Bayview Terrace is just an ordinary country lane, about a half-mile of woods with a few houses bunched up where it ends at the ocean. As some readers of this blog may remember, it's also perfect in its plain-ness, for in and around its unassuming trees and underbrush I've seen deer, woodpeckers, owls, frogs, grouse, winterberries, raspberries, blackberries, streams of water rushing in the gulleys like real rivers, little bogs and wetlands, the lush camouflage of deep August, and now the stark bare outlines of a cold January. Even the name is perfect, anticipating the popular reward of surf and islands and osprey at water's edge.
Now here is the list of private-lane names approved by the Town of Owls Head during 2009.
Mimilou Way
January Lane
Chara Lane
Long Haul Lane
Dory Lane
Knoll Road
Gigi's Place
Itssocosy Lane
Harley Lane
Stellar Blossom Way
Undoubtedly each is merely a glorified driveway for a new house, name chosen by the owner (one of these is in my neighborhood and I'm not saying which), but I'm a little disappointed with folks' vision, which seems to be limited mostly to memorializing daughters and wives and possibly cats. Long Haul Lane has possibilities, however: one imagines a couple scrimping and saving for years and finally building their dream house in a quiet corner of Maine.
About Me
- Jim Krosschell
- Retired publishing executive ecstatic with the idea of spending most of his time on the coast of Maine
Monday, January 11, 2010
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Great Maine Forest Initiative (II)
The report from Keeping Maine's Forest has a number of recommendations, which I summarize (and editorialize for what is NOT said) as follows:
1.Mix private and public funding to protect large tracts of forest. In effect this is a dig at the advocates of a Maine Great Woods National Park or even a National Forest. Apparently it's no longer necessary to argue about it, since the "menu of options is so much broader than it was 20 years ago." Also, the committee assumes that considerable industrial use of the land will continue.
2.Encourage transfer of development rights. TDRs allow further development of already built-up areas in exchange for preservation of open space near that same area. This is aimed mostly at southern Maine where pressure is heaviest.
3.Develop community forests. Towns themselves take ownership, perhaps as recompense when land changes hands.
4.Certify forest products as "green" as much as possible. There is some subtext here about brand management, where it is clear that Maine wood products can compete with the aggressive foresters of Siberia, Indonesia and South America only on terms of quality, rather like the lobster industry is doing.
5.Find new products and markets, while preserving current output. Good suggestions for the New, like biomass energy (wood pellets, cellulosic ethanol) and wind turbine farms, but uncritical reliance on the future strength of the economy and Maine's ability to compete.
6.Make the forest part of the emerging carbon cap-and-trade systems. Great idea to make carbon sequestration as important as pollution control, but many, many years off.
7.Form a Maine Forest Advisory Council. Naturally, committees seek to extend their own lives, but this recommendation in effect acknowledges how difficult actual results will be to obtain and how long it will take.
The Initiative has recorded a goodly number of excellent points, and the multi-disciplinary nature of its cooperation and its positive spirit are admirable. I wonder, though, how much time there really is before the new financial beasts that now own much of the North Woods, the real estate investment trusts and the timber investment management organizations, reach their objectives (short-term of course), max out their tax advantages, and start to sell to anyone and everyone. The essence of the Initiative is compromise and that may be a good strategy for now; but it seems to me that ultimately only the federal government has the money and the ability to overcome local interests. This may be the chance to replicate the 70s and the tremendous wave of legislation (the EPA, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act) that changed American life. Until federal funding is fully explored, I'd hate to see Maine compromise away its treasures, like it seems to be doing with Plum Creek's development of Moosehead.
1.Mix private and public funding to protect large tracts of forest. In effect this is a dig at the advocates of a Maine Great Woods National Park or even a National Forest. Apparently it's no longer necessary to argue about it, since the "menu of options is so much broader than it was 20 years ago." Also, the committee assumes that considerable industrial use of the land will continue.
2.Encourage transfer of development rights. TDRs allow further development of already built-up areas in exchange for preservation of open space near that same area. This is aimed mostly at southern Maine where pressure is heaviest.
3.Develop community forests. Towns themselves take ownership, perhaps as recompense when land changes hands.
4.Certify forest products as "green" as much as possible. There is some subtext here about brand management, where it is clear that Maine wood products can compete with the aggressive foresters of Siberia, Indonesia and South America only on terms of quality, rather like the lobster industry is doing.
5.Find new products and markets, while preserving current output. Good suggestions for the New, like biomass energy (wood pellets, cellulosic ethanol) and wind turbine farms, but uncritical reliance on the future strength of the economy and Maine's ability to compete.
6.Make the forest part of the emerging carbon cap-and-trade systems. Great idea to make carbon sequestration as important as pollution control, but many, many years off.
