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TJ aka Teej
02-10-2005, 13:56
Plum Creek announces its plans for the largest subdivision in Maine’s history – approximately 1,000 house lots, two resorts and other enterprises -- on an array of high quality lakes and ponds. All of the sited in the Moosehead Lake area and around the 100 Mile Wilderness. A detailed story by Phyllis Austin, including a map showing the land owned by Plum Creek bordering the Appalachian Trail is at www.meepi.org (http://www.meepi.org) (For reference, the red line of the AT crosses Rte 201 at Caratunk.)

From the Phyllis Austin story:
"Of the 415,000 acres included in the plan, about half the Maine land it owns, Plum Creek would develop 14,000 acres, leaving 95 percent of that tract in commercial timberland management. Six thousand acres would go to about 1,000 camp lots – half on the shoreline of various waters with existing development and half on back lots (with one exception, all of the lakes already have some development). Another 6,000 acres would go to resort development. One thousand acres in Greenville would be allocated to a business park and another 1,000 acres to low-income housing. To balance the development, Plum Creek is willing to place in permanent conservation a 500-foot buffer around the shoreline of 50 undeveloped ponds.
Plum Creek is also proposing other conservation initiatives, although they are outside the lake concept plan. The company has offered to create permanent easements for 43 miles of new hiking and cross-country ski trails and 75 miles of existing snowmobile trails. It is willing to sell to the state 37,000 acres bordering the Appalachian Trail’s Hundred Mile Wilderness. Included in that deal would be No. 5 Bog near Attean Pond and land around Second and Third Roach ponds – tracts the Bureau of Parks and Lands has been wanting for some time."

JoeHiker
02-10-2005, 16:26
That link should be

http://www.meepi.org/

The Solemates
02-14-2005, 13:58
Maine of all places. Makes me sick to the stomach.

Footslogger
02-14-2005, 14:36
...and to think, the slogan on a Maine auto license plate is:

Maine ...the way life should be (or something to that effect)

'Slogger
AT 2003

Lint
02-14-2005, 15:27
Maybe folks could stop all their rutting until we figure out this whole food/air/water deal. People keep popping out babies, and they grow up to demand subdivisions. Love your mother, don't become one!

dperry
02-15-2005, 01:23
Maybe folks could stop all their rutting until we figure out this whole food/air/water deal. People keep popping out babies, and they grow up to demand subdivisions. Love your mother, don't become one!Well, with respect to the baby part, the reasonable estimates for the U. S. (from the Census Bureau) and the world (from the UN) is that that problem should end by about 2050.

For good or for ill, it's not clear that that will end the second part. We're not building homes in Maine to house homeless people. We're building them because people like taking vacations in the woods.

Mountain Dew
02-15-2005, 02:30
For a moment I thought we were going to talk about how the amc is developing wilderness in Maine. oh well.....

steve hiker
02-15-2005, 12:01
If this trend continues, America will go the way of Europe which lost its wilderness about 1,000 years ago.

The Solemates
02-15-2005, 19:18
Well, with respect to the baby part, the reasonable estimates for the U. S. (from the Census Bureau) and the world (from the UN) is that that problem should end by about 2050.

Hows that?

dperry
02-16-2005, 00:06
Hows that?In other words, the estimates are that the populations of both the US and world should begin to decrease around then.

minnesotasmith
02-16-2005, 03:23
Worldwide total population will likely go down in a major way long before 2050 due to the onset of Peak Oil and the Olduvai Cliff, even if no Islamocrazy releases smallpox or the like. U.S. population would have pretty much stopped increasing in the 1970s if immigration (legal and not) into the U.S. was not out of control. Lint, it's not native-born Americans of many generations causing the population increase in the U.S.; it's Third World new arrivals (and their offspring) within the last 30 years that are causing it. California (for example) would actually have had a significant population decrease duringthe last 10 years if national immigration had remained at the level established between 1930 - 1965, instead of exploding upwards as it is doing currently. So, if you want development around the AT to be minimized, one way is to do your part to get immigration lowered back to what it was pre-1965.

screwysquirrel
02-16-2005, 03:48
Worldwide total population will likely go down in a major way long before 2050 due to the onset of Peak Oil and the Olduvai Cliff, even if no Islamocrazy releases smallpox or the like. U.S. population would have pretty much stopped increasing in the 1970s if immigration (legal and not) into the U.S. was not out of control. Lint, it's not native-born Americans of many generations causing the population increase in the U.S.; it's Third World new arrivals (and their offspring) within the last 30 years that are causing it. California (for example) would actually have had a significant population decrease duringthe last 10 years if national immigration had remained at the level established between 1930 - 1965, instead of exploding upwards as it is doing currently. So, if you want development around the AT to be minimized, one way is to do your part to get immigration lowered back to what it was pre-1965.

You're preaching to the deaf and blind here. Surprised you haven't be called a racist so yet.

minnesotasmith
02-16-2005, 03:55
But that's already happened here more than once. The board ultraliberals have panic attacks whenever someone has a new idea they haven't given that person permission to have, or knows a piece of information they aren't familiar with, so it's not a rare thing to see them try (and fail) to substitute ad hom attacks for an adequate rhetorical defense of a logically weak position (such as simultaneously being pro-immigration and wanting development/sprawl constrained). I'm just about used to it.

Blue Jay
02-16-2005, 23:59
You racists ignore an important fact. Anyone with any talent at all, in any way, in the entire world, will do anything to come here. That is why we are a great country. America is becoming like Kuwait, no one wants to work (including most of us on this forum). Our economy would collapse without foreign talent. Even your god, Rand knew that. If your going to be a Randy at least read her books.

minnesotasmith
02-17-2005, 03:41
Blue, for every bonafide Ph.D.-level genius that comes here (and I welcome those) from the Third World, there are scores or hundreds of unremarkable at most adequately-skilled people (displacing native-born Americans from jobs by living wage-busting, illegality, gov't-compelled affirmative action and benefits, and massive universal favoritism towards their own), and hundreds or thousands of lesser types who are often unemployable, being brought here under the justification of family "reunification". If the borders were closed, most post-1965 immigrants expelled, and welfare/AFDC/SSDI/food stamps/affirmative action shut down, you'd see plenty of Americans employed again, filling the "jobs that Americans don't want" (can't currently feed a family on, more usually), and at decent wages.

Non-Asian Third World illegals and legals alike are economically most notable in terms of how they clog the emergency rooms, criminal courts, and public elementary school school classrooms (where they often learn little, while impeding normal learning rates by native Americans).

Rather than go on at length about this, I'll let the following two pieces speak for me here:
==============================================
I LOVE AMERICA

I come for visit, get treated REGAL
so I stay, who care I ILLEGAL?!
I cross border, poor and broke,
take bus, see employment FOLK.
Nice man treat me good in there,
say I need to see WELFARE.
Welfare say "You come no more..."
Welfare send cash right to DOOR!
Welfare checks, they make you WEALTHY,
Medi-Cal - it keep you HEALTHY!
By and by I got plenty money,
thanks to you - AMERICAN DUMMY!!
Write to friends in motherland,
tell them come as fast as they can.
They come in rags, and CHEBBY trucks -
I buy big house with welfare BUCKS!
They come, we live together...
More welfare cash, it gets better!
Fourteen families now move in,
but neighbors patience growing thin.
Finally WHITE GUY moves away!
I buy his house and then I say...
Find MORE aliens for house to RENT,
and in the yard I put a TENT!
Send for family, they just TRASH -
But they also draw welfare CASH!
Everything is MUCHO good,
soon we own the whole NEIGHBORHOOD!
We have hobby - its called breeding,
welfare pay for baby FEEDING!
Kids need dentist?
Wife need pills?
We get FREE!
We have no BILLS!
America is crazy.
They pay all YEAR!
They keep welfare running HERE.
We think America damn good place,
TOO damn good for the WHITE MAN RACE.
If they no like us, they can go
Got lots of room in MEXICO!
=============================================
From www.fredoneverything.net (http://www.fredoneverything.net/)

http://www.fredoneverything.net/FOE_Frame_Column.htm

Article #250

Demographics And Witlessness

The Flow Across The Rhine-Danube Line

The Nature of Mexican Immigration


September 10, 2004

"When I write that I like Mexico, that it enjoys much that we have lost, that Latin societies are more livable if less prosperous than ours, dismissive letters arrive. They amount to the same letter: “If Mexico is so great, how come they all want to come to the United States?” The writers invariably believe that they have made a telling point.

Mexico is not so great, of course. It has plenty of problems. But why do Mexicans swim the river? Money. Period. If asked, an immigrant will usually say that he seeks “una vida mejor,” a better life. He means “Money.”

Mexicans and gringos have distinctly different views of the United States. An American explaining the attractiveness of his country will usually say, “I have a big house in the suburbs, three cars, a home theater, and 300 channels on the cable. I can drink the water, and in the mall I can buy anything, absolutely anything.” He may talk of freedom and democracy, often having only the vaguest idea of whether he actually has them or what conditions might be in other countries.

A Mexican is more likely to say, “They are such a cold people. They don’t know their neighbors. They don’t know their children. They have no fiestas. Rules and being on time are more important to them than other people. They have no religion.” (To a robust Catholic, bland agnostic Protestantism isn’t detectibly a religion.) Democracy means little to an illegal with a second-grade education; in any event, Mexico is probably as democratic as the United States. He knows the government left him alone in Mexico, which is his definition of freedom. And mine.

But money counts when you don't have any. It counts a lot. And so they come whether they like the country or not. Very often they do not. This is going to matter.

Now, do the “all Mexicans” of my mail want to emigrate, to attach themselves to the northern nanny’s promiscuous dugs? No. Few do. Who then are the emigrants?

For starters, they are not doctors, chemists, and airline pilots. Successful Mexicans do not want to go to the United States. Mexicans who are merely comfortable do not want to go to the United States. They like Mexico. This is very difficult to explain to most Americans, who know beyond doubt that Mexico has lesser malls. But it is a fact.

The Mexicans who go north are the losers, the failures, the barely if at all literate, those with little to offer. They go because the Mexican economy is wretched, because the jobs that left the United States for Mexico are now leaving Mexico for China. Money. The United States can run a first-world economy. Mexico cannot. Why is debatable. The fact isn't.

While Mexicans are good people, their dregs often are not. On average the immigrants are uncultivated, uneducated, and of low intelligence. One may not mention the matter of intelligence, but it is well known among people who pay attention to such things, and has implications for the future. America is getting those Mexicans least worth getting, the least assimilable, and getting them in circumstances that do not encourage assimilation. Unlikely to prosper, they show signs of becoming another unsalvageable underclass.

Being Latins, they are not comfortable in an impersonal, technological northern European culture that values performance, competition, efficiency and punctuality. It isn’t their way. Often they plan to make money and return to Mexico; many then develop ties and remain. Yet even then they stay among their own. Their numbers as they swarm across the border are such that they can do it. If they don’t want to assimilate, don’t have to assimilate, and don’t have the wherewithal to assimilate—don’t expect assimilation.

Further, Latin Americans resent the United States for its great wealth and for their own poverty, which they tend to blame on exploitation by American corporations. Whether this characterization is correct (it isn't) doesn’t matter. The resentment does.

Mexicans know that much of the American southwest was once part of Mexico, taken from them by force of arms. Americans, having been the victors and in any case being historically illiterate, know little of this. Mexicans do. Few know the dates or the politics, yet they have a sense of grievance, a sense that these states are really theirs. They are getting them back. They know it. They view the reconquista with the relish with which they watch a Mexican soccer team beat the US.

Their envy, their sense of inferiority and of failure, breeds hostility in the southwestern barrios. This is far less true of Mexicans in Mexico. In a couple of years in the interior, I have found people to be friendly and courteous. The only exceptions, apart from my experiences during a couple of unwise forays into seriously low bars, have involved males who clearly had spent time in the US.

Comparisons are made between Mexican immigrants and, say, Italians, a Latin people who melded well into American society. A word of caution here: Assimilation is proportional to contact. When a minority population is sufficiently large, and sufficiently concentrated, the consequence is not assimilation, but the establishment of a sort of country within a country. There are for example countless huge black regions of the cities where one can go for days without seeing a white face. Whites barely know that these places exist. The inmates are not assimilating. The same appears to be happening with the Mexicans.

Perhaps as important, past immigrants have cut their ties with their native countries, and have arrived with the conscious desire of becoming Americans. Mexicans, very often, do not want to be Americans, and the mother country is right across the border. The phrase “trans-border de facto semi-sovereignty” is not Milton. It merits thought.

Worse for America, much worse, is that far too many of them perform terribly in school. Dropout rates are very high, auguring ill for the future. Mexicans are not an academic people (as, increasingly, neither are Americans). In the barrios, their Spanish is barbarous. So is their English. Crime is high. The press will not talk much about crime, but the police know.

