Voters Reject National Park by Wide Margin. No National Park for Maine at This Time.

Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry are announcing today that the former Roxanne Quimby property will NOT be designated as a National Park as local voters in Medway and East Millinocket turned out to reject the idea in a BIG WAY!!

 

 

 

Two nonbinding referendums on the 150,000-acre North Woods national park proposed by former Maine resident Roxanne Quimby were held recently. Proponents plan to donate 75,000 acres for a park and an additional 75,000 acres for certain recreational use to the National Park Service, generate 400 to 1,000 jobs and be maintained by $40 million in private endowments. 

A significant majority of voters in Medway and East Millinocket rejected the creation of a new national park next to Baxter State Park for several reasons, including:

•  National park status brings additional unwanted federal authority into northern Maine, generates seasonal jobs and expands federal influence far beyond 150,000 acres. This is particularly true with respect to restrictions on hunting, snowmobiling and other business opportunities.

• National parks that are used as comparisons to predict job growth have no relation to the proposed Maine national park. Most are adjacent to huge population centers which readily provide attendance. Acadia Park with easy automobile access to many spectacular sites has little similarity to the deep woods wilderness experience, which made projected job numbers highly suspect to local voters.

•  The Millinocket/East Millinocket area is already very well-served by Baxter State Park. Most residents doubted that a national park would draw the numbers of additional tourists claimed by proponents. Maintaining the quality of the current Baxter State Park is already a challenge without drawing more visitors. 

•  The land in question does not match the natural beauty and uniqueness of other national parks. It has no distinctive features except for its westerly view of Katahdin and Baxter Park. This would be the first national park established to offer little more than views into a state park (Baxter State Park)

•  The park campaign owns less than 60 percent of the two proposed zones. Proponents propose to donate land that they do not currently own.

•  Significant timber will not be available to provide jobs and economic benefits to Maine in the future. The 150,000 acres proposed for the park represent over 50,000 cords of annual growth. Each cord contributes about $1,300 to the Maine economy.

•  Decisions on what takes place on the land would be made by the federal government listening to people outside of Maine. The proposed National park lands not owned by Roxanne Quimby is now open for recreational use without the National park restrictions. The proposed national park will isolate 2,500 acres of State of Maine public lands.

•  The National Park Service struggles with a maintenance backlog with its other national holdings.