7.Form a Maine Forest Advisory Council. Naturally, committees seek to extend their own lives, but this recommendation in effect acknowledges how difficult actual results will be to obtain and how long it will take.
The Initiative has recorded a goodly number of excellent points, and the multi-disciplinary nature of its cooperation and its positive spirit are admirable. I wonder, though, how much time there really is before the new financial beasts that now own much of the North Woods, the real estate investment trusts and the timber investment management organizations, reach their objectives (short-term of course), max out their tax advantages, and start to sell to anyone and everyone. The essence of the Initiative is compromise and that may be a good strategy for now; but it seems to me that ultimately only the federal government has the money and the ability to overcome local interests. This may be the chance to replicate the 70s and the tremendous wave of legislation (the EPA, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act) that changed American life. Until federal funding is fully explored, I'd hate to see Maine compromise away its treasures, like it seems to be doing with Plum Creek's development of Moosehead.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Great Maine Forest Initiative (I)
For nearly two years now, a group of about 20 people drawn from state government, non-profits, forest industries, and land trusts have been meeting under the auspices of the University of Maine to discuss the future of Maine's Great North Woods. Their report is now available at http://www.crsf.umaine.edu/pdf/KeepingMainesForests_2009.pdf .
I haven't yet read the full report, but this doesn't sound like business as usual, some academic thing to be presented and filed away. It sounds serious, and promising. Pleasing all these constituents, from the environmental purists to the loggers, will be difficult but vital not only to the health of Maine but also to our collective spirits and psyches. I can't imagine what not having Maine's vast wilderness would mean except to predict impoverishment on all levels.
To keep it will undoubtedly involve the federal government. Apparently Interior Secretary Salazar on his recent visit to Maine expressed interest in helping, and the Department of Agriculture is also interested. Many Mainers don't want the feds anywhere near this (a common theme for 400 years), but like health care, there may be no other source of the money, the authority, and moral imperative to do the right thing. Left to themselves, individuals or even individual organizations will probably not rise above self-interest and strive for the greater good.
I haven't yet read the full report, but this doesn't sound like business as usual, some academic thing to be presented and filed away. It sounds serious, and promising. Pleasing all these constituents, from the environmental purists to the loggers, will be difficult but vital not only to the health of Maine but also to our collective spirits and psyches. I can't imagine what not having Maine's vast wilderness would mean except to predict impoverishment on all levels.
To keep it will undoubtedly involve the federal government. Apparently Interior Secretary Salazar on his recent visit to Maine expressed interest in helping, and the Department of Agriculture is also interested. Many Mainers don't want the feds anywhere near this (a common theme for 400 years), but like health care, there may be no other source of the money, the authority, and moral imperative to do the right thing. Left to themselves, individuals or even individual organizations will probably not rise above self-interest and strive for the greater good.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Fish free or die
Every once in a while I think of getting out rod and reel, putting on old running shoes, going down to the shore, wading out a bit, and casting out into the bay. It would be pure nostalgia: with my Minnesota grandparents pole-fishing from the shore for muddy southern bullheads or trolling in a boat for vicious northern pike; rowing with brothers and mother out into Big Star Lake in Michigan and casting for sunfish and bass; and the ultimate experience for a fifteen year-old Nick Adams wannabe, fly-casting for rainbows and browns in the Little South Branch of Michigan's Pere Marquette River. Of course I really haven't fished since, and the equipment is hopelessly out of date and probably all gummed up with age and would be ruined by the saltwater, and the shore would be treacherous with rockweed, and the water freezing even in August, and what would I catch anyway (if there's actually anything to be caught) except maybe those little mackerel that the osprey grab, and what does one do with a few inches of oil and bones?
Thank goodness the federal government has stepped in and is saving me from blithering reminiscence. To fish in the ocean in 2010, I would have to register and get a number. Fines are authorized for the failure to do. Licenses will undoubtedly be required in 2011. Tracking and questionnaires and research will follow.
Thanks, NOAA, you have reminded me that I'm an adult, that wistfulness is strong medicine best left to the professionals, that four hundred years of freedom are down the tubes in spite of the handy toll-free number and user-friendly website. Those kids fishing on the Rockland breakwater better get prepared for this new world. Every kind of fishing is a serious business, and even mackerel are precious enough to regulate.
Thank goodness the federal government has stepped in and is saving me from blithering reminiscence. To fish in the ocean in 2010, I would have to register and get a number. Fines are authorized for the failure to do. Licenses will undoubtedly be required in 2011. Tracking and questionnaires and research will follow.
Thanks, NOAA, you have reminded me that I'm an adult, that wistfulness is strong medicine best left to the professionals, that four hundred years of freedom are down the tubes in spite of the handy toll-free number and user-friendly website. Those kids fishing on the Rockland breakwater better get prepared for this new world. Every kind of fishing is a serious business, and even mackerel are precious enough to regulate.
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