This is a video recording of a hybrid in-person and virtual meeting of the Acadia National Park Advisory Commission on February 6th, 2023 at the Machias Savings Bank, Bar Harbor, Maine. Agenda topics included: Superintendent’s update, visitation recap from 2022, construction projects and reservation system updates, and resource restoration project updates and plans for the 2023 field season. Reports from Friends of Acadia and Schoodic Institute and a public comment period are also included.
Acadia National Park Advisory Commission Meeting
Machias Savings Bank, Bar Harbor, ME
February 06, 1:00 p.m.
Attendance:
Ben ‘Lee’ Worcester, Chair
G. Bruce Wiersma, Vice Chair
Fred Ehrlenbach, Member
Jacqueline Johnston, Member
Carolyn Gothard, Member
Ken Smith, Member
Kendall Davis, Member
Howie Motenko, Member
Bonnie Newsom, Member
Matt Horton, Member
Stephen Shea, Member
Kevin Schneider, Superintendent, ANP
Brandon Bies, Deputy Superintendent, ANP
Ben McKay, Acting Chief of Visitor & Resource Protection, ANP
Dan Meggison, Facilities Project Manager, ANP
Amanda Pollock, Public Affairs Officer, ANP
John Kelly, Management Assistant, ANP
Jesse Wheeler, Natural Resource Specialist
Adam Gibson, Social Scientist, ANP
Stephanie Clement, Vice President of Conservation, Friends of Acadia
Nick Fisichelli, President & CEO, Schoodic Institute
Congressional Representatives
Members of the Public
Staff of ANP
News Media
Absent Members:
Katherine Heidinger
Platform: In-person & Virtual via Zoom
Opening Remarks:
The Commission Chair, Ben (Lee) Worcester, was not feeling well and attended virtually. He asked the Vice Chair, G. Bruce Wiersma, to lead the meeting on his behalf. Bruce Wiersma called the meeting of the Acadia National Park Advisory Commission, Monday, February 06, 2023, 1:00 p.m. to order.
Approval of the Agenda
A motion was made by Fred Ehrlenbach and seconded by Jackie Johnston to accept the agenda for the February 06, 2023, meeting; all approved as is, no opposed. Motion carries.
Approval of the Minutes
A motion was made by Ken Smith and seconded by Kendall Davis to accept the minutes of September 12, 2022. All approved, no opposed, two abstain (Shea, Newsom) Motion carries.
Superintendant's Report
Kevin Schneider, Superintendent
Welcome – Kevin Schneider
Introductions
(Kevin Schneider)
Welcome and thank you to Matt Horton for arranging for the Advisory Commission to meet here in the community room at Machias Savings Bank. We had to change locations due to water damage and potential mold contamination from the roof leaking. Thank you for your hospitality.
Introduction of Bonnie Newsom, our new ANP Advisory Commission member, was appointed by the Secretary of the Interior two weeks ago. Bonnie is a Professor at the University of Maine.
Introduction of Amanda Pollock, our new public affairs officer. Amanda will cover media relations, partnership issues, Freedom of Information Act, and other community matters. Amanda joins us from the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom in the Boston area.
Introduction of Ben McKay, Acting Chief Ranger in Visitor & Resource Protection. Ben joins us for the next four months to help us out while we work to fill the position. Ben comes from Zion National Park, where he is the Deputy Chief Ranger.
Last, Jennifer Pierce is not here today but is our Acting Chief of Interpretation. She came to us from Minute Man National Historical Park in the Boston area. Jennifer has been with us for the last two months and will be here for another couple of months. She is on a four-month detail with us while we work to fill the Chief of Interpretation position.
Park Updates
(Kevin Schneider)
Legislation to allow for the Town Hill parcel in Acadia National Park to be transferred to Bar Harbor passed in December. Thank you to our Delegation for getting that through Congress. It was passed in one session of Congress, which is great. It allows for us to transfer forty acres of the fifty-five-acre parcel to the town of Bar Harbor to be used for workforce housing for the communities on Mount Desert Island. The park would retain 15 acres that we would use for administrative purposes, mainly employee housing. The next steps are to do a site survey, resolve access questions, and transfer the land to the town. We want to understand what is developable, where the wetlands are, and create a comprehensive picture of how to divide the parcel so everyone has buildable acreage. We really appreciate the support of the delegation in getting this done. Staff hiring – we are actively working lists of candidates for summer seasonal positions. This is going to be another challenging year. Last year, we had 116 summer employees from the 150-165 we wanted to hire. We were shorthanded due to inflation, seasonal salaries are comparable or below many of the frontline positions in our communities; the application timeline and slow, involved, hiring process; and shortage of housing. We are working on addressing these housing issues and working with Friends of Acadia to create additional housing capacity. We also have some budget proposals that we put forward to address housing, as well. I am hopeful we will be able to improve the circumstances.
