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The Appalachian Mountain Club wants to expand its hut system to the Tumbledown Mountain range, and some local environmentalists are upset. Conrad Heeschen, a member of the Tumbledown Conservation Alliance, has accused AMC of a backroom maneuver to get the state Bureau of Parks and Lands to fast-track the proposal before considering the impact on the already heavily used mountain area.
Heeschen charged that BPL has ignored its own management policy process and is dividing the alliance at a time when the focus should be on public acquisition of the Tumbledown range. Bureau spokesman Ralph Knoll said the behind-the-scenes controversy has put the hut idea "on a very, very, very slow track." Nothing will be decided about the AMC proposal, which includes management of human use and trails for the state, before a public airing of the plan, he said.

However, AMC's deputy director, Walter Graff, indicated the organization might buy its own parcel in the area for hut development. Although that would free AMC from having to deal with the bureau, he said the organization wouldn't go forward with a project without some local support.

There are a dozen landowners in the Mt. Blue/Tumbledown region. The state is negotiating with them for 32,000 acres at a projected cost of $7 million. The acquisition is a top priority of the Land for Maine's Future Board, which would contribute a half-million dollars, with $6.5 million coming from federal and other sources.

AMC's hut system in the White Mountains in New Hampshire is renowned. "When we went through the hut [permit renewal] process [with the U.S. Forest Service], we looked hard at what the huts are about and the benefits," Graff said. "They do a good job managing people. Putting more in the Whites is not an option, so we took out maps and talked to a lot of people about other possible locations," he said. "So far, the highest on our list is Tumbledown. We said we could add acquisition dollars [to the land deal] and manage the trails and use and put two or three huts in the region." AMC has had a presence at Tumbledown for a number of years as trail managers.

Through a Freedom of Information request, Heeschen learned that AMC had presented its plan to the state in January, and he felt the move was a betrayal to the alliance because AMC is a partner of the group. He believed BPL wanted to expedite the proposal because it is in need of acquisition dollars and help in managing the additional public lands.

Pam Prodan, also involved with TCA, took the position that before supporting or opposing the huts, the alliance should look at how they would "fit in with our vision" for the Tumbledown range. "Clearly there's a need for management," she said, given the years of abuse of camping areas and trails. "But unless we take a good look at the resources there, we're operating without knowledge" of the huts' potential impact, she said.

Given the "not in my backyard" kind of responses at the April meeting, BPL has put the project on hold, Knoll said. "We're not saying it's a bad or good idea.

It's an idea. The state will continue to have dialogue with AMC."

AMC's Maine office representative, Gabrielle Kissinger, said, "We're not wedded to any specific component we floated to the TCA or the state. But we hope we can continue talking." She pointed out that there was no management money in the $50 million land bond issue passed by the voters two years ago. Management "is a real issue" because use in the Tumbledown range is intense, according to Kissinger. "On a busy summer day, hundreds of people are on [Tumbledown]." The huts could provide an opportunity for families to go into the mountains for backpacking and be educated about what they're seeing, she said.

Walter Graff said AMC wants to discuss this more broadly with selectmen and adjoining communities. A question he's interested in is how could development of huts in the Tumbledown range be a catalyst for more land protection in the western mountains.

Pam Proden of TCA said AMC is not proposing the hut system to replace existing uncontrolled camping at the base of Tumbledown. "The intent is for the huts to expand upon the present use," she said. "Miles of new trails would be added. The new lodging would be 24 hours, seven days a week." She sees the project as AMC creating "a new market for Tumbledown more people does not bode well for protection of the mountain or its natural resources."

Phyllis Austin can be reached at:
trout1@gwi.net

Health care coverage for all Mainers moved a step closer to reality last week when the House of Representatives supported a single-payer insurance plan with the state as administrator. Rep. Paul Volenik [D-Brooksville] sponsored the bill, which passed 80-58 with little debate. It now goes to the Senate.

Volenik said this is the third time he's brought the bill before the Legislature; support has grown with each session, although this is the first it's been approved by either body. What's different this time? "The business community has traditionally been opposed to a state program. For the first time, legislators are hearing from businesses that they're in crisis trying to provide insurance for their employees."

Volenik added that legislators were also hearing more from constituents unable to afford coverage, and they were swayed by the expanding rolls of the uninsured. But, he said, "they can hear 80 percent support [for a state system] from the public, but when business chimes in, they pay more attention."