And—here I am on statistically shaky ground, as there are no statistics—the young too often seem to be assimilating to the black underclass rather than to the central white current. Mexican machismo and the ghetto strut of the black underclass have much in common. Rap is popular among low-class Mexican males. It is the music of defiant losers, of macho swagger and rejection of white America.

Black and Mexican won’t unite. They don’t like each other. Anger will come when the growing and better organized Mexicans take the southwestern cities from the blacks. One country, three nations, little compatibility, and no love lost."
=================================================

The Old Fhart
02-17-2005, 08:14
Though many of [immigrants] are, doubtless, persons of small means, who have been hoarding and saving for years, and living in rags and squalor, in order to amass sufficient money to carry themselves and families across the Atlantic, and to beg their way to the [United States], where they may "squat" or purchase cheap lands, the great bulk appear to be people of the most destitute class, who go to join their friends and relatives, previously established in America.That is a quote from 1850 regarding the Irish immigration. As you can see, the xenophobes haven’t changed. America is a great country, not because of those "people" we exclude, but rather because of those we embrace.

MS and SS should crawl back under their rocks and let the rest of the posters talk about the 100 mile "wilderness."

orangebug
02-17-2005, 14:03
I see that using the Ignore feature has saved me from unnecessary distress. :clap

minnesotasmith
02-17-2005, 21:43
SS's posts and mine are completely on-topic here. We are discussing development near the AT, after all. Development/sprawl are closely associated with population growth, and pop growth in the U.S. is now primarily a factor of uncontrolled immigration (legal and not). That means that the topic of development cannot be competently discussed in general without reference to the immigration issue.

As far as the characteristics of the immigrants coming to America now, they have changed dramatically from those of a century and more years ago. This is due to 1) the welfare state (that did not exist at all prior to the wretched FDR administration, and reached its approximate final trough under LBJ in the 1960s), 2) almost completely switching over to drawing peoples from the Third World culture types rather than the First World, and 3) the "race over merit" system we are increasingly adapting in this country, which often disadvantages deserving native-borns over undeserving new arrivals.

Finally, you might be interested to know that the Irish immigrants arriving here after the potato blight of the 1840s were in fact as a group a cut below the English/Scottish/German/Dutch predecessors that founded the nation, going by their documented behavior. They were more pointlessly violent, less inclined to learn skills, less likely to hold down jobs longterm, more likely to drink to excess, poorer at maintaining marriages, more likely to produce bastards, ended up in the almshouses more, etc. Because they spoke (more or less) the same language as the founding peoples, were the same race (and otherwise not genetically much different), there was little welfare-state reinforcement of their bad behaviors, generally bore this country no ill will (unlike Mexicans and Muslims...), and were not forever reinforced by a continuing massive inundation of similar types, they at length did assimilate. Sadly, none of these conditions hold true today, so assimilation of Hispanic new arrivals is overall considerably slower, when it happens at all.

My source on the last paragraph is "The Unheavenly City Revisited", by Ed Banfield.

The Old Fhart
02-17-2005, 23:25
minnesotasmith-“SS's posts and mine are completely on-topic here.” You must think you’re posting on some Aryan web site because nothing you’ve said has any relevance with development along the A.T. in the 100 mile “wilderness.” And you display your stupidity by wasting most of your last post trying to justify the 1840 quote I used to show just how asinine you racist xenophobes are! You are one sick puppy!

You’ve tried this crap here before and it didn’t work. I’m sure the outcome this time will be the same, but then you’re probably too dim to realize that.

minnesotasmith
02-17-2005, 23:41
You will be in a logically equivalent situation as someone who regrets illegitimate births, but will not allow discussion about sexual behaviors. That is, you will never come to understand anything, nor improve anything. I am sorry that you appear unable to grasp new information if it is politically incorrect (not to mention your disagreeable and counterproductive inclination for substituting insults in place of refutation by logic of positions with which you disagree); however, not everyone on this forum is so handicapped, fortunately for the future of the Trail.

The Old Fhart
02-18-2005, 00:16
MS, No matter how much you bigots try to intellectualize your hatred of other cultures and races the bottom line is always the same. You are insecure pathetic individuals who will try to interpret anything that happens in the world around you as being caused by “those people” being out to get you or destroy the world. When you use the words “refutation by logic of positions,” the only logic you have is the logic of hate, which, in and of itself, is an oxymoron.

When you say: however, not everyone on this forum is so handicapped, fortunately for the future of the Trail, the echo in your empty hall must have been deafening. Your memory is failing because you seem to forget what happened last time you tried this crap. Seek counseling.

orangebug
02-18-2005, 02:06
OF, use your ignore button.

Eventually, RnR and he will get together and have a great time!

Moose2001
02-18-2005, 10:16
Old Fhart, Blue Jay, Orangebug, I’d like to say congratulations to each of you and job well done. It’s good to see board members who will stand up to the kind of racist and moronic behavior being practiced by the likes of Minnesota Smith and his other “friends”. I liken them to cockroaches. If you turn on the light, they scurry for the dark recesses to spread their filth and disease. Keep up the good work and hopefully they will decide to find another forum more to their liking. We as a board and as hikers don’t need or want this kind of reprehensible behavior.

The Solemates
02-18-2005, 11:22
Well this thread, like many others, has certainly turned sour. Why can't people just ignore stuff they dont like? If you've got nothing good to say, dont say nothing at all!

steve hiker
02-18-2005, 11:59
Old Fhart, Blue Jay, Orangebug, I’d like to say congratulations to each of you and job well done. It’s good to see board members who will stand up to the kind of racist and moronic behavior being practiced by the likes of Minnesota Smith and his other “friends”. I liken them to cockroaches. If you turn on the light, they scurry for the dark recesses to spread their filth and disease. Keep up the good work and hopefully they will decide to find another forum more to their liking. We as a board and as hikers don’t need or want this kind of reprehensible behavior.
It doesn't seem to me that Minn is scurrying anywhere except back to the keyboard to respond to those who engage in moronic namecalling and premature declarations of victory. Social liberals are the biggest hypocrites.

Drum Stick
02-19-2005, 12:55
Where to start?
I expected more from this AT community but evidently ideolgy etc. has a firm grip here 'too'. I am asking you all to put down your guns for a minute:-). The world is a complex place, there are many issues and people are passionate about their views, but we are all losing when we engage in argument that results in no solution. What is happening in this thread (and others) is the same thing that is happening in our government. Just tune into C-Span coverage of the Congress and the Senate and you will see a whole lot of partisan bitchin and few solutions. Madness via ideology! I feel we are all losing because our country and our world is frankly terribly managed.

To get on topic I woud love to see as much land as possible be conserved including the 100-Mile Wilderness area, who would not? It is upsetting to see precious land developed that could be conserved but we hikers do not own the 100-Mile Wilderness. The people who do own the 100-Mile Wilderness have rights and they are devloping their land by the law book, and developing land is no cakewalk especially in Maine. There are organizations that are buying wilderness areas from 'owners' and we can donate money to these organizations to help. If I were wealthy I would probably follow in the footsteps of Perceval (spelling?) Baxter who because of his extreme generosity we all get to climb Mount Katahdin. I gather from this thread that the devlopers of the 100-Mile Wilderness are offering some of the land to be purchased for conservation and I am thankful for that.

The 'conversation' in this thread morphed(?) into immigration... And more people means more development plain and simple. I know Mexicans are not crossing the border to settle into the 100-Mile Wilderness or any other wilderness area that I am aware of but lets not be in denial over urban sprawl (I think thats the term). I moved from just outside Boston into southern Maine like many other people simply because I could not afford to live in my old home town. 'One' Mainer stopped in to give me ****e about my home, he was upset because of all of the recent development in the area. He said to me "whats this a Massachusettes house" and I replied "no, it is an American home with a capital A" to which I got no response. Don't get me wrong, there are tons of good Mainers, but there is always one person with an axe to grind and it is pathetic. Anyway I do not take offense to earlier thread comments about Maine but feel free to retract that remark (try it it is easy and it might feel good), then lets go for a beer and have a real discussion. You know I have not seen one "I stand corrected", or "I apologize" on this forum... Anyway, foriegners (like my Massachusettes self) and immigrants move looking for a better life and lets not fault them for this. But are Mexicans, Canadians and others are breaking our laws immigrating here? You bet! Is it hurting our country? Absolutely. Lets not be in denial over this fact. The answer though is management and that is precisely what our goverment is trying to do. Like him or not, president Bush is on the money when he says that "Compassion does not stop at the Rio Grande".

Thanks for reading my rant. I apologize in advance for anything that comes off the wrong way here, I am absolutely no trying to be condescending. Most of us here on Whiteblaze are Americans and we have very serious challenges ahead of us. Let us not lose sight of the important things here especially friendship. I would like to meet with any and all of you on the trail and be able to say hey friend. I am not trying to be huggy kissy here either, just decent.
Peace
Drummy... no not dummy, some friends call me Drummy

PS And please forgive my grammar / spellin etc, I hated those classes! And if anyone is up for a political forum topic where hikers can engage I would love to. Just a thought. I think we coud handle it.

weary
02-19-2005, 13:34
If I were wealthy I would probably follow in the footsteps of Percival (spelling?) Baxter who because of his extreme generosity we all get to climb Mount Katahdin.
One doesn't need to be wealthy to help. The traditional Maine villains were the paper companies. (Teej occasionally rants against them still) but the last paper company lands were sold late last year.

The new owners are land investment companies that buy land, wait for the price to rise, and then sell. Those who got into the act early are typically earning 20 percent a year on their investments.

But land remains cheap by national standards. AMC bought it's 37,000 acres for less than $400 an acre.

The Nature Conservancy and other environmental groups have bought some of the paper company lands. But land investment groups, real estate investment trusts (REITs) are now the dominant owners of what used to be the domain of the paper companies.

By definition these groups don't hold land for more than a few years (10 at the most.) Why? their investors like to see their profits. Many of the REIT investors are insurance companies, and retirement funds that need to make payments from profits periodically.

So it's all on the market, or will be soon. We formed the Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust to make the trail a player in these transactions. Our first purchase has been some of the slopes of Saddleback and Mt. Abraham a few miles to the north and one of the spectacular cluster of 4,000 foot mountains that stretch from near the New Hampshire border to Bigelow.

We need a lot of $1,000 and $10,000 donations to succeed. What do we need to do to attract that kind of money? Well, a batch of $50 and $100 contributions from the hiking community would help a lot. It would demonstrate that we are not just a fringe newcomer to the Maine land wars, but a legitimate group with broad hiker support.

Almost every penny we raise goes to land conservation and only land conservation. We have only one parttime employee, and her pay has been funded mostly by grants from foundations.

Anyway, we need more than talk. We need evidence that hikers truly want Maine to remain wild. If you are inclined to help, open

www.matlt.org.

Weary

Drum Stick
02-20-2005, 09:58
Hello All,
After my post yesterday I thought that I might return to this forum and find myself at the bottom of a pig pile. I was thinking, did I misread the thread? Were the posts all in good humor and I failed to see it? Was my response was completely off the mark? Do I look like a lunatic here? To an extent I still feel this way... So I do apologize the community if I have offended anyone.

I did a little research on the subject of Maine wilderness area(s) conservation and sprawl in general. The subject of sprawl was more complex than I had thought. I figured if I am going to engage in a subject on this forum I had better know at least a little bit about what is at hand. I worked in Pulp and Paper research for 11 years (1980's) so I knew a little something about how the Maine woods was being managed by the Paper companies. I thought that the paper companies did a fine job managing the forests while keeping 'their' property open for recreation. I know some people see a tree get cut, or a swath of trees cut and they get up in arms for no good reason. I am not saying that bad 'forestry managment' does not take place, but in general I feel that our (US) forests are very well managed. But I see the land ownership situation has changed. Thanks for the info Weary.

I see that there is a major new player by the name of Quimby who just purchased and continues to purchase wilderness lands in Maine for conseravation. Evidently she has purchased nice chunks of property and has added dimension to Baxter State Park. Nice! Did I read though that the land she purchased will be closed to recreation? It was 2AM when I read this, so I will have to recheck.

