Clear-Cutting Still Issue after Maine Referendum Fails
11/12/97
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Headline: Clear-Cutting Still Issue after Maine Referendum Fails
Source: The New York Times
Date: 11/12/97
AUGUSTA, Maine -- After almost three years of debate
and two referendums, Maine once again must decide
how to sort out the future of its 17 million acres of
forests.
Last week, Maine voters for the second time rejected a
compromise agreed to by the governor, big paper
companies and Maine's two largest environmental groups
to limit clear-cutting, in which loggers flatten acres
of trees.
"We're back to square one," Gov. Angus King told
reporters a few days after the vote.
Most of Maine's political establishment remains puzzled
about the eventual outcome, partly because the forces
that teamed up to defeat the compromise deal are fast
becoming enemies.
Mary Adams, who led a highly vocal group of
small-woodland owners and small loggers who opposed the
plan, was widely credited with adding strength to the
"no" vote.
Now that the compromise has been defeated, Mrs. Adams
said she thinks she can count on support from some
paper companies to block any meaningful restrictions on
clear-cutting.
But Jonathan Carter, the environmentalist who opposed
the compromise as not doing enough to restrict
clear-cutting, said that if Mrs. Adams expected to
block new restrictions, "I think she's headed down the
wrong path."
The state Speaker of the House, Elizabeth Mitchell,
said that the Legislature would probably consider at
least a dozen proposals to enact laws in place of the
referendums that have failed.
The problem, her aides said, is that no matter what the
Legislature enacts, one side or another may turn around
and petition for yet another referendum to overturn it.
The prospect of a third statewide vote over
clear-cutting is so worrisome that lawmakers are
expected to call on all sides to hammer out another
compromise.
But that, too, will prove difficult.
As State Sen. Marge Kilkelly, co-chairwoman of the
Legislature's forestry committee, put it, "I think it's
going to be very challenging, given the fact that there
is no clear message from the vote."
Carter said he thought that a compromise with paper
companies was possible.
He favors legislation that would bar clear-cutting but
give landowners tax breaks for good forestry practices.
The compromise in the referendum, known as the Compact
for Maine's Forests, was hammered out in arduous
negotiations last year, in time for a November
referendum which asked voters to choose from three
policies.
The choices were: a complete ban on clear-cutting in
the northern reaches of Maine, the compromise backed by
the governor or the continuation of widespread
clear-cutting. None received a clear majority.
So the compromise was put on last week's ballot.
The referendum, presented in 27 pages of complex
forestry rules amid a cross-fire of costly television,
newspaper and radio advertisements, barely won 48
percent of the vote this time.
Forests are part of an important industry in Maine,
covering more than 90 percent of the state. Lumber,
wood products and paper industries in the state produce
goods and services worth an estimated $4.7 billion
annually.
Also unresolved are controls on herbicide spraying and
related controversial forest-management practices in
Maine's woods.