Backing still lacking for water district's proposed deed changes

BETHEL — The Bethel Water District's Board of Trustees continued Thursday to lobby for community support for its attempt to amend an 84-year-old deed trust prohibiting the district from harvesting more than $4,000 worth of timber per year in its watershed.

After 90 minutes of discussion with members of the Mahoosuc Land Trust, land trust officials decided to wait until after the Office of the Maine Attorney General decides the case, which will then head to court for a final decision.

"Our hands are in the slow-turning wheels of justice now," Water District Trustee Brent Angevine said during the meeting at the land trust office.

At similar meetings earlier this month, Bethel and Newry selectmen also adopted wait-and-see approaches.

The district would like to allow public access to the 2,384-acre Chapman Brook Watershed on the southern side of Barker Mountain in Newry.

In 1925, philanthropist William Bingham II of Cleveland, Ohio, gave 2,358 acres in Newry to the district's predecessor, the Bethel Water Co., with specific restrictions.

To protect the brook's purity, Bingham restricted activities such as wood harvesting only to the extent that it be used to pay taxes on the land.

However, in June 2007, a severe rainstorm destroyed the watershed, which was the district's primary water supply for Bethel for more than a century.

Recently, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services's Drinking Water Program authorized the district to use the watershed as an auxiliary or emergency backup water source, Angevine said.

The catastrophe forced the district to find a new primary water source for Bethel, which it did a few miles away.

The district maintains that because the watershed was destroyed and its water quality no longer is as pure as it was in Bingham's time, they should be able to amend the deed trust to harvest more timber than allowed.

"There's roughly a million dollars worth of standing timber in there and the trust limits them to a $4,000 timber harvest, and the Bethel Water District wants to take $20,000 worth of timber out," state Rep. Jarrod S. Crockett, R-Bethel, said after the meeting.

Water District trustees asked Crockett to submit a bill to the Legislature to facilitate the amendments on behalf of Bethel residents. Crockett said he had submitted the title, but had yet to draft the language.

Angevine said the trustees discussed the district's position on the bill and decided to vote on any changes to it at the next scheduled trustees meeting.

However, Crockett said he decided to withdraw the bill, but didn't elaborate.

The district wants to use proceeds from the timber harvest to install new pipe across the Androscoggin River to provide West Bethel residents with good-quality water rather than increasing taxes or water-rate fees for Bethel residents.

"That is important to me," Crockett said of the district's goal, "because they want to put in pipe for water to West Bethel without fee or tax increases to Bethel. The public access thing is just cream on top of it."

Crockett said opening the watershed to public access would be good for tourism. He said he would work with the attorney general for a better interpretation of Bingham's deed.

"I'm really pleased with the Bethel Water District's transparent approach to this, and I'm still going to fight for public access to these lands," Crockett said. "Eco-tourism and putting trails in the area are good things for our community."

tkarkos@sunjournal.com