New studies also show growing support from physicians, he said, and last year's sale of Maine Blue Cross and Blue Shield to Anthem "is affecting legislators' consciences. They're finally seeing that this is important enough to put aside their reservations about funding."

The proposed program would rely on a broad-based sales tax for capital and would be up and running within a year-and-a-half, Volenik said. Maine employers would be required to offer the coverage to their employees instead of other plans, with an allowance for existing contracts to be fulfilled. Unemployed Mainers would be covered as well.

The bill is impractical, according to state insurance superintendent Al Iuppa. "The cost is unrealistic and it will eliminate the private market," he said. Additional problems are a lack of cost controls through managed care. "It's like being in a candy store and not having to pay for anything. It's wishful thinking, not a credible response to what's facing the state," Iuppa said.

Neither does the Maine Hospital Association support the bill. According to Vice President for Public Affairs Jim Harnar, it could be "dangerous for one state to move out with a universal system. We might lose business and employers and see an influx of people moving in to access health care." Harnar says the Hospital Association's experience with Medicare, as well as difficulties in countries like Canada and Great Britain that have government-financed health care, is evidence that the plans don't work well.

But attorney Joe Ditre of Consumers for Affordable Health Care said the bill is a way to provide universal coverage and spread the cost equitably. "We've got to do something," he said. "Our system is collapsing." Ditre said although the cost of capitalizing the program would be high - about $5 billion - it would not amount to much more than is currently paid for health care. "According to the governor's 2000 Blue Ribbon Report, we spend $4.7 billion on total health care expenditures and only cover about 85 percent of the population. If we spent $5 billion, we could cover everybody," he said.

Regardless of whether the bill passes in the Senate, Ditre said its support by the House "tremendously underscores the level of dissatisfaction with health care in Maine. It's a clear vote of no confidence in the system and in the quality of care. It shows that the state is ready to do something bold about this problem."

Meg Haskell can be reached at:
mhaskell@mainetimes.com

The pending sale of a church summer camp with majestic views of Penobscot Bay is fanning concern among neighbors, conservationists and dissenters within the church denomination.

The Unitarian Universalist Church of Bangor is advertising the sale of buildings and land at Hersey Retreat in Stockton Springs for $1.7 million. The camp sits high on a windswept bluff at the head of the bay and is anchored by the brooding presence of a rambling, late-19th-century, shingle-style cottage.

The church says the retreat has been losing money for years and that it can no longer afford to keep it going. Hersey is a nonprofit corporate wing of the church, but it serves the wider Unitarian Universalist denomination. It has been operated more or less continuously for 126 years - as a summer camp, retreat center and orphanage.

"The numbers [of campers] were relatively small and what was needed was huge," said Stan Marshall, president of the Hersey Corporation. "I don't know if it would ever be a financial success. There's lots of deferred maintenance."

Marshall declined to tally the losses, except to say they have whittled down the value of a quarter-million-dollar endowment.

A group representing the wider denomination has submitted a less-than-asking-price bid, but it is not clear the church group will be given any special consideration.

On the one hand, Marshall said he is "not at all" concerned about the rift that might be created if consideration were not given to a denominational buyer. "It's not a denominational problem,"
he said. "The bequest wasn't to the denomination."

Help from the denomination has been sought unsuccessfully in the past, he said.

On the other hand, Marshall said he would be "glad" to sell to a denomination group. He declined to say how many bids have been received or when a decision would be made.

Rev. Paul Boothby, the minister representing a denominational group seeking to buy the property, said he remains "not really hopeful they'll accept our offer." But Boothby, the minister of the Sanford Unitarian Universalist Church and a former summer manager at Hersey, said the burden of managing the retreat ought to be borne by the denomination, not a single church.

"I know the board has been struggling for years. I know they feel overwhelmed and are struggling to stay away from a sense of failure. Frankly, the decision to sell is in the best interest of church because it's a huge responsibility for a small group of people. Without major changes in the organizational structure, it's not a sustainable situation."

He said the Maine Coast Heritage Trust has been deluged with inquiries since the sale was advertised. The trust representative monitoring developments could not be reached for comment.

Neighbor Norm Walsh has organized a petition drive to have the property donated to the town of Stockton Springs.