Construction updates – We have an active construction season coming our way. We expect an award on our new maintenance building eminently, in a week or two.
The Cadillac Summit Road is under construction for repaving and culvert replacement, to make them compatible with future climate conditions. Work began in the fall; we closed the road early to the public on November 15th and the contractor was able to begin work. We reopened the road to hikers and snowmobilers right before the new year for the winter season when work could not continue. We anticipate closing it again in mid-to late February when the weather allows for the contractor to continue with culvert replacement. The weather needs to get warm for asphalt and re-pavement to occur. We anticipate it will be closed until mid-May. It normally opens April 15th when Park Loop Road opens. We expect it to reopen on May 11th to vehicles, however, there may be a couple of short closures in the month of May if they are not able to get the paving completed in that timeframe. We realize it is an impact to visitors but it is some important deferred maintenance work. We're going to communicate changes and updates on our website. We'll get a news release out with information as soon as we know it. That's an important project.
Updates on Construction/Maintenance Projects
(Dan Meggison)
We are rehabilitating the water-waste water system at Schoodic which is a big project that consists of pipe replacement for wastewater and sewer, which has been getting a lot of rainwater and ground water into the systems. It is through the Legacy Restoration Fund[Great America Outdoors Act], which is through the Department of the Interior. We are replacing 4-inch sewer lines, putting in a new Skater system to monitor and control the system electronically remotely. They will demo the wellhouse and replace with a new wellhouse, which will be propane powered and propane generator. The line from the wellhouse to the treatment center will be replaced, which is about 3700 feet. The Skatersystem will help turn on and off the well, as needed, and the generator control system. We hope to have minimal impact to the public, visitors, and operations at Schoodic. A local contractor, Harold McQuinn, was awarded the contract.
There are several other projects in the works but they have not been awarded yet.
Duckbrook Bridge is almost complete. They are installing a skywalk in the bridge and it’s prewired for electricity for routine maintenance and inspections. The project had to be shut down during the winter. The project is through the Federal Highways program and should be completed by early summer
2022 Park Visitation
Adam Gibson
Presented a PowerPoint (overview)
Visitation past two years compared to a pre-pandemic average of 2015-2019
2021 – 4,069,098 visits
2022 – 3,970,202 visits (2.4% difference from 2021, 20% higher than pre-pandemic average)
Changes in our seasonality:
Off-season visitation is approaching on-season visitation. 10 years ago, summer visitation was significantly higher that off-season visitation with a 65/35 split as compared to the current 55/45 split.
The current off-season visitation is about 25% higher than summer visitation was 10 years ago.
The primary driver for the off-season visitation is the fall season.
Changes in visitation are not typically evenly distributed. Some areas, e.g., Jordan Pond and Bass Harbor Head Light, are seeing larger increases than others.
Entrance Fee Proposal/Vehicle Reservation System
John Kelly
Entrance Fee Increases - The Park Service is proposing to increase Acadia National Park’s entrance fee annual passes; annual from $50 to $75, weekly from $30 to $35, motorcycle from $25 to $30, and individual passes from $15 to $20. These passes are separate from the federal lands passes so people can still purchase federal passes that include an annual pass, senior pass, military pass, and disability pass which are not affected by this increase. This increase puts Acadia on par with other national parks with similar visitation. Those parks are at a different tier of fees so this is not an increase that could be decided locally. It is a $5.00 increment to put us into the next tier that is set up nationally. These funds cover frontline employees, provide visitor benefits, protect resources, and 100% of the funds we transfer to Island Explorer for its operations comes from our fees. As part of the process, we need approval from the Director in the Washington office. In December we announced a 30-day public comment period. We will continue to do the half price pass sale in December. This coming December, the annual pass to the park will be half price from $70. Once it is approved, there will be time to make it operational. We must announce the change, change signs, and order passes. We are hoping to implement the increase this spring. We will collect that fee year-round, as we are currently. The last increase in fees was in 2018. We are looking at what every other private sector business is looking at with an increase in costs. That increase will be important to the park’s basic operation and to expand Island Explorer and provide better bus service.