Weary you evidently know what is happening in the Maine woods, did I gather that you are affiliated somehow with TPL or MATLT (sorry I am on the first cup of joe here)... I should probably do some home work before asking uniformed questions about land trusts etc... I am interested to know for starters what is being done right here on Whiteblaze to raise funds. I see that there almost 5000 members here on Whiteblaze alone. Do the simple math and if each member gave a donation of $100 that is $500,000. This would pay for the whole Abrahm Saddleback deal in one fell swoop and we are just a small band. I realize that some here on Whiteblaze already give to the cause, and some of us probably can not part with $100 at the moment. I for one have plenty of places to spend $100 dollars wisely like in a 'private retirement account' for instance (couldn't help it). But on the otherhand my donation would be giving something back to the AT and worth every penny. So what is being done here on Whiteblaze to raise funds for land conservation? And while I am at it, I probably ought to support Whiteblaze itself whereas I am right on the heels of being the Top Poster on this forum.
Thanks all!
Drummy
(he takes a breath and heads for cup of coffe #2) And no pig pile:-) Thanks!

The Old Fhart
02-20-2005, 10:18
Drum Stick-"Do I look like a lunatic here?"You should know better than to ask a question like that here. :D Seriously, I've read your posts and see nothing crazy here---yet. I may not agree with all of what you say but it is food for thought.

weary
02-20-2005, 11:14
Hello All,
.... I see that there is a major new player by the name of Quimby who just purchased and continues to purchase wilderness lands in Maine for conseravation. Evidently she has purchased nice chunks of property and has added dimension to Baxter State Park. Nice! Did I read though that the land she purchased will be closed to recreation? It was 2AM when I read this, so I will have to recheck.

Weary you evidently know what is happening in the Maine woods, did I gather that you are affiliated somehow with TPL or MATLT (sorry I am on the first cup of joe here)... I should probably do some home work before asking uniformed questions about land trusts etc... I am interested to know for starters what is being done right here on Whiteblaze to raise funds. I see that there almost 5000 members here on Whiteblaze alone. Do the simple math and if each member gave a donation of $100 that is $500,000. This would pay for the whole Abrahm Saddleback deal in one fell swoop and we are just a small band. I realize that some here on Whiteblaze already give to the cause, and some of us probably can not part with $100 at the moment. I for one have plenty of places to spend $100 dollars wisely like in a 'private retirement account' for instance (couldn't help it). But on the otherhand my donation would be giving something back to the AT and worth every penny. So what is being done here on Whiteblaze to raise funds for land conservation? And while I am at it, I probably ought to support Whiteblaze itself whereas I am right on the heels of being the Top Poster on this forum.
....
Roxanne Quimby sold most of her interest in a cosmetics company she had founded for a reported $150 million. She since has purchased quite a bit of Maine land adjacent to Baxter Park and adjacent to the trail in the so called "100-mile-wilderness," which was never wilderness just commercial forest land owned mostly by paper companies. My memory says she owns a total of 50 thousand acres, but it may be less. Her primary goal is a national park, an idea that has narrow support in public opinion polls, but almost universal opposition in Maine political circles.

I sense that may be changing as the enormity of what is happening in the woods gradually sinks in. The last of the paper company lands were sold late last year to land investment businesses. The sales mostly require the buyers to supply wood to the mills for a few years, but the future looks bleak for the paper industry in Maine. With the exception of the International Paper mill in Jay, all the mills have run through several owners in the last decade, which is what traditionally has happened with failing mills in Maine. For awhile someone can always be found to try to eke out the last bit of profit, but eventually the mills with several quick ownership changes have all closed.

Quimby has not banned recreational use on the land she has purchased. She welcomes hikers. She has banned ATVs and snowmobiles. The large parcel she owns next to Baxter Park remains in her ownership. She has said that if the national park idea fails she might offer it to Baxter Park.

The Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust was created by Tom Lewis two years ago. Tom used to be a banker. When the bank where he worked was merged with another, he started his own business developing low income housing.

I was his second land trust recruit, mostly because I had founded a small land trust in my town that has had some success and because I had written about Maine land for 25 years before I retired from the newspaper business in 1991. My claim to "fame" was that I had written about 400,000 acres that Maine had saved when it sold it's public domain a century and a half earlier, and then had forgotten what it had done. The public land had been taxed as private land for a century. But after a decade of law suits, the attorney for the state called to say, "to the surprise of everyone in the world, including me, we won."

Anyway I am a founding director of the MATLT and continue to serve on the board of directors and the executive committee.

There is no organized WhiteBlaze effort to support the land trust activities in Maine, only me writing notes from time to time in response to good folks like yourself who give me a chance to issue a plea for support.

I don't know what the overall WhiteBlaze support has been, since I don't know the names of most of the people who are members. But when I look over the lists of contributors and I see names scattered from around the country, I assume most gave in response to my pleas.

MATLT was created mostly because a number of conservation groups are buying land in Maine in addition to Roxanne Quimby, groups like the Nature Conservancy, The Trust for Public Lands, and The Forest Society of Maine. But no one was focusing on the needs of the trail. MATLT fills that void.

It is critical that we succeed in paying off the mortgage we took out to buy Abraham and part of Saddleback. In my experience with land trusts the first success is most critical. Once that is achieved a trust has credibility and future efforts are easier.

Anyway, the need is important. And the first step in helping is to open:

www.matlt.org

Weary

Drum Stick
02-20-2005, 12:29
Thanks for the feedback gentlemen.

First though! Old Phart (no age given?) please don't leave me wondering what it is that you do not agree with me on. I gotsta know :-) Forestry Management? Something else? I am curious, maybe you have info that I do not..? I am not all knowing, but open to discussion. If it is off topic please feel free to email me. Weary ay... (age 75), I can see how you got that name, but Old Phart?... Well since I have you older gentlemen here I am curious, since I am getting 'up there' in age myself, is there dust at that age or still all wind? :-)))))

Seriously, I am curious what the powers that be here on Whiteblaze think about AT fund raising in the name of 'our' community. I am sure these ideas have been considered and I wonder what the position is. Perhaps we are just glad to be up and running here on the web. Perhaps I have just have not seen related threads yet. I should probably run a search...

I probably will have questions for you Weary that are on the topic of conservation of land around the AT, but not specificly the 100-Mile Wilderness...
Later
Drum Stick

Drum Stick
02-20-2005, 13:12
Woooof!
I just ran a search on the forum and I see that I am more than just a bit late to the party.
Drum Stick

The Old Fhart
02-20-2005, 13:19
Drum Stick-"but Old Phart?..."I think you have me confused with the band "Phish." I don't know anyone named "Old Phart" :D

Rocks 'n Roots
02-23-2005, 01:19
OF, use your ignore button.

Eventually, RnR and he will get together and have a great time!


One-line flame responses have also saved OB the effort of intelligent response.


If you'll notice, Plum Creek has nobly offered to resell 37,000 acres of buffer next to the Appalachian Trail. This is environmental marketing (ransoming) on the nation's premier scenic trail.

There's a warm place in Muir's hell for Plum Creek and the government that encouraged this...

Tim Rich
02-23-2005, 01:36
One-line flame responses have also saved OB the effort of intelligent response.


If you'll notice, Plum Creek has nobly offered to resell 37,000 acres of buffer next to the Appalachian Trail. This is environmental marketing (ransoming) on the nation's premier scenic trail.

There's a warm place in Muir's hell for Plum Creek and the government that encouraged this...

As has been said in other threads, perhaps the action to take regarding Plum Creek is to seek to get the size of this proposed parcel increased. That being said, they are within their rights to sell, "resell", or reresell any tract they choose. There's no ransom, since they own it - they haven't kidnapped it.

Other than stating that they're going straight to hell for this, I again ask what tangible, concrete, real-world steps do you propose to address the issue of the Plum Creek development?

Take Care,

Tim

rickb
02-23-2005, 09:20
IQuimby has not banned recreational use on the land she has purchased. She welcomes hikers. She has banned ATVs and snowmobiles. The large parcel she owns next to Baxter Park remains in her ownership. She has said that if the national park idea fails she might offer it to Baxter Park.
www.matlt.org

Weary

What did you all make of Quimby's quote in that link which TJ posted last month? Here is a snip:


"Quimby told the gathering of lawyers that she has come to understand better the controversy that followed her purchases and plans for a park.

"Most of it is the result of unintended consequences that I didn't quite understand the full ramifications of," Quimby said. She said she now knows the history of Maine's shared-use doctrine, the traditional practice of commercial landowners to open their lands to recreational uses.

Quimby has been working with snowmobilers, for example, to give them time to create new trails to replace ones that cut though properties she bought for preservation. She said she also has focused more on conservation efforts nearer to her home in Winter Harbor and left the national park work to another organization, RESTORE: The North Woods.

Quimby still supports the park idea, but she said, "unfortunately, it is under such controversy and attack that I felt I was not going to make progress."

weary
02-23-2005, 10:50
"Quimby told the gathering of lawyers that she has come to understand better the controversy that followed her purchases and plans for a park.

"Most of it is the result of unintended consequences that I didn't quite understand the full ramifications of," Quimby said. She said she now knows the history of Maine's shared-use doctrine, the traditional practice of commercial landowners to open their lands to recreational uses.

Quimby has been working with snowmobilers, for example, to give them time to create new trails to replace ones that cut though properties she bought for preservation. She said she also has focused more on conservation efforts nearer to her home in Winter Harbor and left the national park work to another organization, RESTORE: The North Woods.

Quimby still supports the park idea, but she said, "unfortunately, it is under such controversy and attack that I felt I was not going to make progress."

Roxanne has formed a family foundation with family members as trustees. Since some of them have thru hiked, I suspect the trail will have some priority. The foundation has a fulltime director and has just published guidelines for applicants for grants.

The Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust has been in contact with her for months and remains hopeful that the foundation will help us with our purchase of Abraham and the southern slopes of Saddleback. One way of helping that to happen would be evidence of support from the trail community. An influx of support from long distance hikers would help us build the credibility we need to attract major foundations.

Check our web site www.matlt.org for more information.

As for the rest of her comments, she came into Maine without a great deal of knowledge. She is a bright person, however, and is learning fast.

Weary

Rocks 'n Roots
02-23-2005, 16:26
That being said, they are within their rights to sell, "resell", or reresell any tract they choose. There's no ransom, since they own it - they haven't kidnapped it.



Tim, I appreciate your keen sensitivity to the environmental matters at stake here. I also note your remarkable insight regarding the unethical practice of corporations seeking to profit by buying near-Trail lands that could have been preserved otherwise (as they have been before). I can imagine it would be quite easy to argue an AT conservation point if you completely fail to recognize the AT's conservation purpose and cause, as you do. I suppose some people think wilderness-destroying, rote development is an unquestionable thing that should be argued as a norm despite its obvious environmental costs...


Our government's gone rotten, and this is the proof...

Tim Rich
02-23-2005, 17:21
Tim, I appreciate your keen sensitivity to the environmental matters at stake here. I also note your remarkable insight regarding the unethical practice of corporations seeking to profit by buying near-Trail lands that could have been preserved otherwise (as they have been before). I can imagine it would be quite easy to argue an AT conservation point if you completely fail to recognize the AT's conservation purpose and cause, as you do. I suppose some people think wilderness-destroying, rote development is an unquestionable thing that should be argued as a norm despite its obvious environmental costs...


Our government's gone rotten, and this is the proof...

Hey, Hossfly, your selective quoting has you again ducking a legitimate question. I'll post it again, in its entirety:


Other than stating that our government's rotten and that they're going straight to hell for this, I again ask what tangible, concrete, real-world steps do you propose to address the issue of the Plum Creek development?

By the way, they bought over 900,000 acres seven years ago, some near the trail and some not. A seven year holding period doesn't seem like an unethical land flip, does it? What do you recommend to address this proposed development? I'm not asking for hot air about what is in the spirit of AT-mindedness, or what a MacKaye level rapprochement between land use and wilderness values might yield. I'm asking what tangible steps would you recommend, or actually take or tangibly support, regarding this proposed develoment?

Do tell.

Drum Stick
02-23-2005, 17:36
Tim it is not going unoticed that your question was not answered... Although the question was probably a tad rhetorical. But I can hear Weary saying "you don't have to be rich to do something" and he can not be more right. It is also not going unnoticed that there is cherry picking going on here with quotes. After all Tim, you did recognize and make it clear that what was going on was unethical (even if the land transactions were within the law / owners rights).

I really do not care to look back through this thread to see where the communication breakdown began. But the mud slinging does take away from honest, constructive discussion.

I am interested in 'the evidence'... perhaps it was spelled out in another thread.
Anyway
Drum Stick

Drum Stick
02-23-2005, 17:38
you beat me to the 'post reply' button Tim!
Drum Stick

TJ aka Teej
02-23-2005, 17:47
The Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust has been in contact with her for months and remains hopeful that the foundation will help us with our purchase of Abraham and the southern slopes of Saddleback.
The MATLT purchased that land last fall, didn't they Weary?

Tim Rich
02-23-2005, 17:55
The MATLT purchased that land last fall, didn't they Weary?

