MILLINOCKET, Maine — Town leaders will be working with leading national park proponent Lucas St. Clair to resurrect a 2007 land-use agreement with Roxanne Quimby that would expand the Katahdin region’s multiuse recreational trail network, officials said Friday.
Former Town Councilor John Raymond and fellow ATV trail network organizer Paul Sannicandro will lead town efforts to secure all-terrain vehicle access across an 11,853-acre parcel east of Baxter State Park that already has Interconnected Trail System 83 and ITS 85 on it, according to documentation provided to the Town Council by Town Manager Peggy Daigle.
According to the 2007 agreement, Quimby’s Elliotsville Plantation Inc., which oversees Quimby’s lands in Maine, was supposed to partner with town and state officials to secure ATV access, which is generally not allowed on Quimby lands. But the work never was completed, Town Councilor Michael Madore said during a council meeting on Thursday.
“I give a great deal of credit to bringing this back to the forefront now to Paul Sannicandro. He said we really dropped the ball on this and we really need to get this back on the table,” Madore said.
David Farmer, a spokesman for St. Clair and the effort to create a national park adjoining Baxter, said that St. Clair hasn’t had a chance to review the 2007 agreement. He is only “aware that there had been a conversation at the Town Council meeting” on Thursday, Farmer said.
“EPI is committed to working with Millinocket and the region to protect access for outdoor recreational activities. That is part of the work that we are doing as evidenced by the [EPI] land that has been opened,” Farmer said Friday.
Elliotsville Plantation made a landmark announcement in September 2013 saying that it immediately would open 40,000 acres to hunting and other “traditional” activities and another 60,000 acres to low-impact recreational pursuits. In addition, an 18-mile loop road on EPI property is open, allowing access to previously inaccessible land.
The lands opened to hunting are on parcels east of the East Branch of the Penobscot River and southwest of Baxter State Park near Greenville and Monson. The EPI lands west of the East Branch, which abut Baxter, welcome nonhunting recreational use.
“Once we have more details, we will be glad to sit down with the town and the committee the town is considering forming to talk about this. We want to work cooperatively to expand cooperation,” Farmer added.
The multiuse trail agreement called for the formation of a five-member committee, consisting of town and EPI officials and a neutral arbiter, to oversee the trail-course selection. The committee never formed.
Councilors voted 5-2 during the meeting to table a motion until their next meeting to select committee members after Councilor Anita Mueller said that the motion’s language did not match that of the original agreement.
Raymond, Sannicandro and council members have declared increasing ATV access in the region an economic priority since the Katahdin region’s first networked ATV trail opened for its first full season of riding in May 2012.
Local businesspeople view the trail as a cornerstone of the Katahdin region’s tourism economy and a crucial element of the region’s economic revival. Businesspeople had complained for decades that the region has lacked networked ATV trails, which they feel would be even more lucrative than the region’s internationally recognized snowmobile trail network because ATV riders would ride the trails in three seasons, not just winter.
The state snowmobile industry generates $300 million to $350 million annually, Maine officials have said. Recent economic impact studies show that the ATV industry brings in more than $200 million to Maine annually, according to the Sunrise Trail Coalition, a group seeking to build an east-west ATV trail network near Calais.
According to an access agreement made by town, state and EPI officials that was filed with the Penobscot County Registry of Deeds on Nov. 29, 2007, EPI agreed to grant the state and town snowmobile but not ATV access on its “future lands” — purchases EPI expected to make on parcels in Townships 2, 3 and 4 and Ranges 7 and 8.
However, in a letter also dated Nov. 29, 2007, Quimby — St. Clair’s mother — said she formally supported the multiuse trail idea. The trail would run from Millinocket to Matagamon, she said.
“While an ITS snowmobile trail currently exists, a trail for ATVs does not,” Quimby wrote in the letter. “We will pledge to you our intent to work with you, the interested clubs and other landowners to cooperatively make available appropriate portions of our land for a multi-use trail corridor for this connection.”
“We recognize the interest in the community for such a trail,” Quimby added. “We have made progress toward a cooperative approach and look forward to working with you in the future to make this a reality.”
In a memo dated Oct. 30, 2007, then-Town Manager Eugene Conlogue said the trail would start in the Stacyville Road area — and presumably continue to Matagamon. The deal was completed in December of that year.
On Thursday, Councilor Bryant Davis said the problem with creating the multiuse trail Quimby discussed lay not with her or EPI, but with other landowners whose parcels the trail would cross. He did not say how many landowners were along the proposed trail.
“If we don’t have them there [on the siting committee] it behooves me to say that we are spinning our wheels. We need to have all of the players there. I think this is a good idea. We definitely need the landowners that have land between here and Eliotsville Plantation” on the committee, Davis said.
The council is due to resume discussion of the matter at its Jan. 23 meeting.
BDN Outdoors Writer John Holyoke contributed to this report.