “That’s a significant step.”

The meeting marked the first time significant numbers of landowners met with multi-trail enthusiasts, said Brian Wiley, president of the Katahdin Area Chamber of Commerce, which serves East Millinocket, Medway and Millinocket.

The group is forming in reaction to state lawmakers’ and Department of Conservation officials’ creation of an 8,000-acre land deal that was key to adding Katahdin Lake to Baxter State Park last year. It is charged with helping formulate a comprehensive approach to local land management.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are generated annually in other states where trail access is organized and policed, and multiaccess trails are becoming common in other areas of Maine. Supporters say that revenue would be welcome in Katahdin, which has unemployment twice the state average and half its population is at or below the poverty line.