The agreement announced last week between the National Park Service and the owners of Saddleback Ski Area to protect the Appalachian Trail was the result of a lot of hard work, perseverance, patience and not a little congressional involvement. Mostly, though, it was about money, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

For 16 years, the park service and the Breen family have been disagreeing over the conditions by which the trail, which runs over the top of the mountain on its way to Katahdin, would be protected from development of the ski area. Congress had instructed the service to protect the trail along its 2,600 miles; it largely didn’t say how other than to allow for bare minimum compensation backed up by the possibility of eminent domain, a tool the service clearly did not want to use.

The two sides went through all manner of possible compromises that one side would like and the other side despise until they faced reality: A ski area cannot be developed on top of a nature trail. It would have been unfair to require Saddleback’s owners to forgo all development or adequate compensation, and equally unfair to demand the park service buy into any plan that essentially left development unimpeded. A compromise that included a significant increase in the money offered – the sort of deal worked out in the private sector regularly – finally was taken seriously last year.

The federal government and the Breens negotiated a reasonable price for enough land to meet the requirements of protection, but still addresses the question of the local economy – 5,000 acres of the mountain remain available for development. The $4 million the government will pay for a combination of purchase, donation and easement is a lot of money per acre, but it is a deal for taxpayers in avoided argument and the resources those arguments require. And the concern that this single agreement was written on the slippery slope of many other current or potential land disputes with the federal government, while legitimate, is unlikely. For the Appalachian Trail, only a few miles of its Maine-to-Georgia length remain unprotected. For other land questions, landowners are likely to endure the 16 years and thousands of hours of negotiation and debate just to make a little more on the purchase price.

The Saddleback agreement largely settles the objectives of the park service by providing a permanent right-of-way for the 3.2-mile section of trail, protecting the trail from ski-area development and protecting surrounding flora and vistas along the trail. And it reinforces an idea of the last decade that is as large as the 185,000 acres the Nature Conservancy purchased in Northwest Maine two years ago or as small as a local land trust’s fund-raiser. Part of respecting private property means negotiating a fair price rather than simply making demands about what must be done for the common good.

The agreement last week sets a fair price for values the public holds in high regard. Maine’s congressional delegation, which helped secure the money, the federal government and Saddleback’s owners can conclude all got what they needed.