GREENE – Jeff Levesque pointed across the lake to a spot of water that shimmered in the day’s dying light.

“That’s where my nephew caught his first trout” five years ago, Levesque said.

Soon, though, all the fish may be gone.

A crude boat launch at a private campground has for years provided the public with its only trailer access to Allen Pond. But the developer who recently bought the site for a 13-lot subdivision plans only private use of the boat launch.

Citing state policy, biologists say that means they probably will no longer stock the 183-acre pond with the hundreds of brook and brown trout that they have released there every year since 1944.

“That’s a major loss,” Levesque said, shaking his head.

Levesque owns a modest cottage on the lake’s west bank, but the loss of access to others will mean a loss of stocked fish, and that will mean yet another loss for Maine fishermen. “Sportsmen are losing out on traditional access all over the place,” he said.

No access, no stocking

The experience at Allen Pond marks the latest in a growing trend for Maine’s lakes.

“It’s not an isolated incident,” said Bob Williams, federal assistance coordinator at the state’s Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. “It’s happening in a lot of places.”

One example: In the late 1990s, a developer bought a campground fronting Branch Lake in Ellsworth. Two years later, the only public boat ramp was chained off. The other two dozen launch sites on the lake were already privately owned and closed to the public. After stocking the lake for 58 years, state officials suspended the program.

“Our department position is,” Williams said, “we’re not supposed to stock waters … unless the public can get there and benefit from that investment.”

The state has incomplete data on the total actual loss of access to Maine’s inland waters. By and large, much of the access historically has been over private land, with landowners allowing boaters and sportsmen access for free or a fee. State officials say they have not kept a running count of those private access points.

What is known: There are more than 5,000 lakes in Maine totaling nearly 1 million acres but only 420 publicly owned boat access points, some on the same body of water, according to officials at the Maine Department of Conservation. The ratio illustrates the significance of access over private land.

But with more and more landowners shutting off access, especially in southern and central Maine, the access battle is harder fought each year, sportsmen say.

What’s behind it all? In a word: Development.

An access nightmare’

Waterfront real estate prices have skyrocketed as more people want to own water property. Seasonal bungalows are being converted to year-round homes. The spread of invasive plants has prompted lakeshore property owners to discourage outside boaters. And resistance to outsiders by neighbors is as strong as ever, say those whose job it is to maintain existing or secure new access to Maine’s lakes and ponds.

Meanwhile, many towns are gradually restricting municipal boat launches to local residents, fearing overcrowding as local demand for access grows.

“We may never get on some lakes again,” Williams said.

A colonial ordinance dating back hundreds of years guarantees the public’s right to cross “unimproved” property to reach Maine’s great ponds – natural bodies of water 10 acres or larger which are state owned – for fishing or fowling.

But over the past decade, landowners have been busy expanding existing homes around the lake and clearing woods to build new ones, cutting off those traditional access points.

“It’s just a nightmare,” said George Smith, president of the Sportsmen’s Alliance of Maine, or SAM.

A 1996 state report proposed a strategic plan for stemming the losses, said George Powell, director of boating facilities at the Department of Conservation. Both the DOC and IF&W now target federal money to help secure public access. In addition, one-tenth of a $50 million Land for Maine’s Future bond, or $5 million, has been set aside for that purpose. Because of all that, in the last 10 years the state has purchased 58 access points.

Even with these programs, Williams said the state is having trouble keeping pace.

One of the roadblocks, he said, is a cumbersome governmental approval process that takes months before state officials can even get the go-ahead to bid on a property.

“It’s damn near impossible to think the quality piece of land is going to stay on the market” that long before it’s snapped up by a private investor, he said.

One broker who showed him a lakeside boat launch site turned around and bought the parcel himself, then flipped it for a profit.

“It’s a tough racket, no doubt about it,” Williams said. And now, with a shaky stock market and low interest rates, prime real estate is gobbled up faster than ever.

Sprawl is partly to blame for the loss of public access, the phenomenon marked by urban and suburban residents flocking to outlying areas.

“The more people who locate themselves on a pond, the more they want to keep the public out,” SAM’s Smith said.