I think MATLT's looking for help with the debt from the purchase.

weary
02-23-2005, 17:58
As has been said in other threads, perhaps the action to take regarding Plum Creek is to seek to get the size of this proposed parcel increased. That being said, they are within their rights to sell, "resell", or reresell any tract they choose. There's no ransom, since they own it - they haven't kidnapped it.
Other than stating that they're going straight to hell for this, I again ask what tangible, concrete, real-world steps do you propose to address the issue of the Plum Creek development?
Take Care,Tim
Plum Creek is in the land development and land selling business. It's not an illegal thing, and never will be, nor should it be. Most of us who have owned property have sold some of it, or recognize that sooner or later we or our heirs will sell it. Plum Creek's development as announced won't immediately impact the trail. But the company owns thousands of acres that do abut the trail and this land eventually will be sold, or developed in some way.

Some 150 years ago this was all public land. Unfortunately, Maine like virtually all the other states sold its public domain a century or more ago. Some think I may have helped recover 400,000 acres of this domain. At least I have a piece of drift wood from a remote Maine lake hanging on my wall above my computer with a brass plate that reads, "to Bob Cummings for showing the people of Maine the way to their public lots," and signed by the chair of the Legislature's land investigating committee 33 years ago.

Most of the protected trail corridor in Maine was protected as a result of this public lands recovery. The Mahoosucs, Bigelow, Four Ponds, and Nahmakanta were all created at least in part by the recovery of this long lost public land. Given the land inflation of the past 30 years that makes my contribution to the trail worth about $240 million. And to think no one gave me a commission. When I turned in those stories my editors would proclaim, "My god, cummings we've got wood chips coming out of our ears." But, luckily, they ran 'em anyway.

But despite Teej's occasional lament that he can't find any land for sale in Maine, at least 300,000 acres located within a mile of the trail in Maine are owned by companies that are in the business of selling land. If this buffer could be bought for what AMC paid for it's Maine acres it would cost about $120 million. The Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust doesn't expect to raise that kind of money. But there are some key parcels -- like the summit ridge of Abraham, the slopes of Saddleback and a tiny but critical acre near the shelter on Pierce POnd that we have already purchased -- that can and will be purchased as we gain credibility with major land conservationists and foundations.

Yeah, you already know, you can help, just open: www.matlt.org

Maine has laws that limit, but do not forbid, development in the wildlands of the state. I hope the laws will be enforced. But that won't totally protect the trail corridor. Only trail supporters, digging a little deep, hurting a bit, putting our money where our hearts are, can do that.

Weary

TJ aka Teej
02-23-2005, 19:09
But despite Teej's occasional lament that he can't find any land for sale in Maine, at least 300,000 acres located within a mile of the trail in Maine are owned by companies that are in the business of selling land. Evidently the ATC can't find any land either, as they have none listed in the conservation buyers program. I have two different Maine real estate agents trying to find me a parcel of land abutting the AT corridor in Maine that is listed for sale on the open market. I have asked Weary more than once to help me find such land for sale, but if he knows of any he's not telling.

If I could find something like this in Maine, I would buy it tomorrow:

(from the ATC Land Trust Conservation Buyers Program)
http://www.appalachiantrail.org/protect/buyers/index.html



Vermont Tract: VT-3
Acreage: 17
Jurisdiction: Town of Norwich
Location: Just West of Hanover, NH
Description: Tranquil acres abut A.T.; 15 minutes from Dartmouth College. Property has forest, meadows, old stone walls and a small stream, plus 10 year old, 900 sq. ft. partially finished cabin with large windows, skylights, deck, wood stove, propane direct-vent heater and composting toilet. No plumbing or electricity. Protect from future development.
Asking price $100,000

weary
02-23-2005, 20:50
Evidently the ATC can't find any land either, as they have none listed in the conservation buyers program. I have two different Maine real estate agents trying to find me a parcel of land abutting the AT corridor in Maine that is listed for sale on the open market. I have asked Weary more than once to help me find such land for sale, but if he knows of any he's not telling.
TJ: These guys aren't selling an acre here and 17 acres there. They are selling 37,000 acres to people like AMC and are selling 3,000 acres or so to folks like the Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust, and a million acres to GMO. I know this because that's what we bought, and what AMC bought, and what GMO, and Bay Root and Plum Creek originally bought.

Tiny lots require a subdivision permit -- in Plum Creek's case a 400,000 acre subdivision. Only Plum Creek among the big players have reached the individual camp lot buyer level yet -- and they still need a permit. But all this land will eventually.

As I've explained before most of these big investment companies hold the land for 8-10 -- maybe 12 years -- then they cash out. Why? Because their investors tend to be dominated by pension funds and insurance companies investing surplus funds. These people need periodic infusions of cash.

We are trying to bring ATC up to speed on what is happening in Maine. We met with them last month. We are in telephone contact regularly. We are promoting a joint ATC/MATLT office in Maine in order to tap the wide Appalachian Trail constituency.

We created our land trust because a revolution was underway in the Maine woods and no one either in Maine, or out, seemed to have any idea of its potential impact on the trail corridor. We have come a long ways, but the education effort is really in its infancy. I just hope we can accomplish our goal before it is too late to do any good.

Weary

TJ aka Teej
02-23-2005, 21:10
But despite Teej's occasional lament that he can't find any land for sale in Maine,

TJ: These guys aren't selling an acre here and 17 acres there.
Oh, I see. Weary was just being a wise ass when he mentioned my name. There is no land abutting the AT in Maine listed for sale on the open market, despite Weary's wise ass claim there is.

weary
02-23-2005, 22:21
Oh, I see. Weary was just being a wise ass when he mentioned my name. There is no land abutting the AT in Maine listed for sale on the open market, despite Weary's wise ass claim there is.
Teej: I'm not a real estate agent. But I'll give you a hint. The three big owers abutting the trail in Maine are GMO, Plum Creek, and Bayroot. I haven't personally talked to any of them. Our land trust has talked to them all and the trust officers and me, a lowly director, have talked to others who are familiar with their plans.

We are talking about multibillion dollar investment companies. They don't publicly disclose all the in and outs of their plans, and when they do it is with a promise of confidence.

I was not being "wise ass" when I mentioned your name. I was being gentle. Afterall, as those who have been listening closely know, you have publicly suggested on several occasions that our landtrust may be a fraud. I know, you deny that. You use weasel words (sorry Weasel, not your kind) but TJ your meaning is clear.

Your concern for the trail is real only when nothing is said that offends your ego. If your ego is bruised you use any distortions, any lies, to cover your mistaken claims about what is going on.

You reported total nonsense about AMC plans and when I offered a correction, you have since chosen to use every opportunity to damage the land trust that is trying to protect the trail.

Well, anyway, land is on the market, or will be shortly, whether listed with a real estate agent or not. These kind of deals often involve private discussions, as did the AMC purchase from International Paper. Or, the Nature Conservancy's purchase of the land that connects the Nahmakanta Reserve with Baxter State Park. Or, for that matter, our land trust's purchase of the Abraham summit ridge. ATC began the discussions for Abraham years ago. Our land trust concluded them with ATC's help, after lengthy discussions with ATC about how best to protect this very important mountain.

These things are never simple. The guy who first told me about Maine's 400,000 acres of lost public lands lived in a one room tarpaper shack in a tiny Maine coastal town. I finally wrote the story nine years later, by which time, the guy who told me had totally forgotten the conversation. We've spent three years putting a land trust together. We have until October to raise the money to pay off the Abraham mortgage or that parcel or the adjacent piece on Saddleback may be lost.

Of course that won't happen. I'll remortgage my house first. I am a bit tired, however, of those who profess a love for a trail, while taking every possible excuse to damage those who seek the trail's protection.

Weary

TJ aka Teej
02-23-2005, 23:52
...you have publicly suggested on several occasions that our landtrust may be a fraud.
That's not true, Weary. And you know it. That makes you a liar.

The rest of your post is just the same stuff you always post. That makes you a bore.

Rocks 'n Roots
02-24-2005, 01:43
By the way, they bought over 900,000 acres seven years ago, some near the trail and some not. A seven year holding period doesn't seem like an unethical land flip, does it?


You're not for real Tim. You should check out the title on this site. It's an Appalachian Trail site, not a land development advocacy site. I think that's the question that is mainly being unanswered here. I understand Weary's motivations, but was still very upset when he said we can't rely on government any more. He's wrong about that - look at Plum Creek. They've hooked-up government very nicely. But, really, the truth is, like in the past, we can't do it without government. That's why I was upset seeing Weary write that. Any fool knows exploitation will always have more power than preservation. Without preservation you'll have race tracks made for the frivolous purpose of "seeing what your high-end car can do" built right into the Trail's flank. This is more than routine land development.


The biggest sin of today's political climate is it equates powerful business interests and their corrupted influences with grassroots organizations. As if it were fair to ask them to go and compete on the same playing field as if they were equals and it were all a matter of competition. That's immoral. The first and foremost answer to Tim's question would be calling it like it is. Tim, on the other hand, seems to enjoy putting it to Trail supporters as if the outcome wasn't very important. His argument is mainly based on a total lack of respect for the AT's conservation purpose. His logic is "if you can't satisfy my draconian queries, then you don't deserve preserved AT lands." That is antithetical to the AT.

This is exactly what the AT was designed to confront Tim. You're completely missing it (Or perhaps you are fighting it?)


Tim didn't answer many questions. One of them being "what prevented another Shenandoah from being made here when the land was $200 an acre"? Did you notice that Drumstick???

Drum Stick
02-24-2005, 08:12
No RnR, I honestly did not notice. And only because, as I said, I did not care to go looking back in the thread to see where the mud slinging (poor debating) all began. I just saw the question of the day was not answered (not uncommon these days) and thought there was a whole lot of spin going on (also not uncommon these days). Please don't think that I was taking sides, I was not.

Your last post did seem to be very well thought out and to the point at a quick glance, very good. Not knowing all of the specifics and facts of how big corporations may (or may not) be involved in unetheical practices (evidence?), I can only assume for the moment that you are correct about these things. But I have to tell you that I am not a big conspiracy theory believer. I work with facts and if I do not have the facts, I simply don't believe, and I engage in seeking the truth.

Now we have Weary and TeeJ squaring off and some mighty 'unfriendly' words being shot back and forth. Is it worth it. I know not.

I am headed out the door this morning to go on vacation. So please don't think that I am ducking any responses..... I think I will at least check this thread when I return. But in light of what is taking place here, I know I will not waste much more of my time with this thread. I joined Whiteblaze because I was thinking about hiking the trail again, and I probably should have stuck to looking for other 2007 hopefuls.
Peace
Drum Stick
I apologize to forum members that my post has absolutely nothing to do with the 100-Mile Wilderness.

Drum Stick
02-24-2005, 08:35
Doh!!!!
I am sorry RnR! I just read your post again and nowhere do you suggest any conspiracy theory. Lesson learned, I really need to read before I write.

Our government does do some nice things at times but don't we all wish they would do more. I think this is where Weary is coming from when he says we can not rely on government. But "Ask not what your country can do for you etc."

I will being pulling out my check book in the near future for the MATLT to do my 'very small part'. If we cold only all pull together on this. Alot of small donations can add up as my math suggested in an earlier post.

Now I am really leaving this time.
Drum Stick

Tim Rich
02-24-2005, 11:54
I'll leave your quote in its entirety:


You're not for real Tim. You should check out the title on this site. It's an Appalachian Trail site, not a land development advocacy site. I think that's the question that is mainly being unanswered here. I understand Weary's motivations, but was still very upset when he said we can't rely on government any more. He's wrong about that - look at Plum Creek. They've hooked-up government very nicely. But, really, the truth is, like in the past, we can't do it without government. That's why I was upset seeing Weary write that. Any fool knows exploitation will always have more power than preservation. Without preservation you'll have race tracks made for the frivolous purpose of "seeing what your high-end car can do" built right into the Trail's flank. This is more than routine land development.

The biggest sin of today's political climate is it equates powerful business interests and their corrupted influences with grassroots organizations. As if it were fair to ask them to go and compete on the same playing field as if they were equals and it were all a matter of competition. That's immoral. The first and foremost answer to Tim's question would be calling it like it is. Tim, on the other hand, seems to enjoy putting it to Trail supporters as if the outcome wasn't very important. His argument is mainly based on a total lack of respect for the AT's conservation purpose. His logic is "if you can't satisfy my draconian queries, then you don't deserve preserved AT lands." That is antithetical to the AT.

This is exactly what the AT was designed to confront Tim. You're completely missing it (Or perhaps you are fighting it?)

Tim didn't answer many questions. One of them being "what prevented another Shenandoah from being made here when the land was $200 an acre"? Did you notice that Drumstick???

