Companies Send Volunteers To Upgrade Trails in Debsconeag Lakes Wilderness Area

MILLINOCKET, MAINE—14 September 2006— Employees of J.M. Huber Corporation and Poland Springs are helping The Nature Conservancy improve recreational trails in its 46,000-acre Debsconeag Lakes Wilderness Area this fall. The trail work is part of the Conservancy’s commitment to protect the Wilderness Area and enhance the Katahdin region’s world-class opportunities for remote recreation including wildlife viewing, hiking, canoeing, hunting, fishing and backcountry camping.

The Huber volunteers will participate in a work day on Saturday, September 23rd, as part of the company’s long-standing Adopt-A-Preserve program. The program, founded by Huber and the Conservancy, encourages the company’s employees to volunteer on Conservancy lands around the country. In addition to donating its workers’ time, Huber gives the Conservancy a cash donation for every hour volunteered. More than a dozen Huber employees based in the company’s Old Town and Easton facilities plan to participate in this year’s work day, continuing a relationship between the company and the Conservancy in Maine that began over 30 years ago when Huber donated the 4,102-acre Crystal Bog Preserve.

“We’re a bunch of foresters who work in the woods all week, and then on these weekend workdays, we come back out to the woods to volunteer,” says Barry Burgason, an Ecologist with Huber Resources Corporation. “Huber employees in Maine are eager to get outside, build camaraderie, and give back to the local community by making the Conservancy’s preserves more accessible for recreational use.”

One of the first projects that trail workers will take on will be repairing or rerouting badly eroded sections of the Horse Race Brook trail. The work will improve footing on this popular trail that provides lake access for recreational fishing.

For the first time this year, Poland Springs is also sponsoring volunteer work days with the Conservancy. They will be in the Debsconeag Lakes Wilderness Area September 15th and 16th. Both volunteer efforts will supplement the work of experienced trail workers hired by the Conservancy to work in the DWLA this September and October.

The Conservancy will fund the trail work with a one-year grant awarded by the Maine Department of Conservation, Bureau of Public Lands. The grant is part of the State’s Recreational Trail Grant program.

“We’re planning to construct water bars to divert runoff on steep sections of trail, to create switchbacks to avoid steep slopes, and to reroute trails that go through sensitive wet areas,” says the Conservancy’s North Woods Program Director Bill Patterson. “This work will improve public access and minimize the impact of the trails on wildlife.”

In consultation with Millinocket area citizens and snowmobile clubs, The Conservancy has also identified the infamous “rock pile” on the ITS 86 connector south of First Debsconeag Lake as a priority for improvements this fall. Several sections of boulders make winter trail grooming difficult and limit the length of the snowmobile season. Conservancy workers will remove the boulders in coordination with the Twin Pines Snowmobile Club, which grooms the trail.

The Debsconeag Lakes Wilderness Area was purchased by the Conservancy in 2002 from Great Northern Paper as part of the Katahdin Forest Project. The Wilderness Area is home to the highest concentration of pristine, remote ponds in New England and includes 15 miles of the “100-mile wilderness” section of the Appalachian Trail. The DLWA is open to the public for traditional uses. Volunteers from the community are invited to help with the trail work.

“This trail work is part of the Conservancy’s commitment to long-term conservation and recreational access in the Katahdin region,” says Patterson. “This is just the first phase of several years of trail work we hope to conduct on the property.”

For more information on volunteer trail work, contact Bill Patterson at 729-5181 or wpatterson@tnc.org.