December 8, 2016 Meeting of West Bay Rotary

Etienne introduced John Kelly from Acadia National Park who works for the National Park Service and has lived and raised three sons in Bar Harbor after moving there from Boston.

Acadia had its busiest summer yet in 2016.  He talked about the Park Service and the plans for it and Acadia, one of 413 National Parks.  St. Croix Island is also a national park in Maine, and the newest in Maine is the Katahdin Woods adjacent to Baxter State Park.

Acadia consists of over 80 islands and the Schoodic Peninsula.  It was a gift of 100’s of individual parcels patched together and not a gift of federal lands. The park includes about 14,000 acres of islands in conservation reaching from Schoodic Peninsula to Isle Au Haut.  Management is challenging with that geography. Protecting the areas while also promoting a high-quality visitor experience is at the heart of that challenge, and is at the heart of their transportation plan.

Visitor trends in the past 10 years have increased so much that parking and congestion is a problem.  Acadia being one of the most visited and relatively small is part of their challenge, too. Cruise ships have added to that burden, while not adding vehicles, adding thousands of people.

The Island Explorer system was established in 1999 as the result of a planning process, now has 28 buses, 8 routes, and serves MDI and mainland communities and has been very successful.   There’s a new campground being constructed in the Schoodic area of the park, and a new transportation plan is in the works to provide safe and efficient transportation in the face of these challenges.  The plan started in 2015, and is in the public outreach process.  There’s a link to the planning ideas on the park’s website.  The final plans is scheduled for release in the Fall of 2018.  Some of the ideas include reservation systems for parking at the highly visited areas like Sand Beach, top of Cadillac, Jordan Pond House, Thunder Hole. Control the number of buses, routes and times.

The Knox County Homeless Coalition will match gifts from the club for the Adopt-a-Family program through the buckets on the table for December. Terry Bregy provided an update on Christmas Tree sales, which are ahead of prior years.  This Saturday they have slots Saturday afternoon and both slots on Sunday.  This weekend historically has been the most sales, so help is critical. So far, we’ve grossed $10,000.  There may be a higher level of needle drop due to the drought situation for this past year affecting local trees.