By Doug Fletcher,Staff Writer

TURNER – About a mile of waterfront along the Androscoggin River could be among the next Land for Maine’s Future acquisitions.

The state Department of Conservation wants the 328 acres added to the Androscoggin Riverlands, said Ralph Knoll, deputy director of the Bureau of Parks and Lands.

Tim Glidden, who heads up the Land for Maine’s Future project under the State Planning Office, said the LMF board could take action on the parcel once funding becomes available.

The Portland-based Trust for Public Lands has signed an option to buy it from Dr. Kenneth Wolf, an eye specialist with a practice in Lewiston. Wolf said the option runs through April.

Key to the deal is funding. The LMF program is essentially broke. Voters will be asked to approve a $12 million bond to refill LMF’s coffers in one of the state’s Nov. 8 referendums.

Wolf had once proposed using the land, which can be reached by road behind Twitchell’s Airport, for a housing development.

“That’s when I was young and foolish,” he said Monday morning. “Now, I’d like to see it preserved.”

The parcel is wooded – it was last logged about 20 years ago – and features “a diverse habitat,” Wolf said.

It would also offer river access for boaters and fishers, and allow the state to expand the multiuse trail system that follows along the river for miles.

Riverlands project

LMF’s existing Androscoggin Riverlands project covers more than 2,200 acres in Turner and Leeds, which are managed by the Bureau of Parks and Lands. The Riverlands property features about 15 miles of multiuse trails popular with ATV and snowmobile enthusiasts and eight miles of trails dedicated solely to hiking.

The parcel’s Homestead Trail offers walkers a chance to explore both the area and its history as the trail makes its way past the foundations of homes that once lined the river’s shores. The houses were razed in the late 1920s to make way for rising waters when Central Maine Power Co. build the Gulf Island dam.

The community effort that led to the state’s purchase of the Riverlands also spawned the Androscoggin Land Trust, a nonprofit that continues to work to protect riverfront and open space lands.

Mike Auger, who does stewardship work for the trust, said the property “has been on our radar screen forever.” He said the group is “very enthusiastic about this opportunity to protect it.”

He also noted that Androscoggin Land Trust has worked with Land for Maine’s Future on projects other than the Riverlands. Land around Hooper Pond in Greene and the Packard-Littlefield Farm in Lisbon were preserved through its efforts, Auger said.

Wolfe Tone, project manager for the Trust for Public Lands, said it and the Androscoggin Land Trust are working actively to help secure the additional funding needed to seal the deal. He noted LMF would only have enough funds to join in a partnership that would be buying the property.

Natural piece’

Tone called the land “a natural piece of the puzzle” extending the Riverlands. He said its water frontage includes several coves that attract waterfowl. It also features some mature and moderate growth forestlands, a stand of pines and some wetlands. An abundance of wildlife lives there or moves through the area.

Glidden said the ballot question No. 5 – the $12 million LMF bond issue – would raise $8 million for general land acquisition of properties like the Turner property. Another $2 million would be earmarked for preserving coastal lands, $1 million for farmlands and $1 million for boat-launch acquisitions.

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