LEWISTON — Jonathan LaBonte spends his days searching for the sweet spot, trying to find the right balance between preserving the Androscoggin River as  a pristine waterway and keeping its corridor communities healthy.

“Imagine trying to catch an egg,” said LaBonte, the executive director of the Androscoggin Land Trust.

Halt the momentum too fast and the shell cracks and breaks on your fingers. Move too gently and it smashes against the floor.

“We must find the balance,” LaBonte said Thursday, lecturing at the Great Falls Forum. “And there is no grand plan right now.”

The 29-year-old environmentalist hopes his agency can keep the river corridor on the bubble.

The Androscoggin Land Trust manages 3,600 acres in 19 towns, including 9 miles of property on the river.

LaBonte’s lecture traced the river’s history, from the Native Americans to the industrial barons who created the mills in the Jay-Livermore Falls and Lewiston-Auburn areas.

The 19th-century industrialists radically changed the river. They dammed it up and polluted it with waste. In Jay, one of the falls known as either French or French’s Falls was removed.

“It was blasted out of the ground and pulled aside for the log drives,” LaBonte said.

In Lewiston, the mill operators diverted the river into canals.

One of the challenges for locals is to find new uses for the canals. There is also a question of how far back the communities should aim to restore the river. Some are contemplating the return of the blasted falls. Some dams could be removed.

“What course are we going to set going forward?” LaBonte asked.

He had no answers. Rather, he challenged people to find some.

“We have a landscape,” said LaBonte, who also serves as an Androscoggin County commissioner. “We need to reinvent it.”

One step is already under way, he said.

This year, the state plans to create its fifth-largest state park along the river: Androscoggin Riverlands State Park.

The new park is slated to take up 2,588 acres just north of Lewiston-Auburn. The land includes 2,258 acres along the west shore in Turner and 330 acres along the east shore in Leeds.

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