"My main concern is it will be sold out to someone who won't look after it," Walsh said. "It's a very beautiful piece of property."

David Greeley, former director of Hersey for 14 years, said a sale amounts to a "default on stewardship." "Their health waxes and wanes," Greeley said. "This is the thin time, but you don't bag it and sell out. That would be the end of the line."

Questions exist about whether a sale violates the terms of the trust establishing the camp. Civil War Gen. Samuel Freeman Hersey left one-tenth of his estate to the First Universalist Society of Bangor to purchase "upon some island or upon some pleasant secluded location," acreage for a camp for the children of the congregation.

"This monument I wish to erect in the hearts of the pupils of the Sunday school which I love so much," read Hersey's instructions.

Lee Burnett may be reached at:
lburnett@mainetimes.com

The 180-mile-long jet fuel pipeline from Bangor to Limestone may soon be back in business. Brian Hamel, director of the Loring Development Authority, confirmed last week that LDA will acquire the 50-year-old pipeline, currently owned by the U.S. military. He said that more than one private firm is interested in purchasing it after that.

Federal regulations prohibit the government from selling the pipeline directly into private hands, but the same kind of special legislation that allowed LDA to acquire Loring Air Force base can allow for the transfer of ownership to the independent development organization. Hamel said there is nothing to prevent LDA from then selling the pipeline "with no strings attached." He's not at liberty to disclose the interested parties, he maintained, but he has been "in discussion with a number of companies on the use of it."

For almost half a century, the U.S. Air Force pumped thousands of gallons of jet fuel a day from the cargo docks in Searsport to the Loring base in Limestone. In the pre-environmental years, leaks and spills that routinely occurred along the buried 6-inch pipeline's length - especially at the three pump stations that boosted the JP-4 fuel along its way - went unreported and largely unremarked upon; it was just the cost of ensuring the national defense.

Loring closed its gates in 1994 when the Cold War lost its chill, and the pipeline was cleared - a process which itself produced some spillage- and pressurized with nitrogen gas. The base itself and several off-site satellites were transferred to the Loring Development Authority, the independent organization charged with finding a new use for the sprawling facility in the middle of Aroostook County. The military has retained ownership of the fuel pipeline and the easement in which it is buried because its southerly end is still needed to provide fuel to the Air Guard base in Bangor.

But now, the Air Force has declared the remaining miles of pipe in excess of its needs and is prepared to transfer it to LDA as well. And in anticipation of that transfer, it must attend to all known fuel-contaminated sites, beginning with the pump station sites in Argyle, Mattawamkeag and Littleton.

The possibility of the pipeline's transfer and reuse didn't sit too well with a skeptical crowd of about 30 area residents gathered in the Penobscot County town of Alton last Thursday night. The state Department of Environmental Protection called the meeting to lay out plans to remediate the contaminated pump station site in nearby Argyle, on the banks of the Penobscot River. Argyle is just one of three such sites along the length of the pipeline, all heavily contaminated with spilled jet fuel. The other two locations, in Mattawamkeag and Littleton, have been the focus of remediation efforts for several years, but Argyle has received only preliminary attention. Early plans to excavate large amounts of contaminated soils were scrapped when residents complained of overpowering odors. Also of concern was the high cost of removing the petroleum compounds through bio-incineration.

At Thursday's meeting the small group of environmental professionals in button-downs and Dockers had their hands full. David Hopkins, a civilian environmental engineer employed by the U.S. military to clean up contamination associated with Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, used an overhead projector to explain the vapor extraction process that will be used in Argyle. Lengths of perforated PVC pipe will be buried in long 4-foot-deep trenches dug across the site, running parallel to the river. Suction will draw fresh air down through the soil and into the pipe, collecting the volatile vapors of the jet fuel. The vapor compounds will be collected in an on-site container and burned. In addition, deeper wells will be sunk in the more heavily contaminated spots, and fresh air will be percolated through the soil.

The process, tested on site last fall by the Colorado-based environmental remediation firm Montgomery-Watson, will take an estimated five years to clean the soil and groundwater at the site. Continuous testing will keep track of progress, and, according to Naji Akladiss of the DEP, if after three years, considerable improvement is not evident, alternative treatments will be considered.

