WELD – Officials will hold a public meeting Thursday to discuss a selective harvest of about 117 acres at Mt. Blue State Park during the coming winter.

The Legislature approved what it calls forest demonstrations by the Bureau of Parks and Lands, a division of the Maine Department of Conservation, as a way to augment the bureau’s budget without compromising the integrity of the park, Jim Crocker, director of public information for the department, said on Friday.

State law allows timber harvesting in state parks for use within parks, for wildlife habitat improvement, for fire, insect or disease control, for recreation or aesthetic improvements, and for forest management demonstration areas, Crocker said.

The meeting is scheduled to run from 7 to 9 p.m., Thursday at the Weld Town Hall.

The demonstration project will be on about 1.5 percent of the park’s 5,020 total acreage. The top goal is educational, to display responsible and sustainable forestry practices, Crocker said.

Goals for the demonstration project are to:

protect ecologically sensitive sites

enhance aesthetic appeal for recreation

foster vigorous stands, large trees, and long-lived species

provide diverse, productive wildlife habitat

protect water quality

illustrate best management practices

employ sustainable forestry practices.

The harvest will also provide financial support to the bureau’s 2006-07 budget, Crocker said.

During state budget deliberations, the bureau was given a reduction target of about $1.9 million for the 2006-07 biennium. When the bureau was looking for cuts, it was faced with either raising fees or eliminating people, Crocker said.

The Legislature decided instead of closing parks because of having fewer workers, forest management demonstration projects could increase revenue and help offset the shortfall, Crocker said.

The state plans for the shortfall to be made up in part from timber sales, which it sees accounting for about 25 percent or $500,000 of the $1.9 million budget shortfall, depending on the quality of the saw logs, he said.

Fees were also raised on beach parks, he said.

The demonstration forest management projects include three parks across Maine encompassing 1,400 acres at Mt. Blue, Range Pond State Park in Androscoggin County and Lily Bay State Park at Moosehead Lake in Piscataquis County.

Selective harvesting of about 480 acres or 65 percent of Range Pond park in Poland was completed this spring, Crocker said.

Loggers will be invited to examine what’s to be cut at Mt. Blue State Park and submit a bid of what they’re willing to pay for the timber, Crocker said.

In the Mt. Blue park, which spans Weld and Avon and had 60,400 visitors this year through October, the state plans to harvest red pine, white spruce and white pine trees along with a stand of Norway spruce, a European exotic species and non-native to the park, Crocker said.

There were numerous plantations established at Mt. Blue in the 1940s and 1950s when non-native species were introduced to the land, he said. The coming harvest offers an opportunity to demonstrate plantation management and restoration of native forest conditions, Crocker said.

People taking advantage of the park’s multi-use trails will be able to see a diverse array of forest conditions while the harvesting is being done.

The project will include a new trail head information kiosk, updated display at the campground nature center and site tours.

The Lily Bay park in the Moosehead Lake area will eventually have 312 acres of about 1,000 in the park selectively cut.

Thursday’s public meeting is a way to describe the project to abutters and others and get their input on the Weld project.

“We want people to know what’s going on and to make sure everybody’s voice is heard,” Crocker said.

When timber was harvested in Mt. Blue State Park in the 1990s, Jonathan Carter of Lexington Township and other Green Party members filed a suit against the state and Timberlands Inc. of Dixfield in 1995. That suit was dismissed by the court in 1997, according to Sun Journal archives.

The plaintiffs wanted the court to end a four-year tree harvest and to order Timberlands to reimburse the state for the value of the wood taken from public land due to timber sales exceeding the terms of the company’s 1966 contract with the state, which expired at the end of 1996.

The contract deeded 30-year cutting rights on 1,000 park acres to the company in exchange for 17 acres on Webb Lake next to the Mt. Blue State Park camping area.

The lawsuit had argued that the state should be reimbursed because the agreement called for a harvest equal in value to the 17 acres. But Justice John R. Atwood ruled that because the cutting ceased and because Timberlands had a contract with the state to harvest wood in the park, the plaintiffs lacked standing to pursue a lawsuit.

Timberlands had cut wood in the park from 1967 to 1972 and then took a 20-year hiatus. In 1992, the company was given the go-ahead by state officials to cut 10,800 more cords of wood over four winters beginning in 1993.

The harvest immediately inspired high-profile protest by forest activists from around the state, with protester camped out in the woods and blocked access roads.

Several protesters were arrested and jailed during the second year of harvest and logging operations were briefly shut down by protesters.

In July 1995, after harvesting 85 percent of the wood in its cutting plan, Timberlands signed the remaining rights over to the Webb Lake Association as a “gift of timber” to the town.