In this past edition of the Maine Sunday Telegram, I wrote about legislation waiting attention on Capitol Hill that would resolve tensions over a variety of issues around Acadia National Park here in Maine. Among them: the right of clam and worm diggers to harvest in the mudflats adjacent to park property and making a maximum park boundary line negotiated back in 1986 more “real,” after park officials ignored it in a recent expansion. The bill is bipartisan, with identical versions submitted in the Senate by Angus King (an independent who caucuses with the Democrats) and in the House by Rep. Bruce Poliquin (a Republican often allied with Maine Gov. Paul LePage.)
All that in the article.
For more background on Maine’s nutty inter-tidal property/access/harvesting laws, see this feature I did a few years back.
[Update, 11/9/17: The bill is finally moving forward, with revisions.]
COLIN WOODARD is a New York Times bestselling author, historian and award-winning journalist. He is the author of seven books that have been translated into a dozen foreign languages and inspired an NBC television drama. He is currently Director of Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Affairs at Salve Regina University. As State and National Affairs Writer at Maine's Portland Press Herald, he won a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for a 2016 Pulitzer Prize. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, The Economist, Smithsonian and dozens of other major publications.