With all three entities on board, Maine’s Department of Conservation is moving ahead with its plan to locate a new boat launch site on Sebago Lake in Standish.
The Department of Conservation, the Portland Water District and the town of Standish appear to be acting cooperatively in the venture, which would locate a new, multi-lane boat launch outside the district’s two-mile no-bodily-contact zone in Lower Bay. The launch would include bathrooms and other amenities and would be free to the public.
The district hopes the proposed launch will divert most of the boating traffic away from the current launch, located at the end of Northeast Road Extension, off Route 35 in Sebago Lake Village. The town and the district have been at odds for years over this site because of its proximity to the district’s intake pipes within the two-mile zone. In fact, the district would like to close the site altogether and turn it into an ecology park.
But Standish has vigorously opposed that idea. To that end, Town Manager Gordon Billington and the Town Council have put a condition on their support of a new boat launch.
“We said we would not oppose another boat launch if they would give us the assurance that they would not attempt to close the existing launch,” Billington said.
The town requested a written guarantee from the state that the site would not be closed.
During Monday’s meeting of the district’s Board of Trustees, George Powell, the department’s director of public access, said he had drafted the letter Standish requested and it was being reviewed by the attorney general’s office prior to being signed by the governor.
Once the letter is signed, the department plans to move forward with an agreement to purchase a parcel of land from the district, using grant money they hope to receive from the Land for Maine’s Future water access fund.
The department has its eyes on two locations: Sheesley-Abbott, situated off of Route 35 at the two-mile limit line, and Rogers Farm, located farther north off Whites Bridge Road near Saint Joseph’s College.
In a recent interview, Powell said they had also looked at a property that was not owned by the district but its asking price was more than $2 million.
“We’ve been talking to the PWD about an arrangement where they would sell us property at a discount,” Powell said.
Although Powell preferrs the Rogers Farm site, he said neither was without its own set of problems. According to Billington, the town would prefer the Sheesley-Abbott location.
Once a site is chosen, Standish must still make changes to the code before any design can be approved. But Powell is hopeful that with the town’s involvement, the department, and the public, will have a new boat launch by the fall of 2007.
“It will be a benefit to the water district and it will also help to void the conflict that we feel was causing a lot of the animosity from the citizens of Standish,” Powell said.
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