AUGUSTA (AP) – Two environmental groups led a group of Greenville-area residents Tuesday in asking Plum Creek Timber Co. to further revise its plan for a major residential development in northern Maine’s Moosehead lake area.

Speakers acknowledged that Plum Creek has already scaled back its original plan. While the revision still calls for 975 house lots, it removes lots from remote ponds and seeks to permanently protect more than 400,000 acres, which would also be kept open for hunting, fishing and other outdoor activities.

But Kevin Carley, executive director of Maine Audubon, said the Seattle-based company should pay closer attention to what local people want in order to make sure the project doesn’t spoil the pristine character and allure of the North Woods region.

Natural Resources Council of Maine Executive Director Brownie Carson, agreed, saying that developing Lily Bay and Prong Pond on the east side of Moosehead and Big W Township along the remote northern shore would threaten nature-based tourism in the area.

“Plum Creek still wants to put too much development in the wrong places, which would threaten the fundamental character of the region, drive up property taxes and fail to create the type of future economic growth that the area needs,” Carson said at a State House news conference.

An official for Plum Creek, which has submitted its revised plan to Maine’s Land Use Regulation Commission, said “we have been listening a lot” to those who have an interest in the development and that the public will get more chances to register its views during the regulatory process.

Jim Lehner, general manager of Plum Creek’s Northeast Region, said the company held four public scoping sessions since last year. He said that while Plum Creek is willing to listen, it is a business with private property and must have a plan that works for the company as well.

Critics of its revised plan called upon Plum Creek to relocate many of its housing lots from pristine areas around Maine’s largest lake to Greenville, where the company owns 8,000 acres.

The owner of a Greenville inn, Ruth McLaughlin, said many other business owners have questions about Plum Creek’s plans but are reluctant to voice them publicly.

“I have questions about the plan” McLaughlin said, adding she has “no clue” as to Plum Creek’s plans for its in-town acreage. But she also said she was optimistic that by working together, the two sides could agree on plans acceptable to both.

“We’re really not that far apart,” she said.

Another business owner, John Willard, suggested that Plum Creek scale back plans for housing lots near Brassua Lake, calling the waterway west of Moosehead “the most unspoiled body of water in the area.”

“I’m not against development,” said Willard, who has developed housing sites himself in the area and would not necessarily object if Plum Creek came back with plans for even more housing lots. “This plan I cannot support because it is not well-done,” he said.

Speakers also objected to plans for 35 house lots on the remote northern shore of Moosehead in Big W Township.

In the past weeks, critics have taken aim at television ads Plum Creek has been airing to promote its plan, which includes the largest subdivision proposal ever in Maine. The Natural Resources Council advanced its alternative plan earlier this year.

AP-ES-06-20-06 1459EDT

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