Vehicle Reservation System – The vehicle reservation system is sperate from the park entrance fees. You will need a park entrance pass in addition to a vehicle reservation if you are going to travel the Cadillac Summit Road this summer. 2022 was our second full year of operation with success. We had about 250,000 reservation tickets available and we sold about 80% of them. The number of visitors who were turned around without a reservation dropped from 28% in 2021 to 18% in 2022. We are hoping to get that down more in 2023. We are not making significant changes for 2023. We are looking at making improvements in the operations at the base of Cadillac to improve safety, traffic circulation, and provide safety and services for the staff working there. The dates for vehicle reservations will be May 24th to October 22nd, 2023. The fee will continue to be $6.00 per day. We are looking at improving messaging that both a Vehicle Reservation and a Park Entrance Pass are required if planning on traveling the Cadillac Summit Road. The gates are closed to traffic two hours after sunset.If turned around without a reservation, people need to return toward town to safely park and get connectivity to make a reservation. There is currently no way of tracking how many returned after being turned around. Plate readers were used during the pilot. Island Explorer/Acadia Gateway Center (John Kelly)
Island Explorer was disrupted due to COVID in 2020. It returned in 2021 with limited service. Last year in 2022, they operated at full service with 415,000 riders, which was up from 2021 when service was limited, but down from 2019 with 647,000 riders. This reflects a national trend for public transit across the country. It is slow growth but the expectation is that we are going to bring that ridership back to the high numbers again. The biggest issue is hiring drivers. DTI has increased its hourly rate to be competitive in the market but there are not a lot of younger people getting commercial driver licenses. They are targeting at least 120 drivers that need to be hired.
The Acadia Gateway Center, which is the new proposed visitor center and transit hub in Trenton, will be open for bids for the construction contract for the project this Wednesday. The goal is to start construction this spring and open the spring of 2025. This is the tentative plan.
Great Meadow Restoration Project
Jesse Wheeler
The Great Meadow restoration project is funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Ecosystem Restoration Funding. Great Meadow, the Cromwell Brook watershed is a wetland complex, which is mostly forested. Recently, there has been a lot of flooding in Great Meadow, between the Park Loop Road culvert, past the golf course, and up toward Sieur de Mont. The culvert is too narrow and constricting outflow of the wetland area. The park is working on rightsizing the culvert for increased and improved waterflow. The park is also looking into improving the wetland’s function. Some of the park’s main objectives will be to remove invasive plants and restore native plants which are climate resilient, to increase diversity of the plants, and to restore and stabilize hydrology, improving water flow to maintain and stabilize water levels. Upstream, there will be improvements to the trails, limiting flooding and allowing natural hydrology under the raised trails. Within the objectives, we are working with our research partners at Schoodic Institute and Friends of Acadia to help with these objectives. We will be using another wetland in the park, Gilmore Meadow, as a reference site to compare vegetation, hydrology, and what is in the system there. That will be a record site of wetland at the foot of Sargent Mountain which is a better functioning wetland in terms of plants species and hydrology. We will monitor birds, beaver, and trail flooding. We will be doing botanical and ethnobotanical surveys in the area to inform with future native plant restoration.
A healthy functioning wetland of that type at Acadia would have more stabilized water levels over time that can develop organic peat moss in these communities of soil that can promote and allow for these native plants to survive. The park is looking at moderate levels of water year-round. Getting rid of the extremes - extreme flood and extreme drought times and modifications with the bridge adjustment are going to do that for us. A lot more of the water drains through ditching systems than it should. And then we also plan for the modifications of ditches in the area. There have been studies on the mammals in the area. Beaver dams and structures have been mapped out in the area for monitoring. We have reports and recordings with a species lists of birds in the area. We are looking at working with partnering researchers on the mammal population in Great Meadow.
Old Business
Status of Appointments (Brandon Bies)
Since we met in September, we have two new appointments to announce for three-year terms.
