[at-l] 240,000 acres of Maine wilderness still protected

[janl2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Jan Leitschuh)]

   PORTLAND =97 Great Northern Paper Co., a key part of the struggling
northern Maine economy, filed for bankruptcy protection Thursday.
    The filing creates additional uncertainty for 1,100 workers, most
of whom have been laid off for two weeks while the plant  has been
shut. The company's two mills, in Millinocket and East Millinocket,
are the financial base for a hard-pressed section of northern Maine
between the city of Bangor and the potato fields of Aroostook County.

    In addition, the company owes $36 million to the Nature
Conservancy, which agreed to finance that much debt as part of a deal
that transferred 41,000 acres of woodland to the conservation group
and put another 240,000 acres under a conservation easement,
protecting public access.
    The filing has no immediate impact on the landmark conservation
deal. The protections secured for 240,000 acres of Maine wilderness
will remain in force regardless of the company's future, the
environmental group said.
    The Nature Conservancy's financing =97 a $14 million payment and the
$36 million low interest mortgage =97 helped keep the company running
through the end of 2002. The deal will help preserve important land
near Mount Katahdin and Baxter State Park.
    "Had (the bankruptcy filing) happened last summer, all that land
could have been sold and subdivided and liquidated," said Kent
Wommack, executive director of the Nature Conservancy in Maine.
    http://www.centralmaine.com/news/stories/030110great_no.shtml
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