Maine EF! Says No More Games; Bold Protest Urges LURC to Reject Massive Plum Creek Development

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednes­day, August 13 NOON
Land Use Reg­u­la­to­ry Com­mis­sion (LURC) 18 Elkins Lane — Har­low Build­ing 22 State
House Sta­tion Augus­ta, Maine 04333–0022

For More Infor­ma­tion Con­tact: Logan Perkins — 207–615-5158

In a bold stunt today, a dozen peo­ple affil­i­at­ed with Maine Earth First!, protest­ed at the LURC office in Augus­ta. One woman sus­pend­ed her­self 35 feet in the air from a giant tri­pod made of wood­en poles, while oth­ers hula-hooped on the ground below her. Under the ban­ner “LURC: Do the right thing! No Devel­op­ment! Plum Creek can’t buy ME” the con­cerned cit­i­zens gath­ered to make it clear that the only respon­si­ble deci­sion is for LURC to reject Plum Creek’s entire plan. Maine Earth First! is an all-vol­un­teer group of Maine cit­i­zens work­ing toward the pro­tec­tion of all remain­ing wild places in Maine as sources of bio­di­ver­si­ty, cli­mate sta­bil­i­ty and cul­tur­al her­itage.

“The pub­lic has spo­ken and clear­ly told LURC to reject this destruc­tive pro­pos­al.” said Meg Gilmartin from the top of the tri­pod. “The future of Maine is in their hands and they will be held respon­si­ble for the deci­sions they make for gen­er­a­tions to come. Today’s protest should put LURC on notice that their com­plic­i­ty in the destruc­tion of the largest unde­vel­oped area east of the Mis­sis­sip­pi will not be tol­er­at­ed.”

Plum Creek’s Con­cept Plan pro­pos­es to rezone 20,000 acres, an area rough­ly the size of Port­land, for devel­op­ment as part of its Moose­head Lake Con­cept Plan. The plan includes 90,000 acres of con­ser­va­tion ease­ments to sat­is­fy the Land Use Reg­u­la­to­ry Commission’s (LURC) require­ment for a con­ser­va­tion bal­ance. An addi­tion­al 266,000 acres worth ofde­vel­op­ment rights on Plum Creek land will be sold to The Nature Con­ser­van­cy and The Appalachi­an Moun­tain Club for $35 mil­lion. This con­ser­va­tion is being hailed by many as an unprece­dent­ed oppor­tu­ni­ty to pro­tect a large tract of land in North­ern Maine, how­ev­er, the con­ser­va­tion ease­ments only pre­vent fur­ther devel­op­ment. They do not pre­vent grav­el min­ing, spread­ing of sewage sludge, com­mer­cial water extrac­tion, socalled”sustainable forestry,” or oth­er extrac­tive activ­i­ties.

The debate around Plum Creek’s plan has focused in recent months on the future of Lily Bay, slat­ed for a large resort devel­op­ment in the pro­pos­al. The Nat­ur­al Resources Coun­cil of Maine and oth­er large envi­ron­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions have focused their oppo­si­tion to the plan pri­mar­i­ly on pro­tect­ing the pris­tine land around Lily Bay. Even these lim­it­ed efforts have not been suc­cess­ful despite huge pub­lic oppo­si­tion to the devel­op­ment in Lily Bay. When LURC released its rec­om­men­da­tions in June, down­siz­ing the num­ber of acres slat­ed for devel­op­ment in Lily Bay, but not decreas­ing the total num­ber of res­i­dences, they were flood­ed with pub­lic com­ment urg­ing the Com­mis­sion to recon­sid­er its posi­tion on Lily Bay. The pro­test­ers in front of LURC today, how­ev­er are not­stak­ing their oppo­si­tion on just Lily Bay. “We feel that the scope of the debate has been nar­rowed to soon by those who would bar­gain away the North Woods. LURC has heard ample rea­sons from the peo­ple of this state to reject this plan in its entire­ty. This plan is a bad deal for Main­ers and for the North Woods,” said Jessie Dowl­ing, one of the hula-hoop­ers on the ground below the tri­pod.

“What LURC has before it now, is an appli­ca­tion to extend ram­pant devel­op­ment, habi­tat destruc­tion, cli­mate change and mass extinc­tion into one of the most pris­tine unde­vel­oped areas in the coun­try. The stakes for this type of devel­op­ment are incred­i­bly high. LURC has in its sights a his­toric and incred­i­bly sig­nif­i­cant deci­sion to make, and I hope they do the right thing,” said Dowl­ing.