ACADIA NATIONAL PARK ADVISORY COMMISSION MEETINGSchoodic Institute at Acadia National Park ATTENDANCE:G. Bruce Wiersma, Chair
Kirk Emerson, Vice Chair Howie Motenko, Secretary Darron Collins, Member Kendall Davis, Member Fred Ehrlenbach, Member Jacqueline Johnston, Member (Zoom) Carolyn Gothard, Member Ken Smith, Member (Zoom) Pearl Barto, Member Matthew Horton, Member (Zoom) Stephen Shea, Member Carl Brooks, Member (Zoom) Kevin Schneider, Superintendent, ANP Keith Johnston, Chief of Maintenance & Facilities, ANP John Kelly, Management Assistant, ANP Joy Absher, Chief of Interpretation & Education, ANP Matt Outhier, Chief of Project Management, ANP Adam Gibson, Social Scientist, ANP Stephanie Clement, VP of Conservation, Friends of Acadia Nick Fisichelli, President & CEO, Schoodic Institute Mike Fedosh, Selectman, Town of Isle au Haut Eliza Townsend, Appalachian Mountain Club Congressional Representatives Members of the Public News Media Staff of ANP Staff of Friends of Acadia ABSENT COMMISSION MEMBERS:Jeffrey Clapp
Bonnie Newsom Ben ‘Lee’ Worcester PLATFORM:In-person & Virtual via Zoom OPENING REMARKSThe Commission Chair, Bruce Wiersma, called the meeting of the Acadia National Park Advisory Commission on Monday, September 08, 2025, 1:00 p.m. to order. APPROVAL OF AGENDAFred Ehrlenbach made a motion to accept the agenda of September 8, 2025, and seconded by Kirk Emerson to accept the agenda for the September 08, 2025, meeting; all approved, no opposed, no abstained. Motion carries. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTESA motion was made by Howie Motenko and seconded by Carl Brooks to accept the minutes of June 2, 2025. All approved, no opposed, no abstained. Motion carries. SUPERINTENDENT'S REPORT – Kevin Schneider, SuperintendentWELCOME – Kevin Schneider, SuperintendentThank you and it is good to see everyone here today. I have a couple of updates and then we will hear from our team members. I am incredibly proud of our park team as we crest the summer and come into fall. The team has just done a phenomenal job of keeping Acadia National Park up and running for our visitors to enjoy. It's been a record-breaking year, you'll hear more about that from Adam Gibson. But I just want to recognize our field team that has kept our campgrounds open, our trails open, and kept business afloat here for the park.
Park Updates - Kevin Schneider:We are running on generator power here on the Schoodic campus. Thanks to Keith Johnston and his team for making sure the lights are on. But we've had some power line issues and they're working to troubleshoot those.
I also want to recognize Schoodic Institute, which has been operating our water system here on campus so that we can have drinkable water. We've had a vacancy within our utility systems operator program, and we are working to fill the position. But Schoodic stepped in and essentially hired a private individual to keep the drinking water operating and running according to the state standards. Thank you, Nick, to you and the Institute for doing that. I also want to recognize, and I don't think I see him here today, but Dave Ramsdell is our Acting Facility Supervisor here at Schoodic. Our facility supervisor left in the spring and Dave has been acting to get the facility program running here at Schoodic. Big thanks to Dave, and Keith Johnston who has been involved as well. Keith has been spending more time on the peninsula to make sure we keep things to business. Our Deputy Superintendent, Brandon Bies, is continuing to be detailed to the regional office as Acting Deputy Regional Director. Rebecca Cole-Will is our Acting Deputy Superintendent. Abe Miller-Rushing is Acting Resource Manager behind Rebecca, as well. So big thanks to each of them. Also, Jason Flynn is doing an active assignment in project management trying to keep projects up and running. Kevin Langley has been pulling extra weight because of the extra staff departures in the administration division. So, I want to recognize him for keeping business afloat. And then, as you know, our team in June was recognized by our regional office for getting the Excellence in Facility Management Team Award for the storm recovery that we had in January of 2024. So, I just want to give a shout-out to our Team that helped recover from the storms in January 2024. They were recognized with a nice award from the region for getting the park back up and running last spring so we could be ready for visitors in 2024. Just a quick introduction as well. We have a new Fire Management Officer, Matt Carroll. Matt comes back to Acadia National Park from the U.S. Forest