New appointment, Dr. Bonnie Newsom, representing Public at Large
The reappointment of Katherine Heidinger, representing the Town of Winter Harbor
Ken Cline will no longer be serving on the commission. He was representing the at-large position. That means two of the three at-large positions are currently open for nomination. I want to thank Ken Cline on behalf of the park for his years of service as member of the commission.
There are seven members whose appointments are expiring in April of 2023 and three members who appointments expire in July of 2023.
There are four vacant positions.
Once the nomination period closes, Kathy will prepare a packet, to include the nomination letters and resumes and submit it to the Department of the Interior, where background checks are done, and all nominees are reviewed by the White House Liaison office for clearance. Eventually, official appointments will be made by the Secretary of the Interior.
Members who are currently serving in those roles can continue to serve until they've either been reappointed or a new nominee is appointed.
Thus far, we have nominations from the Governor’s office for the State of Maine for three positions and from six of the nine towns.
There are three towns still that either have not nominated or historically have not had someone filling that position for the last few years. But we had movementand I think we'll get additional nominees, and two of the three at large nominee spots for the public will be open as well.
My thanks to Kathy Flanders who is the brains behind keeping track of these moving pieces and has been corresponding with you about your questions.
New Business
Update on Election of Officers (Callie Gothard)
Announcement of election of 2023 Officers for June Meeting
Per 2016 Bylaws, officers are limited to three consecutive terms
I will send out an email to the commission regarding by-laws that may affect your nominations.
Nominations must be made by email, starting today and up to 30 days before the June 6 meeting. Please submit your nominations to me (Callie Gothard) by May 6.
Committee Reports
Science & Education Committee – Bruce Wiersma, Chair
The Science and Education Committee met at park headquarters on December 6. A special thanks to Abe Miller-Rushing for setting this meeting up. The topics covered were Acadia’s new Resource Stewardship Strategy Program. Rebecca Cole briefed on this project which is an attempt to better understand the natural resources in each national park which in turn can lead to better long-term management of these resources. Abe Miller-Rushing briefed us on restoration projects at Great Meadow, Cadillac Summit, and Bass Harbor Marsh. We were also briefed on the Otter Creek Community Science project.
Jennifer Pierce and Patrick Kark briefed us on many current park education programs including the Schoodic Education Adventure and residential education programs.I know I speak for all Committee members when I express our appreciation for these excellent presentations which gave us all a better understanding of current Science & Education activities in the park.
Committee members present were, in addition to me, Callie Gothard, and Steve Shea. We appreciate the Commission Chair, Lee Worcester, and the park’s Deputy Superintendent, Bandon Bies, for joining us.
Park Use Committee – Jackie Johnston, Chair
The park use Committee met just prior to this meeting, on February 06th. They touched upon park fee increases, which were addressed here earlier, as well as evening access to Cadillac. The two topics we focused on were Bass Harbor Head Light and the Otter Creek Boat Ramp.
The Bass Harbor Head Light – There are current efforts which include the development of a cultural resources report in addition to inventories and an adaptive reuse option being explored. Last season, a couple who volunteered resided in the lighthouse keepers house and answered questions from the public. Another couple has volunteered for the summer of 2023. Acadia staff has completed a lot of work preparing the house. The house is winterized but no one resides in it. There is a great article that came out in the MDIslander about the experience in 2022.
Students of Wooster Poly Tech spent a good part of summer at Bass Harbor Head Light conducting surveys, making observations, and gathering data, like the average length of a visit, and size of groups. When the data is included in the report, it will allow management to make more informed decisions down the road. Parking and access continues to be on the park’s mind. Efforts will continue as we move forward. Signage is going to be erected to help alleviate ongoing issues.
Otter Creek Boat Ramp – A meeting took place since our last ANP Advisory Commission meeting, which included community leadership from the town of Mount Desert, the National Park Service, a member of the Advisory Commission, and interested parties, regarding the Otter Creek boat ramp. The meeting was held since the topic was addressed at the Advisory Commission meeting and park staff ensured they would resurrect discussions. The end, at this point, for the action is it's with the town to perform their own investigation and weigh investment versus the desire to pursue any options. I didn't intend to dissect the whole detail this time because we talked about it in the last meeting. It's to ensure that discussions are continuing. There will be more to come should the town return all the requests to furtherexplore options. Kendall Davis participated in that meeting. Kendall, I didn't know if you wanted to expand on that at all.