The crowd had questions. Could the process force contamination away from the site and into the river? Or into the wells and soils of local farms and homes? Since the site in question is located in a wetland and a designated flood zone, couldn't rising waters interfere as well? What about noise? What about fumes? What health risks are associated with exposure to jet fuel?

Montgomery-Watson representative Jeff Tegrotenhuis answered that the process would force volatile compounds "up, not out," to be captured by suction. Since the fuel is "smeared" through the soil, it is not free to migrate out in water. Although pumping and incineration equipment will be running on-site continuously, it will be housed in a sound-insulated building, and noise should be minimal. Some fumes will be released in the process of trenching the property, but once the system is in place, neighbors should notice little odor.

The issue of specific health risks he referred to Akladiss, who promised to have a state expert respond directly to the questioner. Akladiss also circulated a sign-up sheet for any residents wishing to have their well water tested on a regular basis.

Residents also questioned the timing of the cleanup. Why now, when the site has been known about for years? David Strainge, the Air Force's environmental coordinator for the Loring conversion, said the military was committed to cleaning up all contaminated sites in preparation for transferring the property to a new owner.

What new owner - Irving Oil? Strainge explained only that the Loring Development Authority was next in line, "within a very short time frame," and would not speculate beyond that. The military, he said, retains responsibility "in perpetuity" for any existing contamination, regardless of who owns the pipeline or when spills are discovered.

Scornful residents challenged the legal transferability of the pipe itself, as well as that of the easement in which it is laid. What would prevent a new owner from laying additional conduits within the same easement? How deep is the right of way? Strainge said he did not know the answers to these questions but would find out.

A number of residents favored tearing up the pipeline and restoring the right of way to the landowners, now that the original purpose of the pipeline has been served.

According to LDA director Hamel, the pipeline and the more than 600 individual property easements through which it runs are legally transferable, so long as the 6-inch conduit is safe and used for its original stated purpose: the transport of fuel - gasoline, kerosene, diesel, aviation, natural gas or "alternative fuels" like bioethynol. Non-fuel uses, such as running telecommunications cables, would likely meet with legal obstacles, although Hamel admits they'd probably find more public acceptance than the renewal of fuel transport. Hamel said he'd have to consult his attorneys to know the depth of the right of way or whether more than one conduit can be buried within it.

But there is no question of removing the pipeline and returning the right of way. Making good use of the conduit is "all part of the economic development puzzle we're trying to solve," Hamel said. "If we can use the line to negate the distance between us and our markets, it will be to our advantage."

Meg Haskell can be reached at:
mhaskell@mainetimes.com

Maine Times owner Christopher Hutchins has sold two biomass energy plants to a Canadian paper company for $27 million. Hutchins said the sale will allow Alternative Energy, his Bangor-based company, to concentrate on out-of-state business opportunities.

The plants, in Livermore Falls and Ashland, generate about one-half of 1 percent of Maine's energy needs. The buyer, Boralex Inc. of Montreal, has purchased two smaller wood-fired plants in Maine and is affiliated with Cascade Paper Co., according to Hutchins.

Hutchins owns a third biomass plant, in Chester, that has been mothballed in recent years. He said the plant may be dismantled and used in a new venture outside Maine.

The Ashland and Livermore Falls plants each use 440,000 tons of waste wood a year to produce power for the New England power grid. The 37 employees are expected to be retained by Boralex. The plants went online in the early '90s, though the Ashland facility was shut down for four years when its contract was bought out by Central Maine Power.

In explaining his decision to sell during a period of high energy prices in the Northeast, Hutchins said "a funny thing happened on the way to [electricity] deregulation in Maine."

He said, "They gave all the savings that were supposed to go to customers to the T and D [transmission and distribution] companies." The generators "only get 3 cents of the 14 cents consumers pay. Prices may be high for consumers, but they're low for producers [of power]."

Hutchins said Alternative Energy will now concentrate on developing new power projects, not operating them. "That's what I like," he said. Likely locations for new AEI investments are Minnesota and Georgia. Both states, he said, have "healthy climates for business," and he spoke highly of Minnesota's recent focus on health care. Georgia, he said, "has an enormous amount of waste wood," which could be used to fire biomass plants.

Maine Times, which is a subsidiary of Alternative Energy, is not affected by the sales, Hutchins said.

Jay Davis can be reached at:
jdavis@mainetimes.com

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