Popular conservation fund appealing for more money
Source: Portland Press Herald, by John Richardson
July 23, 2007
In 1987, with a real estate boom turning forests and other open spaces into house lots, Mainers eagerly voted for the first statewide fund for land conservation.
Twenty years later, the Land for Maine's Future program has spent $72 million and helped conserve 445,000 acres of forests, farms, waterfronts and mountaintops across the state. It has helped spawn dozens of local land trusts and evolved into a hugely popular state program.
The most common criticism of the conservation fund, in fact, is that the Legislature has not given it enough money to keep pace with the development pressures that are reshaping the state.
Now, with sprawl considered a top threat to Maine's character and economy, voters will go to the polls again this fall to decide whether to borrow another $17 million for land conservation.
"Four hundred thousand acres later ... it has proved to be something that government has done that was just what people wanted," said Pat McGowan, commissioner of Maine's Department of Conservation. McGowan plans to unveil the program's latest project Tuesday near the Androscoggin River in Turner.
McGowan was a state legislator when Gov. Joseph Brennan created a commission to come up with a strategy to deal with the land rush and protect public access to open spaces. Maine had a long political tradition of private ownership of forests and recreational lands, but the development pressure was intense.
Brennan's commission recommended a bond issue to buy and conserve land for public access. McGowan led the fight to win approval in the Legislature; and voters, by a 2-to-1 ratio, approved a $35 million land bond that gave birth to the Land for Maine's Future.
"It was the largest nonhighway bond ever proposed in the state's history," said McGowan, who now sits on the land fund's board.
The new state program completed its first conservation deal in December 1988, buying about 1,000 acres of the Kennebunk Plains for $2.5 million.
It was a class project for the newborn fund. The property included blueberry fields, forests, a pond and streams that were all kept accessible to the community. It also was home to the rare grasshopper sparrow, the endangered black racer snake and a rare flower named the northern blazing star.
The Land for Maine's Future program also made some early missteps.
It tried unsuccessfully to keep project applications secret, then faced criticism from some landowners who were surprised to learn their properties were on the list. Some landowners said they feared the state would take the property by eminent domain.
The early conflicts led to key changes in the program. The program's board now considers projects only if the landowners are aware and willing to sell at the fair market value. Officials made clear early on that the state would not compel any sales by using eminent domain, and that has proven true.
The program would see more changes, including a requirement added in 1999 that all projects raise matching contributions from other sources. Since then, every dollar in state money has been matched by more than $4 in federal, local or private donations, according to Tim Glidden, the program's director.
The fund's priorities also have changed over the years.
Projects that preserve important forestland, mountains and coastal properties still make up the bulk of the activity, but there also are targeted efforts now to preserve farmland and water access for recreation. Attached to this fall's $17 million land bond is a $3 million bond that would be earmarked for protecting working waterfront along the coast, such as private piers that are vital to the fishing industry.
The fund now is focusing on strategic projects that provide recreation, economic, historic or other value, along with open space, Glidden said.
The fund has faced some criticism for spending more money in northern Maine, where a single purchase can...
include thousands of acres, than in southern Maine, where parcels are smaller but development pressure is stronger. More than half of the acres preserved through 2006 are in Piscataquis and Washington counties. More than one-third of the money has been spent in those counties, as well.
"Land is cheaper up here, but how can you justify spending the majority of the money up here when in fact most of the need is in southern Maine?" said Jonathan Reisman, associate professor of economics and public policy at the University of Maine at Machias.
Washington and Piscataquis counties already have public open spaces, he said, as well as small populations and struggling economies.
Reisman said the program appears to have shifted its focus recently to southern Maine, particularly York County. "I think it's gotten a little better," he said.
Maine's land conservation program was a novel idea when it was created. Now many other states have similar programs and spend far more money. New Jersey, for example, spends $100 million a year.
The struggle for funding has been the program's biggest shortcoming, said Robert Cummings of Harpswell.
As a former writer for the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, he covered the birth of the program 20 years ago. Now he's active in the Harpswell Land Trust and is president of the Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust.
Huge pieces of valuable forestland, including parcels along the Appalachian Trail, have gone on the market over the past two decades; but the state could not afford to take advantage of most of those opportunities, he said.
"All of the land is increasing in selling price at an incredible inflation rate, and opportunities to really protect some decent portions of Maine are being lost," he said. "It's a wonderful program. It could have been much, much better. There is a whole mood for protecting land that seems to have escaped the political process."
While voters have been strongly supportive at the polls, funding for the program is a tough sell each year in the Legislature. Bond proposals inevitably get whittled down or put off for another year because of competing expenses.
"It has gotten caught up in the partisan wrangles of the last dozen years," said Richard Barringer, a research professor at the Muskie School of Public Service and a member of Brennan's commission in the late 1980s.
Limited state funding has had the positive effect of forcing conservationists to stretch grants and find matching dollars, Barringer said, but there are recurring efforts to set up a more reliable, or predictable, funding mechanism.
"The Governor's Council on Quality Places is looking at the issue right now," Barringer said.
"We could always use more money," said Jeff Thaler, an attorney from Yarmouth and a member of the Land for Maine's Future Board. "We're a big state. There's still a lot more that could be done,"
The money raised so far, however, has made a big difference in all parts of the state, he said, and the program has made land conservation a statewide effort.
"I think it increased people's awareness of the possibility of conserving land, and the importance," he said.
Staff Writer John Richardson can be contacted at 791-6324 or at:
jrichardson@pressherald.com
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