Kendall Davis: No, you've done very well doing that. It was a brief meeting. Park officials were there. The town representation was there. And you know, it is in the town's court now and working away on it and deciding which direction to go next. The park has offered services, if need be, and we appreciate that. Thank you.
Thank you, Kendall for participating as well.
Kendall Davis: You're welcome. Thank you to Brandon and staff and Superintendent Schneider for staffing that meeting and having a very substantive discussion. It was much appreciated.
Steve Smith: Who was the town representatives? (The Mount Desert Town Manager) The town manager, he was on that? (yes, and Tony Smith).Yeah, the revitalization committee for the Otter Creek Aid Society. We have discussed several times about any trade for any lands for doing the turnaround stage. If the park doesn't want to help us with that, I say to hell to them. We’re not making any trade. We said it over and over and over. And they still can’t get it through their heads. No trade.
Lands Committee – No Report
History Committee – No Report
Friends of Acadia
Stephanie Clement, Vice President of Conservation
Eric was not able to make it today because he is traveling to Washington. I apologize for that. We are working on hiring our seasonals summit stewards, recreational technicians, wild gardens interns, and stewardship folks. Also, the Acadia Youth Conservation Corps application are open now. If you know of any teenage high school students who are might be interested in an experience in the park, learning form all divisions, not on just the trails and carriage roads, they can go to the park’s website and find the applications. It is really a great opportunity for young people.
I just want to echo everything that Kevin mentioned about how important housing is to ensure that everything is open at Acadia for people all over the country to come here and work for a summer and have a great experience. We just want to continue to work with the park, pledge our partnership, and, also, with the delegation on housing issues. And we were also grateful for the bill passing in December that is going to enable the housing with the Town of Bar Harbor to be developed in Town Hill.
The Last Saturday of April is Earth Day Roadside Cleanup. Registration is not yet open for that but be thinking about putting a team together to help clean-up the gateway communities around the park from roadside trash that accumulates over the year.
Schoodic Institute Update
Nicholas Fisichelli, President & CEO
I am Nick Fisichelli of Schoodic Institute. We are partners with the National Park Service. We co-lead the research learning center in the Schoodic District. Some updates, 2022 turned out to be a very busy year at the research learning center. The busiest year that we've had ever for day use visitors on campus, for overnight guests on campus, and for all our early career positions; all our internships and Fellowships and teaching assistantships and science technicianships and any other ‘ships’ we might have, as well.
Really great year. It was also the first year that we're able to resume the Schoodic Education Adventure (SEA) program which is the multi-day, overnight, middle school education program that’s done in partnership with Friends of Acadia and Schoodic together. We had to take two years off at the beginning of the pandemic. In 2022, we were able to start in the spring at 50% capacity. And during the Fall season we operated at 100% capacity for the SEA Program. For us, it was exciting and one of our celebrations of the past year. And we had almost 600 students in the Fall from 19 schools across six counties here in the state of Maine. And even a couple of additional schools from further away in Massachusetts and New York State, as well.
In addition to the SEA program that I mentioned, we had three dozen early career staff this past year in these entry level positions. We are trying to create opportunities that are springboards for careers in science, education, and conservation. We were able to have a large number of positions this past year.Of the positions, were the teaching assistants for the Schoodic Education Adventure program. And we had funding last year, from the State of Maine through the Maine Outdoor Learning Initiative, which helped to support that program. And the Commissioner of Education from the state of Maine visited our education program.
And there is an initiative across the state, called the Maine Outdoor School for All. There's new legislation that was just introduced at the state level to create opportunity that every middle school student in Maine has an opportunity for a multi-day overnight outdoor education experience such as the SEA program and other centers across the state such as the ecology school and the 4-H Centers and The Chewonki Foundation and others. Hopefully be hearing more about that new bipartisan legislation at the state level soon.
Advertising right now for our new seasonal positions for this year just closed. We'll have about 40 seasonal positions, many living and working on campus at various points during spring, summer, and fall of this year. In addition to the science and education positions, we have hospitality positions as part of our meeting and conference facility. And last year, probably about 50 people that we hired, many part-time, are all local folks working on campus. And so, it's great to have a busy season last year. A lot of opportunity for local folks to would work in Acadia on the Schoodic campus.