Thompson Lake

One example of the high level of pressure lakefront owners can exert on public access can be seen at central Maine’s Thompson Lake. Six years ago, the state bought 25 acres fronting Potash Cove at the southern tip of Thompson Lake in Poland with plans for a new boat launch and a 28-space parking lot.

IF&W officials argued it was needed to provide a safer and more permanent alternative to the four other smaller launch sites located elsewhere on the 4,400-acre lake, which touches on four towns.

Three of the current boat ramps are municipally owned, and do or could limit access to residents. And parking is tight, state officials said. The fourth is a privately owned marina where cars pulling trailers must back into the main road and where parking it limited, though recently expanded.

But opposition to the proposal galvanized quickly. Neighbors and other lake homeowners raised concerns and eventually formed the Citizens for the Preservation of Thompson Lake, which now boasts membership of more than 100 people. And they hired a lawyer.

The group has questioned the marine-side safety of the proposed launch, noting its shallow waters, presence of boulders nearby and prevailing onshore winds.

They also worry about litter, the need for toilet facilities and after-hours security, said Fred Walther, one of the group’s members and a waterfront homeowner at Potash Cove.

Walther said he and other homeowners feel the state is trying to steamroll its plans through the town.

“I have never heard of anybody having trouble getting a boat onto Thompson Lake,” he said.

Also holding up the project is the local planning board, which has argued that the state should be subject to the same review and permitting process as any other property owner seeking approval, according to the town’s ordinances.

Williams said state agencies typically do not follow the same bureaucratic process as private builders. He also noted that the town’s own comprehensive plan calls for expanded public access to Thompson Lake.

Francis Brautigam, a marine biologist at the department’s Gray headquarters, said he has heard the list of issues cited by Walther before.

“Those are very common concerns and to the extent possible we do try to address legitimate concerns on access projects,” he said.

The water depth and boulder obstruction issues are not any more of a problem at that site than any other state boat ramp site in the state, he said. “They do meet our needs.”

And the need for toilets would be based on level of use. If the site were to meet a certain threshold, installation of toilets would be considered.

But disagreement over the proposal has cooled.

The Department’s new Commissioner Roland Martin has put the project on hold, citing more pressing matters facing the department.

“We’ve got plenty of battles in front of us,” Williams said. “We don’t need a new one.”

No trespassing

Back in Greene, Levesque said he can see the benefits of shutting down the campground at Allen Pond. He has no doubts the new developers will improve the 26-acre site.

Some neighbors to the former campground felt the makeshift decks and porches tacked onto a vast array of recreational vehicles in various states of disrepair created an eyesore. Add to that spectacle the sometimes rowdy nature of the campers.

Levesque and his wife often took walks through the area off season, but stayed away during the summer, he said.

Jim Bisesti, who bought the former Allen Pond campground with three other investors, said he would like to see the state continue stocking the lake.

“I have a vested interest in seeing it stay under state auspices,” he said, referring to the upscale home lots he hopes to sell, as well as the home he already owns there.

Because the campground’s boat ramp had been privately owned before he bought it and will continue to be, Bisesti feels the state should not view it differently and should not stop stocking the pond.

He has talked to state and local officials about his plans. He said his understanding from town officials is that he is under no obligation to find a way to provide public access to the former campground ramp. The town’s Conservation Committee is planning to meet next week to discuss the issue.

Besides, he said, across the lake to the north is a spot where the public can carry in small boats.

But John Boland, director of operations for the fisheries division at IF&W, said Bisesti’s argument does not hold water, that the status of his property will change because non-owners of lakefront property will no longer have access to the pond for their full-size motorboats via Bisesti’s property. The quarter-acre site has few parking spaces and no ramp.

“That’s where we’ll likely disagree,” Boland said. “We’re looking for equal opportunity for anglers, and a carry-in site likely won’t cut it.”

“Basically, what’s happened is sprawl has hit us now,” said Levesque, on Allen Pond. It used to be most people in Maine could afford a summer cottage. “Now it’s only for the privileged and wealthy.”

Before climbing into his motorized canoe, Levesque pointed to a black and orange “No Trespassing” sign tacked to the end of a dock next to the campground’s boat launch.

“The world’s changing,” he said.

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