Group lobbies for hut-and-trail system

Tuesday, March 8, 2005

By DEIRDRE FLEMING, Portland Press Herald Writer

AUGUSTA — A group that hopes to build a 180-mile system of trails and huts through Maine's western mountains urged lawmakers Monday to approve a bill that would allow the project to pass through the Bigelow Preserve. But another group, Friends of Bigelow Preserve, argued against the proposal before the Legislature's Joint Standing Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry.

State Sen. John Nutting, D-Leeds, who chairs the committee and is a sponsor of the bill, said it makes little sense that snowmobile groomers are allowed through the Bigelow Preserve, but a cross-country ski groomer is not.

Bigelow Preserve is managed by the Department of Conservation, but Friends of Bigelow, a conservation group, helps protect the land. Ten miles of the proposed trail system falls in the preserve.

The nonprofit Western Mountains Foundation, which hopes to build the $9 million hut-and-trail system, lobbied hard for the project Monday with testimony from several board members who head companies with a stake in the outdoor industry.

The foundation's presentation was led off by New Zealand's ambassador to the United States, John Wood, who talked about the benefits of the hut system in his country but spoke "neither for nor against the legislation."

Wood described how the trail system in New Zealand has drawn tourists for more than 100 years. For the past 15 years, he said, national trail systems have been supported by private funding from ecotourism companies. Rural areas depend on the tourists attracted by New Zealand's "world-renowned" trails, Wood said.

Jon Fitzgerald, a Bath Iron Works vice president and member of the Western Mountains Foundation board, said that success could be duplicated in Maine if the trail system is allowed to pass through the Bigelow Preserve.

"We see this as a brief window of opportunity to protect the land," said Fitzgerald, who later questioned the opposition. "This smacks to me of a little bit of elitism, quite frankly," he said.

The Bigelow group said its concerns include the unproven trail system failing, and supply operations for the 40-person huts threatening the peace and quiet of the preserve.

The Friends of Bigelow argued that the Bigelow Act, voted into law by Mainers in 1976, intended to preserve the land and changing the terms would be an injustice against an early step in Maine's environmental movement.

The group also argued that a project costing a projected $9 million is doomed to failure.

"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.

Some committee members, such as state Rep. Patrick Flood, R-Winthrop, questioned the logic in allowing snowmobiles in the preserve and not a Nordic ski trail groomer.

"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."

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