I don't consider a simple question asking "what concrete, tangible steps do you recommend to address the Plum Creek issue?" to be a "draconian query". The bottom line is that you have NEVER answered direct questions that require logic, reason and accountability.

I'll address your points.

1. Just because this is an "Appalachian Trail site, not a land development advocacy site" doesn't mean that most of us check all reason and logic at the door. It is legal, ethical and reasonable to buy and sell land, period. I'm saying it, Weary said it. Others may agree or disagree, but I speak the truth. Your drivel does not alter the truth.

2. Saying "we can't do it without government" goes to the heart of land acquisition issues. You want the power of the government (for which you do not pay) to be able to seize land (of which you do not own) at gunpoint, if necessary, as it did in Shenandoah and GSMNP. Because the government hasn't purchased a national park in Maine, you believe they are reprehensible and immoral. I believe the government has expended much time and effort in acquiring a protected trail corridor. I gave you the particulars in another thread, which you ignored. I believe that private interests, as directed by the various groups and trusts, can purchase land from willing sellers in an amount necessary to protect the trail.

3. What prevented a NWNP when land was $200 an acre? I don't know, perhaps lack of local citizen support, local landowner opposition, and lack of local, state and congressional support? Probably the same thing that prevented it when land was $50 or $500 an acre. The same things that prevent government purchases of land anywhere else in the country.

I find it comical that you believe someone who simply points out the truth on things is an enemy. You have no idea what I've done to support trails (and other causes) through sweat, advocacy and money. When I do support the trail, I do so in a direct, logical, tangible manner. I don't flail about, berating the believers with a diarrhea of theory and a paucity of logic and reason.

What concrete, tangible steps do you recommend to address the Plum Creek issue?

It's just one question.

Take Care,

Tim

weary
02-24-2005, 16:31
What concrete, tangible steps do you recommend to address the Plum Creek issue? asks Tim.
In case R'nR by oft chance doesn't answer, let me offer some suggestions. My plan is to testify against the Plum Creek proposals at the hearings before the Land Use Regulation Commission, which serves as the Planning Board, Zoning Board and Building Inspector for the half of Maine that has no organized municipalities. And I will urge others to do likewise. The LURC law gives the decision-making board considerable latitude. But I think there is at least an outside chance the proposal can be defeated as being in violation of the LURC law and the comprehensive plan developed as part of that law.

My fall back position is to raise money so we'll be in a position to buy critical buffers adjacent to the trail that Plum Creek owns. We need to be in a position to put in a bid when the land comes on the market as it surely will.

The most critical Plum Creek Land from my perspective is the high mountain range that runs between Gulf Hagas Mountain and Whitecap, a section I have maintained for 15 or 20 years or so.

And equally important are the Plum Creek lands that straddle the trail between Abraham and the Bigelow Preserve.

Plum Creek also owns most of the land south of the trail between Monson and the Kennebec River and some land to the north. It's critical that buffers be provided through this incredibly beautiful mountain and lake country, if only to protect the incredible blueberries found each August on Pleasant Pond Mountain and Moxie Bald.

This is an ambitious dream, but not an impossible dream. More land than this has been purchased in recent years by the state and other conservation groups. We formed our Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust www.matlt.org because no one was thinking about the needs of the trail in the past purchases.

At the risk of boring some, I'll say again. The secret to our success -- the secret of achieving the credibility needed to attract major donars to a new organization -- is some evidence that people who use the trail think buffers are needed and are willing to express their concerns with some cash.

Weary

Rocks 'n Roots
02-25-2005, 02:55
The bottom line is that you have NEVER answered direct questions that require logic, reason and accountability.


That's just gobbledigook Tim. I think your problem is you don't like to admit something bad is being done here. I answered Mowgli's questions in the Guidelines thread and nobody bothered to respond. That's because real advocacy is tough - which makes it boring. Therefore those looking to take shots don't see much fun in it.

It's not a one way street Tim. I'd like to see you give some logical and accountable answers to what is going to happen to the environment in this country with the sprawl rates we are encouraging? I'm talking about in the long term? What is going to happen to species, open space, natural filtering, habitat, and quality of life? "Accountability"??? You once again argue a purist's argument. One that demands an absolutely perfect and spelled-out plan that will win everything in one shot. MacKaye's plan sought to head all this off by making a huge functional corridor. No matter what you show some people, they refuse to see how this relates to today's Trail problems. The plan was there, people rejected it, and now they demand a plan! MacKaye was very logical, reasoning, and accountable - unfortunately the people of his day took the same hostile position towards his greater plan as you do here.

Quite a demand from someone who shows so little basic respect for what the Trail is about conservation-wise. Tell me Tim, are you defending people who ask where MacKaye ever wrote about wilderness? Or people who are openly abusive and name call? I've answered many questions in these threads. Probably more and better than most...

Rocks 'n Roots
02-25-2005, 03:45
1. Just because this is an "Appalachian Trail site, not a land development advocacy site" doesn't mean that most of us check all reason and logic at the door. It is legal, ethical and reasonable to buy and sell land, period. I'm saying it, Weary said it. Others may agree or disagree, but I speak the truth. Your drivel does not alter the truth.

"Drivel"??? I think my thoughts directly confronted the wrongness of marketing critical lands back to the AT. Your ponderous non-answer speaks for itself Tim. If you don't mind, your trying to be tough by responding to my questions, yet doing so with vacant crap like what you write here, only lends your replies a sense of cluelessness. Whether you realize it or not, I don't think anything you wrote here touched on anything I wrote. When someone writes about the best part of the AT being raped by speculators enabled by a cooperative government, and it is answered with "It is legal, ethical and reasonable to buy and sell land, period." it noticeably doesn't cut it. Tim, WE KNOW it is legal to buy land - try relating that to the AT's purpose and what it was meant to confront. Try relating it to cases and places where that legal right doesn't always have the best result.



2. Saying "we can't do it without government" goes to the heart of land acquisition issues. You want the power of the government (for which you do not pay) to be able to seize land (of which you do not own) at gunpoint, if necessary, as it did in Shenandoah and GSMNP. Because the government hasn't purchased a national park in Maine, you believe they are reprehensible and immoral. I believe the government has expended much time and effort in acquiring a protected trail corridor. I gave you the particulars in another thread, which you ignored. I believe that private interests, as directed by the various groups and trusts, can purchase land from willing sellers in an amount necessary to protect the trail.

I don't pay for the government? Tim, your personal view is for you to decide, but its limited viewpoint, as far as appreciating what the AT is and stands for, is obvious. Your AT viewpoints are, to me, like lifeless procedural overviews instead of those which take the Trail's conservation cause to heart. For instance, while you beg appreciation for what government has done so far you fail to realize that even with this input the AT is slowly being encroached to death. Also your overly-general review of private land sales totally fails to reflect how those Maine lands existed - In fact, those lands were THE easiest to acquire because they were owned by rural-use timber companies. Not the private property victims you refer to. It is these carefully-constructed mistruths you make such noticeable effort to create that stands out the most. Your view seems to believe that development companies can fight for near-Trail lands as if it were all OK. I disagree with that. I say companies should respect our most popular national scenic trail and not threaten it. Are we animals fighting for profits wherever they lie, or do we have a civilized society that voluntarily respects the AT's purpose? How can you have regional planning if people just blow it away in a land rush? Tim, do you understand at all that MacKaye intended the AT to counteract this human tendency? Your complacent viewpoint is exactly the one ATC needed to change because it wasn't working.



3. What prevented a NWNP when land was $200 an acre? I don't know, perhaps lack of local citizen support, local landowner opposition, and lack of local, state and congressional support? Probably the same thing that prevented it when land was $50 or $500 an acre. The same things that prevent government purchases of land anywhere else in the country.

I'm sure. This is why I keep emphasizing MacKaye. The AT was the place to do this. They managed to do so in the past. The AT is a place MacKaye deliberately designed to make people ask why they can't do it now? Especially in a place where the transition was easiest, did the most good for the Trail, and was affordable. None of the reasons why the other large parks were formed along the Trail have changed. In fact, a new park is even more valuable in terms of preserved lands. The answer is the vision has been faded out of the Trail by mundane, procedural, excuse-making attitudes like yours. The Trail was built by a dream. No need to quit it now...

Tim Rich
02-25-2005, 10:32
Weary, thanks for your logical, realistic answer to my simple, unanswered question of Roxy (not to be confused with Roxanne - she actually does something). RnR, you're so full of crap it's astounding - "the wrongness of marketing critical lands back to the AT" - you say this as if they AT actually owned them and they were taken from them. Your statement that Maine lands are "owned by rural-use timber companies. Not the private property victims you refer to.", well, says you're just ignorant - it doesn't matter if land is held by a LLC, REIT, C or individual, it's PRIVATE land.

RnR, you say "The Trail was built by a dream. No need to quit it now" No, the trail was envisioned by a dreamer. That dreamer, and the many others, put that dream in ACTION AND DID SOMETHING. If they had simply dreamed and squawked theoretically, the trail would never have been built.

If people today only squawked like you, the trail would never gain further protection.

What concrete, tangible steps do you recommend to address the Plum Creek issue?

weary
02-25-2005, 12:33
Talk about Mackaye all you want, R'nR. But a few of us are facing a $200,000 mortgage payment in eight months as a result of going out on a limb and keeping the four mile summit ridge of Abraham and some of the slopes of Saddleback from falling into the hands of developers.

Perhaps we are paying greater homage to Mackaye than those who just chat on endlessly about how great Mackaye's vision was.

Folks like Mackaye and Myron Avery devoted years of their lives to the trail. Let's try to guess what they might have done had they had the chance our land trust had last October -- quickly borrow the money needed to buy the mountain, or let the developers do so.

Abraham was that long barren summit to the east as you were wending your way between Bigelow and Saddleback 20 years ago, R'nR. You passed the side trail just south of the Spaulding Mountain leanto. I can't think of a more spectacular sidetrail on the entire 2,174-mile Application Trail, winding as it does through a scrub forest to a totally wild and open summit ridge.

It's easy to talk about what someone else should have done. And I agree. ATC, MATC and the National Park Service missed an opportunity when the trail through Maine was being purchased about the time you hiked through Maine.

The Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust did not miss an opportunity last October. The trust gambled that the trail community consists of more than walkers and talkers, that it includes at least a few who will put their money where their hearts are.

Weary www.matlt.org

Rocks 'n Roots
02-25-2005, 16:13
Weary, thanks for your logical, realistic answer to my simple, unanswered question of Roxy
I'm sure Tim was trying to hold back those snears. Like I've said numerous times, you can tell those who aren't here for respectful discussion by the way they resort to personal abuse when they can't answer true AT thoughts. I think what I wrote was pretty accurate (so did Weary), so we can pretty much conclude that Tim doesn't really like what the AT is about, which explains the need for name calling. It's more than obvious the best Tim can do vs the moral aspect of AT conservation is 2 dimensional talk about private land. I'm certain he subscribes to a political philosophy he can't quite get past in order to recognize what I'm saying. In short, it's more than obvious from his short-sighted, private property fixated views that he simply can't recognize greater AT philosophical purposes. Like the long term effects he won't answer.


Weary, I'm curious why you feel an need to criticize relevant discussion of MacKaye? One would think MacKaye would enhance the validity of purchase funding rather than detract from it.


The AT has suffered a lapse in buffer protection due to the age of airline travel and greater wildernesses available further off. A rational realistic view recognizes that current development rates will eventually consume just about all open space. Therefore a time will come in the future when the AT's corridor becomes much more valuable in terms of environmental function. As I said before, the major parks surrounding the AT were built during MacKaye's regional planning impetus. NPS dependance has lead to a smaller idea of acquisition. NPS has given, but also taken away. We've become dependent on their acquisition concept. One that has unintentionally removed the original scale that originally lead to the creation of large parks. Weary talks of gaining credibility. Well I can't think of more credibility than that which acheived big results before. Otherwise you look like you are starting from scratch. On the AT, that isn't true and people should be reminded of the horizons that once managed big results...

Rocks 'n Roots
02-25-2005, 16:25
Will the buffer lands being offered back to the AT by Plum Creek be the land that Plum Creek makes the most profit from? How does this relate to the AT's ability to protect itself? Has government allowed, or even encouraged, (Mitchell and Saddleback) inappropriate exploitation of critical Trail lands? Is it appropriate or even ethical to see needed Trail buffers in market terms and exploit the public's want to preserve the AT as if it were strictly a profit potential, supply and demand issue?

weary
02-25-2005, 18:06
Will the buffer lands being offered back to the AT by Plum Creek be the land that Plum Creek makes the most profit from? How does this relate to the AT's ability to protect itself? Has government allowed, or even encouraged, (Mitchell and Saddleback) inappropriate exploitation of critical Trail lands? Is it appropriate or even ethical to see needed Trail buffers in market terms and exploit the public's want to preserve the AT as if it were strictly a profit potential, supply and demand issue?
I don't know of any land that Plum Creek has offered back to the AT. They have offered to sell some land to the State of Maine adjacent to the trail corridor south of Whitecap. This land was never part of the AT, so it wasn't offered "back to the AT."