As Jesse mentioned, the big BIL projects happening in Acadia like the Great Meadow Restoration project, which we're excited about and appreciate the funding for those projects. As part of that we hired a Climate Change Adaptation Scientist onto our staff, Chris Nadeau, who is one of the previous 2nd Century Stewardship Fellows. Chris has been doing research in Acadia since 2017. He's now a full-time staff leading the ‘on-the-ground’ climate change adaptation happening here in Acadia. The work here is at the forefront of adaptation for conservation for national parks. It's exciting to do the work here and,hopefully, be able to share what we learn here with parks across the system.
Last thing I'll share, Acadia’s Research Learning Center was established 20 years ago. It was in 2002 when the park applied for funding as the navy left. The park became one of the original seven research learning centers 21 years ago. And the base funding that the park gets for the research learning center hasn't changed in the past 21 years. Exact same amount of dollars today as it was 21 years ago.
And so, we're next door to a lovely grocery store. You can imagine trying to go grocery shopping today using your 2002 budget, probably not buying many eggs. That's the reality the park faces today. Parkstrying to address big challenges today, in 2023, with the resources of 2002. And we certainly, as a partner, we're trying to work together and leverage the existing funding and do more together. We're able to more than triple the National Park Service investment in science and education. But the real erosion of federal funding the last 21 years is definitely a challenge for the response here, the science and stewardship in Acadia. Any questions? Thank you.
Advisory Commission Comments
None
Public Comment
Jim Bright, Town of Mount Desert –
I have a couple of carriage road questions. What is happening with the Day Mountain Carriage Roads? It is like a washboard. It is getting worse every year. My suggestion would be when grooming the trail, alternate directions so the drag that pushed the gravel out, will bring some of the gravel back. When all the gravel is pushed out to the side, it leaves the clay which is fine, but no reason to leave the gravel off the side. The gravel needs to be pushed back to the center. Going up Day Mountain is up and down. When going up fast with a drag, the drag is bounced, causing a wash board effect over time. It has only been in the last couple of years since they regraded it. Now it needs to be regraded again. I don’t know if it has anything to do with the horse drawn carriages because they use that route. I am just trying to be helpful. When on a bicycle, it becomes dangerous.
The park maintains the roads but the Carriage Roads in that section are groomed each morning by Carriage of Acadia for horse manure and grading. We will follow up on it.
What has happened to the grooming this winter? We have missed some beautiful scenery but the carriage roads are not groomed.
The grooming is an incredible service that is being provided by volunteers. We were finding damage so this year, for the first time, we put standards in place that we need to have 5 days of cold weather with a decent amount of freezing in advance of a snowstorm for the carriage roads to have a solid base to groom without destroying the roads. If it is not cold enough, the machines used for grooming can damage the roads. It is for the protection of the carriage roads. There mustbe six inches of snow and frozen ground; these are the standards the park decided was needed to protect the base.
Steve Smith, The town of Mount Desert -
My granddaughter is eighth generation here in Otter Creek and we believe we have a pretty good idea what things are called. The park service continues to call them different things. As long as we have that wall between us, we will never ever come to an agreement because it just creates confusion. You understand what I mean? I suggest the park forms some kind of a committee and they meet with the Otter Creek Aid Society or whatever, and they determine just what everything is called. And spoke the name of what everything is so its clear. Otherwise, we just go around and around forever. Thank you.
No further public comments.
Closing Comments
The Commission Vice Chair made closing comments. Thank you to Matt Horton for the accommodations. It worked out very well. The room is available to the public at no cost. With no further comments. I move we make a motion to adjourn. Ken Smith made a motion to adjourn. Callie Gothard seconded. All agree – no oppose.
Ben (Lee) Worcester: Thank you Bruce Wiersma for stepping in today.
Adjournment
The next meeting is scheduled for Monday, June 5th, 2023, 1:00 p.m. at Park Headquarters, Acadia National Park, and will continue to be an in-person and virtual meeting as published in the FEDERAL
REGISTER.
Motion was made to adjourn by Ken Smith and seconded by Kendall Davis to adjourn, approved by all, no opposed. Motion passed.
Meeting adjourned at 2:42 pm
Minutes Submitted by Kathy Flanders
