FALMOUTH — One October day, 26 years ago, I drove from Falmouth to Millinocket to meet the chair of the Maine Legislature’s Joint Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, then-state Rep. Michael Michaud. I was worried about the coming conversation for several reasons.

I had been Maine Audubon’s executive director for only six months, having moved from England to take the position. I was very clearly from away, and I was unsure how I would find common ground with the powerful Democratic representative from East Millinocket.

Another strike against me was my organization’s history with Michaud’s employer, the Great Northern Paper Co. Only two years before, Maine Audubon had been locked in a bitter struggle with Great Northern over damming a stretch of the West Branch of the Penobscot called the Big A. Feelings on both sides still ran high.

Finally, the object of my visit was to ask him to sponsor the Maine Forest Practices Act, the first piece of legislation to try to regulate forestry in Maine. The lightning rod in the bill was clear-cutting – a practice that, incidentally, Great Northern was using more than any other paper company in Maine. We were asking a lot of Michaud, and as I entered the diner where we were to meet, I was far from sanguine.

My apprehensions were blown away scarcely before we sat down. Rep. Michaud put me at ease immediately. He was courteous and sincere, knowledgeable and frank (we quickly dismissed the elephant in the room, the Big A). And above all, he was obviously concerned and informed about the environment.

Fast forward six months: It was Mike Michaud who introduced L.D. 429, An Act to Implement Sound Forest Practices, in the Legislature. In the intervening time, he had worked carefully with Audubon’s forestry staff to get the details right.

Another Audubon priority was legislation to conserve sensitive natural resources. Again, Rep. Michaud helped consolidate and strengthen Maine’s laws protecting wetlands and significant wildlife habitat.

Other important environmental issues for which he sponsored or co-sponsored bills dealt with:

• Solid waste. It’s easy to forget that Maine at that time was littered with unprotected dumps that were fouling our streams and aquifers.

• Chlorofluorocarbons. The international ban on CFCs started coming into force only in 1989, and the chemicals were still prevalent in materials such as foam boards.

• “Color, odor, foam” in parts of Maine’s rivers. These were the result of effluent from paper mills.

It’s worth remembering that as a young man, Mike Michaud first ran for legislative office because of what he saw the paper mills (including his employer) doing to Maine’s rivers. By the time I left Maine Audubon, Michaud, by then a state senator, was chair of the Joint Appropriations Committee and shortly afterward became president of the Senate.

Through all that time, he remained the same courteous and sincere gentleman I met in Millinocket, always ready to listen to and discuss our point of view, and generally to offer his help.

Recently, one gubernatorial candidate tried to torpedo Mike’s environmental record by resurrecting his support for the Big A dam in the mid-1980s. No question about it: On that one big issue, Michaud was on the opposite side. But it didn’t stop him from working on the River Reclassification Act the same year.

When it comes to something as constantly in flux as the environment, men and women of good conscience can and do reach different conclusions. Environmentalists differ with each other all the time, sometimes quite heatedly. Personally, I am impressed by leaders who do not let disagreement on one issue stand in the way of cooperation on others in the search for good policymaking.

Mike Michaud has always been a clean water champion, and his record has rightly earned him the endorsement of Maine Conservation Voters, Environment Maine and the Sierra Club, the three state environmental organizations whose nonprofit status allows them to come out for a political candidate.

When it comes to the environment and the governor’s race, no one has demonstrated greater commitment or as compelling a record as Mike.

— Special to the Press Herald