I don't have any secret knowledge of where Plum Creek gets its profits. But the slopes of Whitecap are steep and hard to harvest and thus relatively unprofitable, I would assume. I'm sure also that a lot of people would love to own lands adjacent to a major recreational resource like the Appalachian Trail, which would seem to increase it's market value.

Plum Creek has already developed the shores of adjacent ponds so part of the needed road network exists.

None of this relates in anyway to the "AT's ability to protect itself." The AT is a trail. It has no ability to protect itself. That can only be done by living people willing to donate money to buy lands to buffer the trail, or willing to elect governments willing buy lands to buffer the trail, or to enact laws regulating land uses near the trail. In my experience their are very few such people.

Government tends to reflect the desires of the people that elected them. That means the "government" in Maine from time to time encourages things that would harm the trail, but generally government seems supportive of the trail, providing it doesn't cost much money.

Your question about a history of inappropriate exploitation suggests you may not have been paying attention. We are facing a totally new situation in Maine. The paper companies that once owned 10 million acres discouraged development and home construction because people clogged the roads needed by logging trucks, and home construction with families and school kids would only raise their tax burdens. That is why Maine has the largest block of undeveloped lands in the east.

Now the mills have mostly changed hands several times. The new owners have sold all their lands to speculators and developers. The best even good government can do is to delay the inevitable. Once the price of lands exceed their value for growing trees, development is almost inevitable. That's why we created our land trust. We can't hope to end all development in the wildlands. But we have protected two important parcels -- Abraham and the southern slopes of Saddleback -- and dream of protecting more. All we need is for people who profess to love the trail to demonstrate it with more than words.

You ask if it is appropriate or ethical to see lands near the trail in market terms? Well it is if you expect to buy any of it.

Weary www.matlt.org

Rocks 'n Roots
02-26-2005, 01:28
None of this relates in anyway to the "AT's ability to protect itself." The AT is a trail. It has no ability to protect itself.

I would have expected a better answer from you Weary. You sound like some of the challengers.


Plum Creek stated it is offering 37,000 acres for sale to provide the AT a buffer. You're dodging the relevant issue of marketing land back to the AT (ransoming) because you're trying to make your fund look more reasonable. I understand that as a tactic, but it doesn't make what I wrote any less true.



The best even good government can do is to delay the inevitable.

Not really true since the government managed to enclose the Trail in large national forests and parks elsewhere...

Tim Rich
02-26-2005, 17:17
Will the buffer lands being offered back to the AT by Plum Creek be the land that Plum Creek makes the most profit from? How does this relate to the AT's ability to protect itself? Has government allowed, or even encouraged, (Mitchell and Saddleback) inappropriate exploitation of critical Trail lands? Is it appropriate or even ethical to see needed Trail buffers in market terms and exploit the public's want to preserve the AT as if it were strictly a profit potential, supply and demand issue?

I doubt that the state land sale will be the most profitable. Generally, the lot sales will be most profitable. Plum creek makes their money by selling off the highest value land (those with highest and best use greater than forest use), the lowest value land (small lots or parcels that don't translate to profitable forest operations, such as very steep land), and keeping tree producing properties. It's what they do.

They aren't trail lands, never have been. People who go beyond your theoretical yapping are trying to change that, to have them become trail lands.

ed bell
02-26-2005, 17:59
Thank you for your informative post, Weary. I am glad we have you up in Maine keeping the info correct. I really don't see why your post was criticized, other than for the fact that you pointed out some false premises from an earlier post. I hail from down here in Upstate South Carolina, about 100 miles from a good bit of the Trail down here. We have a different situation here in that the US Government is in control of a large portion of the land adjacent to the Trail. I don't believe there are many possibilities left for large scale land preservation for the AT's viewshed. There will always be opportunaties to improve the buffer, but in a scale relative to Maine, I don't think it's possible. I admire your land trust's efforts and I will to contribute what I can.

Rocks 'n Roots
02-26-2005, 22:23
I doubt that the state land sale will be the most profitable. Generally, the lot sales will be most profitable. Plum creek makes their money by selling off the highest value land (those with highest and best use greater than forest use), the lowest value land (small lots or parcels that don't translate to profitable forest operations, such as very steep land), and keeping tree producing properties. It's what they do.
I'm not sure, but I think if you checked out Saddleback some thin-soil unproducing steep slope land sold for record millions for that type of land in Maine. I would suggest this inspired Plum Creek and it expects to match the established rate. It could very well turn out that near-AT lands threatened to be destroyed by Plum Creek will fetch the highest price.


I also respect and back Weary's effort. A whole thread should be permanently made on this site for it or any other such AT conservation drive.



They aren't trail lands, never have been.

No Tim, not at all. And Maine isn't famous amongst hikers because of those lands either. Nor is Maine one of the wildest places on the AT because of them...

Tim Rich
02-27-2005, 01:03
I'm not sure, but I think if you checked out Saddleback some thin-soil unproducing steep slope land sold for record millions for that type of land in Maine. I would suggest this inspired Plum Creek and it expects to match the established rate. It could very well turn out that near-AT lands threatened to be destroyed by Plum Creek will fetch the highest price.

I agree that you're not sure, and that your suggestion regarding Plum Creek's inspiration is also inaccurate. By offering 37,000 near-AT lands to the State of Maine, just how are they threatening to destroy them?

What concrete, tangible steps do you recommend to address the Plum Creek issue?

Rocks 'n Roots
02-28-2005, 15:46
I agree that you're not sure, and that your suggestion regarding Plum Creek's inspiration is also inaccurate. By offering 37,000 near-AT lands to the State of Maine, just how are they threatening to destroy them?



Tim:


I don't understand where you give yourself the right to that tone you assume? It is probably correct that the huge 4 millions payment to Breen for low-value slope land was the highest appreciation he made on his property - if not the highest amount all together. Even worse, the overpayment made to Breen set overly-high values for critical mountaintop lands. Those lands are the ones the AT relies upon the most. Your snearing tone towards pointing this out, even though it is probably true, pretty much sums up your contempt for the AT's situation...


The worst outcome of this is that Breen now has money he gained by threatening to develop the AT to use for his "dream condo kingdom". To Tim, of course, this is all legal and just a simple matter of property rights. Threatening the AT is good business in Maine...

TJ aka Teej
02-28-2005, 16:46
Morning Sentinal ( A newspaper covering northern Kennebec County in Maine)

Plum Creek pitches resort
By LARRY GRARD
Staff Writer

http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/1407018.shtml (http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/1407018.shtml)

[Story snipped, more at URL - TJ]

SKOWHEGAN -- Plum Creek officials Friday outlined their plan for the conservation and development of more than 426,000 acres in the Moosehead Lake.


Support for the proposal, which includes a resort on Lily Bay, was widespread from county and municipal officials, as well as those from the private sector. Swain said that town officials in Jackman, Greenville and Rockwood are excited about a "world-class center for recreation." Plum Creek's plan, subject to approval from the Land Use Regulatory Commission, also calls for an "orderly" development and sale of approximately 1,000 camp lots -- mostly on Brassau Lake and Long and Indian ponds -- in the next 10 to 15 years.

The Plum Creek vision also calls for protection and maintenance of the company's working forest -- accounting for 97 percent of its land in the area -- for at least 30 years. The commission will hold the key, Swain said, to renewal of that protection zone thereafter.

Plum Creek's plan has raised concerns from environmental groups, including the Natural Resources Council of Maine and the Maine Environmental Policy Institute.

Cathy Johnson, north woods project director for the council, pointed out that the development of 400,000 acres is of a scale unprecedented in Maine. It could change the character of the Moosehead region forever, she said.

"The location of the proposed development also raises questions," Johnson said in a written statement. "It appears that much of the proposed development will be on lakes, ponds and river frontage, miles from Greenville. Given that Plum Creek owns another 55,000 acres south of Greenville, it is unclear why the more remote areas were chosen for development instead of those closer to municipal services."

Few such concerns surfaced during Friday's meeting, however. Barbara Kane, a member of the Jackman Planning Board, sees the plan as a big positive for her community..

Russell Walters, president of the Northern Outdoors recreational resort in The Forks, said Plum Creek has given him the confidence to reinvest in his company's infrastructure.

A Madison Paper Industries official and Rep. Doug Thomas, R-Ripley, both said that Plum Creek's approach to land conservation is preferable to the state's policy of buying up land at taxpayer expense.

"Why borrow $50 million to buy land that might not have the same public access as Plum Creek land?" Thomas asked. [bold text by TJ]

Swain also said that the plan offers hope to the Moosehead Lake region, which has lost residents and businesses in recent years. The substantial new tax revenue could be a boost to struggling schools and hospitals in Greenville, she said.

Swain admitted to a "major hurdle" regarding approval from the land-use commission. Plum Creek will present its proposal to the commission next month. If approved, development would progress within a 10-year period, she said.

TJ aka Teej
02-28-2005, 16:50
Threatening the AT is good business in Maine...
What an ignorant thing to say. Open a window, and try to answer this:

What concrete, tangible steps do you recommend to address the Plum Creek issue?

Tim Rich
02-28-2005, 17:03
Your quote, again in full:


Tim:


I don't understand where you give yourself the right to that tone you assume? It is probably correct that the huge 4 millions payment to Breen for low-value slope land was the highest appreciation he made on his property - if not the highest amount all together. Even worse, the overpayment made to Breen set overly-high values for critical mountaintop lands. Those lands are the ones the AT relies upon the most. Your snearing tone towards pointing this out, even though it is probably true, pretty much sums up your contempt for the AT's situation...


The worst outcome of this is that Breen now has money he gained by threatening to develop the AT to use for his "dream condo kingdom". To Tim, of course, this is all legal and just a simple matter of property rights. Threatening the AT is good business in Maine...

I don't expect someone who displays abject ignorance and disdain for capitalism to grasp real estate valuations. Steep land may not be useful for timber production, but it might be worth more than timber tracts for, say, skiing. Just because the Breens hadn't developed that part of the mountain didn't mean it didn't lend itself to a skiing use. Since we've moved off topic to Saddleback, I'll agree the final solution wasn't the best possible outcome for the AT. I would have wanted Option 1 instead of 2. It did, however, limit the impact on the viewshed. All naysayers who said the Saddleback ski area would never be expanded, and that valuations couldn't consider expansion potential, have now been proven wrong by the new owners.

As to my tone, that's a real laugher coming from a tone deaf troll...

Oh, back on topic: What concrete, tangible steps do you recommend to address the Plum Creek issue?

weary
02-28-2005, 17:26
The worst outcome of this is that Breen now has money he gained by threatening to develop the AT to use for his "dream condo kingdom". To Tim, of course, this is all legal and just a simple matter of property rights. Threatening the AT is good business in Maine..."


Breen is totally out of the Maine picture now. He has his $4 million from the government (a total rip off) and sold the entire ski area and miles of lake frontage for additional millions. He was asking $8 million. I'm guessing it went for less, but I don't know.

I, like Tim and Wingfoot and most of the 5,000 who wrote letters, wanted option one. ATC in a spirit of "compromise" agreed to option two. The final settlement was worse than option two. Breen insisted on preserving a site for a new lift tower just a few yards from the summit ridge and the Appalachian Trail. I expect the new owners will in fact build a lift tower there.

The land our land trust has bought on the other side of the ridge will help preserve some of the wildness of the mountain, but the whole fiasco was not a victory for conservationists or for those who prefer a wild trail.

Weary www.matlt.org

Rocks 'n Roots
03-01-2005, 01:01
I don't expect someone who displays abject ignorance and disdain for capitalism to grasp real estate valuations.


The sure sign of someone who values the crass interests now destroying the AT above the Trail itself. These people fool themsleves that both can be promoted in the same place.


Tim, your name calling (Roxy) is snearing contempt. You should be aware that most people consider those who resort to ridicule people who can't support their argument. If you wish to converse do it without contempt. I won't answer such posts because the name calling is a sign that the poster isn't respectfully addressing the topic...

ed bell
03-01-2005, 02:16
Tim, your name calling (Roxy) is snearing contempt. You should be aware that most people consider those who resort to ridicule people who can't support their argument. If you wish to converse do it without contempt. I won't answer such posts because the name calling is a sign that the poster isn't respectfully addressing the topic...

Says Rocks 'n Roots completely avoiding the topic...


