AUGUSTA (AP) – A Maine legislative committee’s members are divided in four ways over a plan to add the 6,015-acre Katahdin Lake parcel to Baxter State Park, complicating efforts to win the full Legislature’s approval of the land deal.

The Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry voted on the measure Thursday, sending it to the Legislature for debate. But a major sticking point – whether to allow hunting and other outdoor activities in the new parcel – remained unsettled.

Some members of the committee want to bar hunting in Katahdin Lake altogether, in keeping with long-standing rules in the present 200,000-acre Baxter wilderness park.

A majority of the committee members agree in general terms on a plan to allow hunting in the northern 1,975-acre portion of Katahdin Lake, but not in the southern 4,040 acres around Katahdin Lake.

However, the majority is divided on a smaller issue: whether the park should groom perimeter roads for snowmobiles.

With the committee split so many ways, some lawmakers say that it may be hard to persuade the full Legislature to authorize the land deal. A two-thirds vote is needed.

“It’s become so cluttered … that I don’t know how on Earth we’re going to be able to sell it to the rest,” said Rep. Donald Marean, a Hollis Republican who opposed allowing dual uses in Katahdin Lake and supported adding all of the land to the park.

Democratic Rep. Joanne Twomey of Biddeford, said, “Everybody’s trying to get their little piece. The losers are the people of the state of Maine.”

The transaction needs legislative approval because it involves the sale of 7,400 acres of state-owned forest land. It also depends on $14 million in money that is being raised from private sources. No public funds are involved.

Sen. Bruce Bryant, D-Dixfield, is opposing the Katahdin Lake bill altogether because he is against the sale of state-owned forests.

Another committee member, co-chairman Rep. John Piotti, was more upbeat that others on the bill’s prospects. “We all know that this is only the beginning,” the Unity Democrat said.