As Maine changes, access to water is limited

By COLIN HICKEY, Blethen Maine News Service

Copyright © 2006 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

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Blethen Maine News Service by Jeff Pouland Christeen Mudgett and her sons Ethan, 5, far left, and Zack, 13, prepare to launch their canoe on Taylor Pond near Echo Lake in West Mount Vernon on Thursday.

Christeen Mudgett and her two children recently took advantage of a gorgeous late-summer afternoon to take a canoe trip on Echo Lake in Mount Vernon, just a short distance from the Readfield town line.

Mudgett, 32, and sons Zack, 13, and Ethan, 5, saw nine loons and a heron during their outing; and when they finished, they had the convenience of a Department of Conservation boat ramp to ease the task of loading the canoe back atop the family pickup truck.

Mudgett would love it if all of Maine's more than 6,000 lakes and ponds had a public access site like the one at Echo Lake, which also featured a portable toilet and ample parking space. But the reality is there are only about 400 public boat launches, usually on land owned by the state or a municipality, that are readily available to recreational boaters. And some of those sites are limited to carry-in boats.

Under a Maine law dating back more than 300 years, residents have the right to access any lake or pond 10 acres or larger (the state has about 2,600), even ones in which the surrounding property is entirely privately owned.

However, a right does not necessarily translate into a practice. To get a boat into the water, people need a place to park the car that hauls the vessel, and that's not always available. Increasingly, especially in northern Maine, landowners are gating the access roads to lakes and ponds, or charging a fee to get past those gates.

Many waterfront property owners, moreover, are less open to allowing people to carry a canoe across their land to get to the lake.

Mudgett said she goes canoeing with her children to enjoy the peace and serenity of the experience. Getting into a confrontation with an angry homeowner is not compatible with that objective. Some people are not mean, Mudgett said, but they give you that ''why-are-you-here kind of look.''

A GROWING PROBLEM

Mark Latti of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife said the state is well aware of the public access issue.

It is becoming an increasing problem, particularly in southern and central Maine, he said. One of the agency's missions is to provide access to the inland and coastal waters of the state, but ''that mission is not only more difficult, but more expensive to do as waterfront properties continue to increase in value, and usually we find a lot of local opposition (to public access sites) from private landowners,'' he said.

Latti and other state officials who deal with the issue say that opposition is based on a variety of reasons.

Many landowners are concerned about the threat of invasive aquatic plants, a problem familiar to people in central Maine as a result of the variable-leaf milfoil outbreak at the Route 27 boat launch on Messalonskee Lake in Belgrade.

Property owners on Maine lakes and ponds see limiting boat access as a key way to reduce the risk of invasive plants. Latti said some of those same owners also want to restrict the amount of boat traffic on the waterway they live by.

The state makes efforts to buy waterfront land so that it can build boat launches for all to use, but that task has become more difficult as the demand and price of such property has soared. George Powell, director of boating facilities for the state Bureau of Parks and Lands, said the state is handicapped by limited money for such purposes and a land-acquisition procedure that is far from speedy.

Waterfront property doesn't stay on the market very long, he said. If you're not aware of it quickly and if you don't have the money, you're not going to be able to obtain that property. The people who do obtain the land often are from out of state, and in many cases they are people unfamiliar with the Maine tradition of allowing public access.

''One of the biggest complaints I hear from people is that out-of-staters are buying up the land and you can't go there anymore,'' said registered Maine Guide Steve Chaisson of Farmingdale.

Leon Bucher of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife agrees that there is a new attitude emerging as land ownership on Maine's lakes and ponds changes hands.

''We have owners who don't own the land for their livelihoods,'' he said. ''They are only there a portion of the year. They are there because they seek the values of being in an unspoiled, uncrowded space, and if you have others coming to use trails or to use launch sites, some folks would consider that an intrusion upon their own interests.''

'NOT HORRIBLE'

Although reason for concern is apparent, the issue of access to Maine lakes and ponds is not a crisis

Blaine Miller, a registered Maine Guide from Norridgewock, said the state has provided boat launches on most decent-size bodies of water. Miller said accessibility is good in central and southern Maine in particular.

''I think the greater danger is the area just south of the Maine North Woods, basically Moosehead Lake and the Jackman area on down,'' he said. ''People have bought large tracts of land, and some of them have been very restrictive.''

Mudgett, who lives just down the road from Echo Lake, considers herself fortunate to have a home in Readfield.

''We found that this area is not horrible,'' she said in talking about the ability to use her boat2.

''The Belgrade Lakes are good about public access, but we find that up north it is getting more difficult.'' Alex Wilson, co-author of the ''Quiet Water Canoe Guide: Maine,'' expects to see more access restrictions on lakes and ponds as more property gets sold and subdivided for development. Plum Creek's development plans on Moosehead Lake is one of his chief concerns.

At the same time, Wilson said he is impressed that the state and various conservation groups have bought land with the express purpose of protecting it from development.

Maine has an amazing resource in its lakes and ponds, he said, and the challenge is figuring out a balanced way to manage it that benefits the public and the environment.

Wilson credits Maine for having what he said are probably the best laws in New England for protecting shorelines. Still, those in the environmental community fault the state for not closing the Messalonskee Lake boat launch after the milfoil outbreak.

Powell, of the Bureau of Parks of Lands, notes that his department recently purchased land off Messalonskee Lake in Sidney to build an enhanced boat launch site in that area, a move that might make it more acceptable for the state to close the Route 27 site eventually.

Powell also noted that the state has increased the number of boat launches in the past 10 years. Also, he said, the state is in the process of developing a new strategic plan for providing boating and fishing access to Maine's waterways.

Powell said the goal is to have the plan in place by April 1, 2007. The last strategic plan was launched in 1995 and was intended to cover 10 years.

The development process, Powell said, will involve both public access advocates and those in the environmental community.

''We are hoping by addressing the concerns of both sides, we can come up with strategies that will be successful,'' he said.