Service. Prior to the U.S. Forest Service, Matt worked for three years with the Interagency Zone as the Assistant Fire Management Officer (AFMO) at Acadia National Park for New England. He's a graduate of College of the Atlantic and a great addition to Acadia National Park. We had a small lightning-caused wildfire about a month or so ago. This is the first we've had in the ten years that I've been at Acadia National Park. That was quickly extinguished, and I want to recognize the assistance we had from Bar Harbor, Mount Desert and other neighboring partners for getting in and putting that out before it could grow anything beyond the 30 by 40 size that it was. And yes, we even had some hand-on by some members of our Commission. Thank you, we appreciate your service in multiple ways. 2025 Park Visitation - Adam Gibson, Social Scientist (PowerPoint Presentation)As you may have seen from some of the recent news articles, this summer has seen really high levels of visitation to the park. I have this PowerPoint to briefly summarize what some of our visitation looked like. 2021 was our highest annual visitation that we've seen in Acadia We are not quite at 2021 levels, but we're very close. Some spring visitation was lower in 2021, and now our July and August numbers are higher than 2021. July and August 2025 were the highest visitation levels we've seen for July and August. You can go to find our visit statistics at the following website: Irma.nps.gov Some of the data being shared was taken from Irma just to show you what some of those data look like. This is not the entirety of the data.
You can see that for Mount Desert Island this month visitation is pretty flat. Visits from bus passengers are down. And in July we saw record visits. Schoodic has some record level visitations. I should preface that by saying since the closure of the naval base. Prior to 2022, we saw higher levels because it was an operating naval base. These are not visitation numbers, but actual traffic counts, so counts of every car that's coming on to the park’s portion of the peninsula. I've marked out where the Navy Base closure was in 2002 and what that looked like to the traffic counts, and now the current trend that we're on. You can also see the visitation effect of the opening of the Schoodic Woods campground. Visitation bumped up again and now we're in a new trend this year. We are seeing a really record high levels of visitation to Schoodic in this last year. These are traffic counts for only August. There was also a high visitation trend when the Schoodic Arts Festival occurred on August 9th and related to hurricane Erin. Hurricane Erin brought in some record-level swell and we had a lot of visitors to see those waves. Visitation was even timed up with the tide charts. So, Friday was a high tide around 11:00 and we had about 225 vehicles coming onto the Schoodic peninsula. But even eliminating those record-level days, the visitation in August to Schoodic still would have been at record level. There is a Maine Department of Transportation counter at the bridge coming onto Thompson Island, it's not a park-owned counter. It’s all publicly available data as well, taken straight from their site. This year we are also seeing a record number of cars coming onto the island, higher than in previous years. It's not just visitation to the park. I also wanted to talk about the Cadillac reservation system, as well. We are on track with previous years. The no-show rates are similar. They're a little bit lower than the previous years. I think it could be because of weather, we're seeing a lot of nice days. That is a good predictor of the use of reservations on Cadillac. And then turnaround rate of people that arrive at the entrance station but don't have a reservation, so they're required to turn around is similar to last year. And I think the 15% turnaround rate is about as low as we're going to get. Visitation levels are high this year. Both July and August are record months. And I also wanted to mention that it's not just visitation, it's also a use of our recreation resources. So, use of the carriage road system is up about 22%. And then use of some trails such as trails on Cadillac are up about 20%. More people are doing recreational activities. This may be due to weather, which could also be one explanation for the increased visitation to Schoodic. January to August visitation to the Schoodic District was 17% higher than 2024. Another reason that might lead to the increase in visitation to Schoodic, again, this is speculation, but it's an increase in people staying off-island, particularly in Ellsworth. And