The Land Trust that Weary promotes is the most obvious way to attempt to secure Trail buffer in Maine as far as I know. I'm sure that there are other ways. Those who live in Maine might know better how to influence local government or have some pull with the board that will consider Plum Creek's proposal. Sounds like political forces are already alligning themselves up there. I would expect no help from the Federal Government on the short haul to safeguard the Trail corridor. Does Plum Creek seem flexible in regards to the preservation of the AT corridor? Is Maine dedicated to the Trail corridor enough to stop the proposal from Plum Creek? I don't have these answers. Is the fact that myself and others are just now, within the past 2 weeks, finding out more about threats to the Trail up in Maine making a difference? I hope awareness helps. Every little bit helps. Thanks for the updates TJ. Keep em coming.

Tim Rich
03-01-2005, 08:05
The sure sign of someone who values the crass interests now destroying the AT above the Trail itself. These people fool themsleves that both can be promoted in the same place.


Tim, your name calling (Roxy) is snearing contempt. You should be aware that most people consider those who resort to ridicule people who can't support their argument. If you wish to converse do it without contempt. I won't answer such posts because the name calling is a sign that the poster isn't respectfully addressing the topic...

You don't answer posts that address logical, real world solutions. So, without sneering, I offer the following:

What concrete, tangible steps do you recommend to address the Plum Creek issue?

I honestly believe you are incapable of moving trail advocacy from theory to practice. You hold yourself out as a lover and defender of AT wildness, yet you are unable to provide one realistic approach to achieve or preserve it in a real life situation, namely the Plum Creek development issue.

orangebug
03-01-2005, 09:08
Tim, your name calling (Roxy) is snearing contempt. You should be aware that most people consider those who resort to ridicule people who can't support their argument...Before anyone gets defensive about "Roxy," be aware that in other lists this guy is willing to go very low in the name calling arena. Roxy, wanna discuss AT and feminine hygiene products?

TJ aka Teej
03-01-2005, 12:47
(To R&R)

I honestly believe you are incapable of moving trail advocacy from theory to practice. You hold yourself out as a lover and defender of AT wildness, yet you are unable to provide one realistic approach to achieve or preserve it in a real life situation, namely the Plum Creek development issue.Backstory - TrailPlace's Roxy joined the at-l (the Internet's original AT forum) and immediately went on a list vandalism spree. His intent to disrupt the list by calling us Trail-haters opposed to Trail Advocacy and unworthy of himself and MacKaye and Wingfoot was obvious. Unfortunately it was also successful, and our friendly campfire was disrupted by his antics. List elders smartly responded by concocting a side list, called the Trail Advocacy List or ta-l, to lure Roxy away and return peace to the at-l. Roxy took the bait, and by pretending to be interested in what he had to say, several list members kept him off the at-l for the quite some time. After many months, I joined the ta-l to see exactly what Trail Advocacy Roxy had proposed. Of course, he had proposed nothing what-so-ever. The person who had whined that he alone on the Internet was in favor of Trail Advocacy failed to post any proposed Trail Advocacy on a list called the Trail Advocacy List. Enormous amounts of ridicule and mirth at Roxy's expense ensued. The ta-l was shut down, and Roxy became pretty much ignored by the at-l. That's probably the reason he's brought his act to WhiteBlaze. Sorry about that.

TJ aka Teej
03-01-2005, 12:53
Before anyone gets defensive about "Roxy," be aware that in other lists this guy is willing to go very low in the name calling arena.
Naught for nothing, but since Roxy refuses to tell anyone his real name or what Trail name he "hiked" under during his "time on the AT", we should all feel free to call him whatever we want to.

weary
03-01-2005, 16:48
Sometimes, I think this forum bickers over R'nR as a way to avoid the important challenges that face the trail and the surrounding lands.

Anyway, this is the latest on the land that abuts Baxter State Park:

http://www.meepi.org/files05/pa030105.htm

Weary

Drum Stick
03-03-2005, 07:55
Tim I was wrong when I suggested that your question was "a tad rhetorical" or "draconian". To be honest I was trying to douse forum flames while not appearing to take sides in the argument. And also at the time I thought what can one simple man do anyway to buy 'huge tracts of land' [Monty Python] for conservation. I realize now that your question was not purely 'how deep have you dug into your own pocket for the cause'. The more I think about your persistent question, the more I realize how it cuts to the chase. But I think we will have better luck getting soft butter up a wild cats behind with a hot poker, than we will getting an answer to your question.

Without researching the issue, I wonder what 'tangible' steps have been taken to preserve land in general? Are there any bills or acts in place or in the works that are helping in this effort?

Weary my good man! Did you receive my donation? I want GPS coordinates to that postage stamp size piece of land (I am kidding). BTW what are the dimensions so I can plan for my monument. Seriously though, I am happy to make the donation. I am not at all worried about it but I wonder, is my donation tax deductible?
Drum Stick

TJ aka Teej
03-03-2005, 10:23
Sometimes, I think this forum bickers over R'nR as a way to avoid the important challenges that face the trail and the surrounding lands. Weary, I've noticed you're lately joined in the bickering over that person. Are you saying that you are using that person to avoid the important challenges that face the trail and the surrounding lands? Of course you aren't. So why accuse others? Is that really helpful?


Anyway, this is the latest on the land that abuts Baxter State Park:

http://www.meepi.org/files05/pa030105.htm

WearyAs I told you, the threat in Maine isn't the "private kingdom buyers" as you were claiming. Thanks for providing us more proof via the link you sent. You called Maine's governor "an environmentalist's delight" - so tell us, just what's he doing to stop liquidation logging of old growth forest on Baxter State Park's doorstep? Are you still "delighted"?

TJ aka Teej
03-03-2005, 10:52
Without researching the issue, I wonder what 'tangible' steps have been taken to preserve land in general? Are there any bills or acts in place or in the works that are helping in this effort?
Hi Drum Stick,
Hi nieghbor! I'm a Kennebunk native, KHS '74, living away for now. Like many 'Bunkies we never had much money, just land. Some of my family's lands are now part of the Laudholm Farm, Rachel Carson NWR, and preserved watershed lands along Branch Brook and the Blueberry Plains. It's nice to know those lands will never be logged or developed. Some info on tangible steps being taken to preserve land in Maine:

http://www.mltn.org/
The Maine Land Trust Network, an astonishingly huge list of targeted land trust efforts.
http://www.maineenvironment.org/nwoods/LMF_regions.htm
The Natural Resources Concil of Maine, with list of Land for Maine's Future target purchases.
http://www.state.me.us/spo/lmf/
Detail, with some political spin, regarding the State's Land for Maine's Future program.
http://www.meepi.org/
Best Maine enviormental news source.
http://www.appalachiantrail.org/protect/index.html
Appalachian Trail Land Trust, Conservation Buyer's Program, Trail Stewardship.

weary
03-03-2005, 11:23
....Weary my good man! Did you receive my donation? I want GPS coordinates to that postage stamp size piece of land (I am kidding). BTW what are the dimensions so I can plan for my monument. Seriously though, I am happy to make the donation. I am not at all worried about it but I wonder, is my donation tax deductible?
Drum Stick
Drum Stick. Many, many thanks for your help. All contributions are tax deductible. We are really a pretty high-powered outfit. Our advisory committee includes the founder of the modern LL Beans, two Congressmen, professors, planners, the head of the forestry department at the University of Maine.... Our board is mostly folks like myself who do the day by day work as volunteers, including four thru hikers. We dream of fulltime staff because we expect to be around for many years taking advantage of opportunities to provide buffers for the narrow Maine AT trail corridor. But as of now we just have a 20-hour a week clerical assistant.

The Abraham and Saddleback purchases totaled around 2,400 acres and cost $661,000. Total project cost is $900,000, of which we have $540,000 already thanks to donations from people like Drum Stick and $450,000 raised earlier by the Appalachian Trail Conference, which purchased the lower slopes of the mountain nearly a decade ago. The extra pays for legal and survey costs, overhead costs like our 20-hour a week assistant, and a stewardship fund to ensure the lands remain "forever wild."

We do have a $200,000 mortgage payable by October which has some of us worried. As a new group without a history of success, it's hard to tap the big donars.

I had the same experience with a town land trust I founded many years ago. We garnered almost no financial support for years. Then we managed to raise $200,000 to buy a very visible piece of property across a pond from the main road through town. That gave us credibility. A couple of years later we were able to pick up $300,000 in less than three months to protect a wild beach and an adjacent 80 acres of beautiful forest land.

That's why it's critical that this campaign be a success. And why support from the hiking community is so important. Our lender isn't going to foreclose -- I hope anyway. But we need a nice clean campaign with a nice clean ending if we hope to begin to tap those with resources to donate $100,000 at a time, which are going to be desperately needed when the next round of selling occurs. The people who have bought most of the land adjacent to the trail never hold on to it very long. Ten years is maximum. Then they take their profits, pay off their investors, and look for bargains elsewhere.

There will be growing opportunities to protect the trail over the next few years.

Drum Stick. I'll check to see if your contribution has arrived. I'm the resident agitator and funds beggar. I don't handle the banking.

Weary www.matlt.org

walkin' wally
03-03-2005, 20:52
Ther will be meetings held in Greenville and Augusta on the Plum Creek/Lily Bay issue. As a landowner and taxpayer at ground zero in this controversy I have been paying attention to this event. If people want to go and testify on behalf of trying to stop this plan from happening I think they are in for a good fight. The towns (re officials ) of Greenville, Rockwood and Jackman are for this Plum Creek plan. They want to broaden the tax base for improvements to schools and public services.

The time table was 9 to 12 months to resolve this issue, now it is more like 8 to 11. I wonder if there is enough time left to make any difference one way or the other.

If Plum Creek is denied this plan they have indicated they may develop this area piecemeal anyway as is their right. There will be no conservation easements either. This is from a person directly connected to the development proposal. Thats the way business is done The big dog will eat. It seems to me that the executioner is saying to the condemned, 'How do you want it, AC or DC ?'

On the conservation easements Plum Creek has stated that they would be good for only 30 years. The developments are forever though. This issue should be brought to the front burner in my opinion.

I have been going up to Greenville for decades and that town has really gone through some major changes. All growth and tourism related. Like it or not growth is inevitable. The character of Greenville has changed immensely. That is just what is happening nowadays to a lot of places in Maine. A lot of people want a piece of paradise till it isn't paradise any more.

I don't know how the bond issue will go this fall for the Land For Maine's Future program. Polticians in Augusta are said to be divided on this already. Some people want to whittle the package down from the proposed 50 million to about 30 million or less. That (50 M ) is not nearly what is needed to buy land at the rising rates these days. If that does not materialize then what is left to buy land to preserve for the future? Maybe Weary's organization will gain momentum.

For those who went to the meepi site. Those pictures are not Lily Bay. Actually Sandy Bay and Beaver Cove.

weary
03-03-2005, 21:16
The time table was 9 to 12 months to resolve this issue (Plum Creek), now it is more like 8 to 11. I wonder if there is enough time left to make any difference one way or the other.
Since the application has yet to be filed, we should not get too pessimistic, just yet. A lot of people are talking to Plum Creek on all sides of the issue. Sooner or later a coordinated response will emerge. Nothing is written in stone as yet. The law is the law. The decision will be made. Deals will be struck, either now, or when the project is proposed in sections.

Thanks Teej for your helpful list of Maine land trusts. As far as I know all do good things. Only one, however, has protection of the Appalachain Trail as its primary goal. www.matlt.org

Weary

Mountain Dew
03-04-2005, 03:30
Weary, What is the name of that company started by a man and woman in Maine that sells lip balm and bug repellant ? They recently bought thousands of acres in Maine to preserve it from being developed.

Roland
03-04-2005, 04:31
Weary, What is the name of that company started by a man and woman in Maine that sells lip balm and bug repellant ? They recently bought thousands of acres in Maine to preserve it from being developed. Burt’s Bees Inc.

http://www.meepi.org/files03/pa112403.htm

Mountain Dew
03-04-2005, 04:48
Ahhh YES. Thanks Roland. So..Weary , have you ever thought of trying to get them involved with the organization that you head ? If I remember right the woman that owns half of the company recently bought an obscene amount of acres in Maine to protect. If she is looking for Maine acres to buy it might as well be near or next to the A.T. You should look into it Weary.

Drum Stick
03-04-2005, 06:49
Thanks for all of those links Bunkie! I will check them out later for sure. So you have seen some major changes (sprawl) in southern Maine in your day no doubt. Not so long ago in my old home city of Peabody MA there were farms too. Now the farms are all gone (for reasons we all know well) and I am 99% sure that there is not a parcel left to build on. It's funny because when my parents moved to Peabody in 1965 from Lynn Ma people thought they were crazy moving out to the stix... Let's hope(?)... the land around the AT dosn't go the same route.

