Governor John Baldacci signed LD1419, an emergency bill that creates an advisory panel to oversee the management of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway. Absent from the bill is a recommendation made earlier from a previous working group of the governor, to appoint a superintendent to answer to the advisory panel and work with the Department of Conservation. Instead, the panel will work with an “employee” of the DOC, according to the Bangor Daily News.
The advisory panel will help the Allagash manager — an employee of the Department of Conservation — develop and implement long-range, strategic plans for the waterway. It will meet at least twice annually and is supposed to better represent public views in order to reduce political tensions over management of the Allagash.
To reduce those political tensions, the panel will be made up this way.
The governor-appointed council members will include one member of the general public and representatives with knowledge in the following areas: wilderness recreation, natural resource planning and management, fisheries and wildlife conservation, cultural and historic preservation and sustainable forest management.
The latter representative will either be a landowner or an employee of a company that owns land abutting the Allagash. The seventh member will be a representative of the National Park Service, which administers the federal Wild and Scenic River program.
This bill also makes provisions to accept and management donations and contributions of money to be used to administer the AWW and make capital improvements.
Tom Remington
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