Action & Advocacy

Action Alerts

LURC Decision Expected | CLUP Update

LURC Decision Expected about Plum Creek Proposal

Please attend! Show your support for Lily Bay and the Moosehead Lake region.

WHERE & WHEN:

Bangor Ramada Inn, 357 Odlin Road,
(207) 947-6961, Get directions here.
Tuesday September 23, 2008
News Conference 11:30 a.m., Admiral Room.
LURC – closing arguments and deliberations 12:30 p.m.

This summer more than 1,500 letters poured into LURC from Maine residents and visitors asking LURC’s commissioners to protect Moosehead Lake’s unique Lily Bay area from unprecedented development proposed by Plum Creek. Next week, the people of Maine may learn if those words made an impact.

• At 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, as part of a press conference involving Maine Audubon, citizens from across Maine will gather in the Ramada Inn’s Admiral Room to read excerpts from some of the heartfelt, personal testimony LURC has received. Please attend to show your support for Lily Bay and the Moosehead Lake region.

• At 12:30 Tuesday, LURC Commissioners will begin two days of deliberations to decide whether to make any changes to Plum Creek's proposal in view of both the public’s concerns and comments received from formal interveners. Interveners will give their closing arguments that day.

• Beginning at 8:30 a.m., Wednesday September 24, the Commission will discuss the more than 1,700 public comments (more than 1,700 opposed Plum Creek’s proposal, and fewer than 10 supported it) LURC received in July and any changes that might be made to their recommended changes.

Comprehensive Land Use Plan Update

With public hearings ahead—and misinformation being spread—it is crucial that Maine’s Land Use Regulation Commission (LURC) hear that updates to its Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP) for the unorganized territories of western and northern Maine protect the things that make the North Woods unique and economically sustainable.

Since the commission last updated the CLUP in 1997, a significant amount of land has changed hands, scattered residential development has become a serious problem, and the 10 million acres in LURC’s jurisdiction—the largest block of undeveloped forestland in the Eastern United States—have become increasingly valuable for their remoteness and natural character.

To keep up to date with the times, address mounting problems, and protect the character of the Northern Forest, Maine Audubon thinks the Comprehensive Land Use Plan should:

Protect the remote and undeveloped character of Maine’s North Woods:

• Carefully plan development with the goal of maintaining the large, undeveloped forest that is unique in all of the eastern United States.
• Guide development into or close to existing communities and away from remote areas, sensitive natural areas, high-value plant and animal habitat, valuable recreational resources, and productive timberlands and agricultural lands.
• Eliminate exemptions that allow scattered, unplanned development.
• Increase protections for remote ponds and valuable recreational resources.

Enhance protection of wildlife and habitat:

• Expand protection of ecologically important areas.
• Enhance riparian buffers and implement riparian harvest standards that better protect water quality and wildlife habitat and movement.
• Establish a comprehensive roads policy to minimize erosion, habitat fragmentation, road kill, and conversion of woods roads to more permanent roads.

LURC is currently considering comments made at public workshops about proposed CLUP updates, and in coming months LURC staff will make revisions based on the input of commissioners. The commission will then hold public hearings on the new draft.

In light of misinformation that has mischaracterized proposed changes to the plan—which LURC staff addresses in this memo (PDF) —Maine Audubon needs your help at these hearings to spread the plain and simple truth: Maine needs a strong comprehensive plan to protect an area valuable to humans and wildlife from scattered development.

Visit www.maineaudubon.org or sign up for action alerts to receive timely updates on this and other important conservation issues.