WINTER HARBOR – Years ago, when Tom Sidar commented on the Schoodic Peninsula’s raw beauty to former Acadia National Park Superintendent Paul Haertel, the response shocked him.
Sidar said the scenic drive around this unique sliver of land was one of the most beautiful in the country.
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And Haertel replied, “It is the most beautiful,” recalls Sidar, director of the Frenchman Bay Conservancy.
Haertel, who worked at eight national parks over a 41-year career, said the coastal drive around Acadia’s lesser-known section is unparalleled in its rugged terrain, unusual natural features and wild beauty.
“I don’t know another in the country that is better, and there are a lot of beautiful shoreline drives. It’s about as pristine a drive and as pristine a view as could be had,” said Haertel, Acadia’s superintendent from 1994 to 2002.
But all that would change if the 3,200 acres north of the Schoodic section of Acadia National Park were developed into an “eco-tourism” resort, as many locals here feared three years ago.
Today, many are still worried.
In 2008, the threat of such a large-scale commercial development was at the forefront of news here as Italian millionaire Bruno Modena pursued plans for an eco-tourism complex with hotels, a golf course and carriage roads.
The project stalled after a public meeting in May 2008 in Winter Harbor, but the Modena family still owns the land, and some locals still fear they’ll develop it.
Efforts to reach the Modena family were unsuccessful, but across the country another Modena project is under way.
A New Mexico-based company owned by the Modenas, Augustin Plains Ranch LLC, has applied to withdraw water from an aquifer that serves communities in Catron County, N.M.
More than 1,000 people protested the application permit, said Bruce Frederick, who is representing the opponents.
“It’s enough water for a city of 300 to 400,000 inhabitants; that’s about half the water the city of Albuquerque uses,” said Frederick, of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center in Santa Fe, N.M.
Augustin Plains Ranch filed the application for water rights three years ago, about the time the Modenas left the Schoodic Peninsula project, after the town meeting in Winter Harbor.
Mike Saxl, a former speaker of the Maine House of Representatives who represented the Modenas at that time, said he believes a solution benefiting all sides is possible.
“I think the seeds of something came out of that town meeting for everybody. There is a pathway there to serve development, the park and community. That town needs to have alternatives to grow so the people can work,” said Saxl, managing principal at Maine Street Solutions in Augusta.
However, in the Acadia region, confusion and concern over the fate of the Schoodic Peninsula remain today.
“What the future of that project is, we don’t know,” said Acadia National Park Superintendent Sheridan Steele. “It’s an extremely important piece of property that if developed inappropriately would have a very negative impact on Acadia National Park. My vigilance is as high as it’s always been.”
The site plan developed for Bruno Modena and laid out in 2008 calls for hiking trails, carriage roads, a hotel, a lodge, a golf course, a boating center, a beaver ecology center and a bird-watching tower. How it would change the landscape around the Schoodic Peninsula is not completely clear, but it would certainly have an impact on that pristine Downeast landscape.
“I heard 850 villas and hotels and other kinds of things, houses and what have you,” Steele said Wednesday. “That would be at a scale that would be very unfortunate for the park. Development of that scale would dramatically change the character of the Schoodic Peninsula. And I don’t think anyone wants that.”
A week ago, it was just that message that Stephanie Clement of Friends of Acadia and Sidar of the Frenchman Bay Conservancy carried with them on a hike up Schoodic Head.
They looked out over the land owned by the Modenas and wondered if the face of this unusual part of Maine would be altered forever.
“When you stand here and look back, it puts everything that is at stake into perspective,” said Clement, the group’s conservation director. “The visitor experience here would change. You’d hear leaf blowers, golfers’ swings.”
Today you hear just the ocean. And standing atop Schoodic Head, signs of development are hard to find.
The precious sense of place here comes from the expansive views of Mount Desert Island’s hills across Frenchman Bay; the undeveloped, protected coastline around Schoodic Peninsula; and the rare, nesting-bird islands in the distance.
And all around Schoodic Peninsula are the small, undeveloped islands of Acadia National Park: Pond, Big Moose, Little Moose, Schoodic and Rolling islands.
But the future of this unique geological and protected piece of coastline, like the owners of the land near it, is a mystery.
“I think we can assume the economy slowed things down. What happens next is anybody’s guess,” Steele said.
Staff Writer Deirdre Fleming can be contacted at 791-6452 or at:
dfleming@pressherald.com
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