PORTLAND—Today Environment Maine Research & Policy Center released "Hollow Framework: Plum Creek’s Doublespeak," a report that highlights the discrepancies between Plum Creek’s public relations campaign and the facts of its development and conservation plans.
Plum Creek’s proposed development’s impacts are harsh, certain, and irreversible, while Plum Creek’s framework lacks guarantees, is limited in both scope and scale, and allows for even larger-scale development at Moosehead Lake down the road.
“Plum Creek is misleading the public about its Conservation Framework,” said Heidi Overbeck, Preservation Associate for Environment Maine Research & Policy Center. “While the framework has been very successful at garnering positive press for Plum Creek, most of its conservation promises are illusory.”
Similarly, while LURC requires that a plan protect “those resources in need of protection,”[1] Plum Creek’s framework fails to protect some of the most vital ecological and recreational areas in the region.
“We have serious concerns about Plum Creek’s misleading public relations campaign following their recent ‘conservation framework’ announcement. Environment Maine Research & Policy Center has raised some important questions about the actual extent and permanence of conservation as it relates to the as yet unseen development proposal,” said Karen Woodsum of the Maine Sierra Club.
[1] Land Use Regulation Commission, ch. 10, § 10.23(H)(6)(d),(e),(g).
