I had the privilege of speaking in support of a Maine Woods National Monument during U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin’s recent town-hall-style meeting that followed the much publicized one-sided congressional field hearing in East Millinocket on June 1. Those speaking in favor outnumbered those speaking against by four to one.
Given Poliquin’s feelings about the monument proposal, the hearing appeared to be both a waste of taxpayer money and time — time the Katahdin region does not have. We’re losing our people, our tax base and our community.
Millinocket alone has lost half its population in recent decades, primarily due to job losses and subsequent out-migration.
While the population is going down, the towns in the Katahdin region have pre-exodus infrastructure to maintain, including deteriorating roads and aging sewer systems.
Every year, it gets more difficult to provide a quality education for our students — in spite of the fact that Millinocket taxpayers are levied one of the highest property tax rates in the state.
And poverty is a significant issue. More than 70 percent of Millinocket’s elementary school-age children qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.
Each year at budget time, one service or another is cut in an effort to keep our summer recreation program alive so these same children can receive at least one nutritious meal a day — also federally subsidized.
Last year library funding was cut in half. This year, who knows?
Our elderly population is also being marginalized. Many are selling their homes for pennies on the dollar to seek shelter in federally subsidized housing.
Millinocket’s municipal government has processed more than 100 tax-acquired properties in the last three years. Now there is talk of applying for federally subsidized brownfield grants to aid in their demolition.
Safety services have been stripped to bare bones at a time when opiate addiction and related crimes are at an all-time high in Maine. We’re hoping for and relying on federal funds to address a drug epidemic but we also know that joblessness, poverty and despair are major contributors.
In recent decades, there have been millions of taxpayer dollars poured into the Katahdin region in the form of federal grants, studies, tax credits, unemployment checks and job retraining benefits — with little to no results. Our unemployment rate is still more than twice both the state and the national average.
In fact, while most other areas of the country have recovered from the recession, the 2nd Congressional District has lagged behind in almost all economic indicators.
I served on the original Medway Citizens Group in 2011, where we first began work to study a proposal to create a new national park and national recreation area. We determined that they would not adversely affect smokestack industries, the wood products industry or traditional recreation uses.
We quickly learned the lands fall under Class 2 Air Quality Standards, and the more stringent Class 1 standards only apply to national parks created prior to the Clean Air Act of 1977.
National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis confirmed this again during his recent visit to Maine when he said, “No change to air quality regulations, no imposement of Class 1. That is something that happened in 1977 in the amendments to the Clean Air Act that affected Acadia. New parks, it has no effect. It would have no impact if there was some new development of mills, some new emission effect. That has no impact. This designation has no impact on that whatsoever.”
We found that the private property being donated represents less than 1 percent of Maine’s wood basket and there are no plans to return it to a working forest.
We also established that access for traditional recreational uses, such as hunting and snowmobiling, would not only be protected, they would be encouraged. We also found that forest products industries and national parks coexist and share the same roads in many parts of the country, contributing side-by-side to our nation’s economy.
A national monument will be one piece of a larger puzzle to rebuild the economy of our region. I would encourage Poliquin to work with other members of Congress to build upon this incredible opportunity instead of rejecting $100 million in private investment that will create new jobs and help repopulate our towns.
Right now, our communities are working hard — to expand access to broadband, to make our towns more attractive, to balance investment and prevent property taxes from increasing.
We need help, and we need the kind of help that results in jobs.
We need the national monument, and we need a continued investment in our people and our communities.
Anita Mueller is co-owner of Moose Prints Gallery in Millinocket and is a member of the Katahdin Area Chamber of Commerce, the Katahdin Tourism Partnership and Our Katahdin Broadband Access Initiative. She previously served on the Millinocket Town Council.