Teej did I gather that you were looking for a piece of property near the AT for yourself? I want to sell my house in Wells eventually and live / open a nonprofit hostel near the AT. I have been looking in NH / ME for an ideal place. I found one (with an old structure unfortunately$)! but I am finacially strapped at the moment for that... Hopefully that check I sent to Weary is not bouncing all over Maine as we speak.

Sounds likes fireworks in Augusta Maine soon. It will be interesting to see what happens there
Drummy out

TJ aka Teej
03-04-2005, 09:20
There will be meetings held in Greenville and Augusta on the Plum Creek/Lily Bay issue.
Please let us know the when & wheres? I'll be up there once or twice a month from now til November, and would like to swing by to see what's going on. Like the AMC, the Plum Creekers know the value of positive spin, so all is not lost -yet. P.C. is the only land owner so far to make a commitment to Kineo Kid's Moosehead Circuit Trail project.

TJ aka Teej
03-04-2005, 09:32
If I remember right the woman that owns half of the company recently bought an obscene amount of acres in Maine to protect. If she is looking for Maine acres to buy it might as well be near or next to the A.T.Ms Quimbly has been contacted by just about everyone, including the MATLT, with preservation projects that need funding. Her large purchases near the AT and Baxter Park are quite the topic up Maine. She's doing what she can, being limited to a large extent by opportunists painting her as the Devil Incarnate. "If you don't sell to me, Quimbly will buy your land, fence it off, and there'll never be hunting, snowsledding, or logging there again!" The owner of the Little Lyford Pond camps cited his fear of Quimbly as one reason he sold to the AMC.

TJ aka Teej
03-04-2005, 10:06
Teej did I gather that you were looking for a piece of property near the AT for yourself?
When the topic of "private kingdoms threatening the A.T. in Maine" came up, I tried to find what was for sale abutting the Trail. But as I suspected, my search showed that all the privately held land is owned by huge concerns, almost entirely encumbered with forestry easements, only transferable after being denuded of trees, or entangled in an incestuous snake-orgy of codependent ownership. If you're looking to buy 40 undeveloped forested acres abutting the Trail in Maine, you're out of luck. The real threat, as I thought, is from commercial development (AMC, Plum Creek) and continued liquidation logging* by the large owners (Plum Creek, WT Gardner). If I could find a tract of land like the one over near Hanover for sale in Maine I would buy it.

*Wordplay runs rampant in Augusta. Loggers have twisted the language enough so that "cutting all the trees as cheaply as possible before selling the land" is not called "clear cutting" or "liquidation logging" anymore. It's now called "sustainable forestry", as long as there's some soil left.

weary
03-04-2005, 10:38
Ahhh YES. Thanks Roland. So..Weary , have you ever thought of trying to get them involved with the organization that you head ? If I remember right the woman that owns half of the company recently bought an obscene amount of acres in Maine to protect. If she is looking for Maine acres to buy it might as well be near or next to the A.T. You should look into it Weary.
Roxanne Quimby bought out "Burt" some years ago. I think she owned it all when she sold most of it a couple of years ago for a reported $150 million. We have met with her and am in constant contact with the person she has hired to administer the lands she has acquired and the land trusts that she has set up.

She has been quoted in the papers as saying she is upset with the adverse reactions she has received from local people in the north woods and is now concentrating on acquiring land near Acadia National Park. But we remain hopeful about the possibility of a significant contribution. Her trusts recently issued guidelines and we are busy filling out her application forms.

Roxanne started in poverty 20 years or so ago and built a quite valuable company. I suspect she expected to come back to Maine as a returning heroine. And is disappointed in the negative publicity and lack of respect for what she is trying to do.

That's among the many reasons we are encouraging a lot of moderate contributions from the hiking community. (Well we'll take big contributions also) We want the big donors to feel comfortable doing something many people support. No one likes to give and then be attacked for giving.

One or two of Quimby's kids, however, have thru hiked. So we remain optimistic.

Weary www.matlt.org

walkin' wally
03-04-2005, 10:49
Teej

:-?
Not all the "Private Kingdoms" are in the hands of private huge concerns. Research the Spencer Lake and Middlesex Township sales in the media and tell me if those are huge corporations or are they individuals shutting off huge tracts of land for themselves. If some people got a piece of land abutting the AT what would they do with it? Post the land and complain about everything? There is more of that going on up north than anything else. Incredibly paranoid people. No inner peace whatsoever.

I can understand why local people get upset when they cannot afford land because the price so ridiculously high. I live here and I know what is happening.

Reading all the posts on this thread I still don't see where the Plum Creek proposal threatens the 100 mile corridor? Lily Bay township is quite a distance from there. The closest AT mountains are White cap or Gulf Hagas mountains.

I don't neccessarily agree with what Plum Creek is doing but they are not the only problem in the north woods. Private individual landowners are just as bad. Like Mainers say "you can't get there from here."

walkin' wally
03-04-2005, 10:57
Weary,

The "negative publicity and lack of respect" did not materialize out of thin air. Maybe she should realize that you catch more "bees" with honey than vinegar. She will never be a 'heroine' with the cards she is playing. She is only interested in her agenda.

weary
03-04-2005, 11:04
....my search showed that all the privately held land is owned by huge concerns, almost entirely encumbered with forestry easements, only transferable after being denuded of trees, or entangled in an incestuous snake-orgy of codependent ownership. If you're looking to buy 40 undeveloped forested acres abutting the Trail in Maine, you're out of luck. The real threat, as I thought, is from commercial development (AMC, Plum Creek) and continued liquidation logging* by the large owners (Plum Creek, WT Gardner). If I could find a tract of land like the one over near Hanover for sale in Maine I would buy it.....
There's a bit a truth to Teej's comments. But it isn't all that bleak. The 2,400 acres that the Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust has purchased for $661,000 has not been denuded and is not encumbered by any need to supply mills, or any codependent owners.

It is encumbered by a $200,000 mortgage that comes due in just eight months. Failure to pay does raise the possibility that Teej's skepticism may come true, though few logs will be found on the krummholz of Mount Abraham.

Actually, I believe we have turned Abraham over to Maine's Department of Conservation to be managed as an ecopreserve as part of a deal that gave us Land for Maine's Future and Department of Conservation funds. We do hold a strict easement that limits development to non-motorized hiking trails and scientific research.

The Saddleback piece is now most at risk.

If you can help, our address is MAT Land Trust, PO Box 325, Yarmouth, Maine 04096.

Weary www.matlt.org

Rocks 'n Roots
03-04-2005, 17:08
I read Weary's link to the T-3 dilemma. Looks like we are facing a larger problem at a time when it serves only to detract from AT buffer acquisition. I know it only serves the raper's interest, but if the lands are bought 200 years to regrow is nothing in terms of long term conservation. Better no infrastructure is built on it. Looks like the greed barons are trying to get houses on the line of sight ridges north of Baxter. That's bad. The value being the view - the cost of which is the destruction of Baxter's wilderness quality in the form of lights and houses seen from its slopes.


The more you read about this the more it becomes clear that someone wasn't at the wheel in the 1980's when the AT buffer should have been negotiated. The most apparent culprit being the government and its total absence in the matter. Again, this isn't true with the original AT and government's critical part in the past. Maybe she should be grilled by so-called AT members to see where she didn't provide the perfect plan...





I found it interesting that Quimby, the person who went out of her way to preserve wild Maine for generations was discouraged by the negative flak she recieved as reward for her efforts...



She will never be a 'heroine' with the cards she is playing. She is only interested in her agenda.

Hmm, what might that "agenda" be? Regional planning maybe? How does the negativizing of her "agenda" conflict with the AT and its purpose??? What other "agenda's" exist in this situation?

Rocks 'n Roots
03-04-2005, 17:15
incestuous snake-orgy of codependent ownership.


*Wordplay runs rampant in Augusta.


Well, maybe TJ does know what he's talking about at times...

Rocks 'n Roots
03-04-2005, 17:18
"If you don't sell to me, Quimbly will buy your land, fence it off, and there'll never be hunting, snowsledding, or logging there again!"

Sure, and the million dollar lots owned by suburban boom market second home gentry are going to be bastions of free access for the locals...

Mountain Dew
03-05-2005, 02:23
Fight the good fight up in those Maine woods Weary !!!

weary
03-05-2005, 10:44
The owner of the Little Lyford Pond camps cited his fear of Quimbly as one reason he sold to the AMC.
I don't doubt the accuracy of Teej's report, but I've spent many hours with Bob LeRoy over the past year and spent a full day touring with him the 37,000 acres purchased by AMC. He never mentioned the Quimby connection. He was adamant about keeping motors out of the AMC lands to the extent possible and especially out of the land near Little Lyford.

When bigwigs from the Maine chapter asked if they could drive their luggage from the parking lot to the Little Lyford Pond cabins, Bob replied. "We don't do that here."

His wife had a letter in the last issue of the "Wilderness Matters," the Maine Chapter newsletter, chiding the chapter for not being vigorous enough in it's protection of "wilderness" and opposition to development in the 100-mile-wilderness. She called the area a fragile "recovering wilderness."

Humans tend to fear the unknown, even friendly unknowns. But I sense the LeRoys and Roxanne Quimby are pretty philosophically compatible.

Weary

weary
03-10-2005, 10:46
www.matlt.org now makes it possible to contribute by credit card on line. We are using GROUNDspring.org for the service, mostly because it was the cheapest and is itself a non profit group, supported by several of the largest foundations in the country. If anyone has knowledge of Groundspring that we should know about, let me know.

To contribute, just open www.matlt.org

Unfortunately, when I do that I have to also hit one of the buttons on the left to get to the contribute on line button. I'm trying to get that fixed, but no one else seems to experience it, so it may take some time. You might check that also. Is there a contribute on line button at the bottom of the left hand column of the opening page?

I'm just completing a new packet of fund raising materials, so details are fresh in my mind. We are buying 2,342 acres for $661,000, or a very tough to negotiate price of just $282 an acre. The acreage is evenly divided between Saddleback and Abraham. We have $530,000 in hand. We would like to raise another $370,000 to cover surveying and legal costs and to build an endowment fund for the new properties. Also we need to keep our parttime clerk on board and have funds to keep going for the next major project.

But most critical at this time is the $120,000 needed to pay off our mortgage by October.

All contributions are tax deductible. Your help is truly needed.

Weary

TJ aka Teej
03-10-2005, 17:20
Running in through the development door the AMC has opened, the "Western Mountains Foundation" has re-upped its push for a 12 hut/180 mile trails system in Maine.
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/050308newzealand.shtml
"My concern about this plan is that it is all based on speculation. Speculation that people will come in sufficient numbers to support a multimillion-dollar investment," said Dick Fecteau, who oversees the trails in the Bigelow Preserve.

"Are you someone who just doesn't like development?" state Rep. Joanne Twomey, D-Biddeford, asked Fecteau. "I want to know if there are just a few of you who don't like development."
-----------------------

weary
03-10-2005, 17:49
Running in through the development door the ATC has opened, the "Western Mountains Foundation" has re-upped its push for a 12 hut/180 mile trails system in Maine.
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/050308newzealand.shtml
"My concern about this plan is that it is all based on speculation. Speculation that people will come in sufficient numbers to support a multimillion-dollar investment," said Dick Fecteau, who oversees the trails in the Bigelow Preserve.

"Are you someone who just doesn't like development?" state Rep. Joanne Twomey, D-Biddeford, asked Fecteau. "I want to know if there are just a few of you who don't like development."
-----------------------
Teej. I think you mean AMC, not ATC, which still is not in the development business. Actually, the Bigelow hut system predates the AMC Maine efforts and has been steadily chuggling along.

Dick Fecteau is overseer of the MATC Bigelow District, and a member of our land trust's board of directors, and chair of our stewardship committee. He's also president of the Friends of Bigelow, the organization that pushed through the referendum that snatched Bigelow from the jaws of the developers 30 years ago.

That of course is what our land trust did last October when we borrowed $200,000 to keep the southern slopes of Saddleback and the summit ridge of Abraham from being sold to the land "investment" companies. That's why we were able to pay but $282 an acres. The price would have doubled or tripled had we not acted. Now we are hoping friends of the Appalachian Trail will demonstrate their love of the trail by helping pay off the mortgage that comes due in just seven months.

Weary www.matlt.org

weary
03-11-2005, 15:11
Maine Public Radio is running a three-part series on the Plum Creek development plans in Maine. The last will run at 5:30 p.m. this afternoon.

The series began Wednesday.

You can listen to reruns on line by opening:

http://www.mpbn.net/radio/ondemand/mainethings.html

Unfortunately, you have to listen to the whole half hour to get to the Plum Creek story. Just keep it in the background while "wasting" time on line.

Weary www.matlt.org