I suspect that it could lead to more visitation at Schoodic because they are equal distance. KENDALL DAVIS: What are people doing when they visit Schoodic? ADAM GIBSON: They are visiting Schoodic Point, using biking trails and hiking trails, CARL BROOKS: Have you collected the numbers for the Islesford Museum? I'd be interested in seeing a chart on that, if you could just email it to me. ADAM GIBSON: Sure, we can do that. DARRON COLLINS: My question is about carriage road use increase. I wonder if I could find out whether electric bikes, or bicycle use in general, has had a creep up. I'm guessing that, if there's a way to differentiate between electric bikes and pedal bikes or is that too in the weeds? ADAM GIBSON: We have counters out there that will differentiate between pedestrians and bikes, but not within the bike category. We try to do it by sight but even that is tricky. Sometimes we try to deploy some trail cameras out there to capture that, but even that is also pretty tricky. We are seeing bike usage in general has increased over the previous years, and now it's about 50/50 with eBikes. About half eBikes and half conventional bikes. But that's also not equally distributed throughout the carriage route system. There are more eBikes around Eagle Lake because predominantly those riding is coming through town, or they are starting in the Visitor Center and riding up that way. So, they are coming down around Eagle Lake. There was a study done by Worcester Polytech Institute, and they found from a particular bike shop there were about 15% of riders that would ride the exact same route. They would come up Duck Brook, down to Eagle Lake and turn straight around and go back to the bike shop. No loops or anything. 15% is a fairly significant portion. We are tracking that, and we do have some understanding of percentages and how they're using them. CARL BROOKS: Is the park system considering restrictions on ebikes, i.e. speed limits or licensing? KEVIN SCHNEIDER: Acadia National Park Carriage Roads are restricted to class 1 eBikes, which are the pedal assist type eBikes. In the definitions for what constitutes eBikes, there's a wattage limit on the motor that would be permissible. I think it's 750-watt motor. So, it's limited. And speeds are only pedal assist up to 20 miles an hour. So, they are limited in terms of what are permitted in Acadia on the carriage roads. On the motor roads, we allow class 1, 2 or 3 eBikes. Class 2 is throttle-assist. But class 3 eBikes are pedal assist and go up to 28 miles an hour and those are allowed on the Park Look Road, but only if they are allowed on public roads. BRUCE WIERSMA: I would like to make one comment as the Chair. I would like to remind the Commission that we actually had input, requester input on the eBike policy a number of years ago. And I think the result was the current policy, Class 1 restrictions. Is that correct? KEVIN SCHNEIDER: Carriage Road are not motor roads. There are Class 1 restrictions. The Code of Federal Regulations is applied in the park, and the rules are in the Compendium. HOWIE MOTENKO: Are there CUAs for running businesses on carriage roads with bikes? Are they limited? KEVIN SCHNEIDER: Yes, they operate through a CUA, Commercial Use Authorization or Concessions Contract. Hulls Coves has high ebike drop-off. They are not currently limited. This has been an ongoing issue with growing safety concerns with the number of drop-offs at Hulls Cove Visitor Center. Acadia Gateway Center – John Kelly, Management Assistant (PowerPoint Presentation)The Acadia Gateway Center officially had a soft opening on September 03rd. It was nice to see it open without a word on the street. We had approximately 100 visitors at the Acadia desk just by uncovering the signs. Just a reminder that this is a state-owned and operated property. It's first and foremost a transit center. There's also a place where you can get park information. More and more people are staying off-island. So, this gives people the opportunity to get out of their cars if they are staying in Ellsworth or beyond and taking the Island Explorer. This has been a partnership project from the very start. And we had state, local, federal partners of every aspect. I must thank the Town of Trenton; this would not be here without the support of its residents and the support of Fred Ehrlenbach’s help and leadership. Fred was at all the meetings. The Town of Trenton made a change in their land use ordinance that had the contract zoning agreement that allowed this to happen and gave some attention to Trenton. And it's about businesses and the Town of Trenton.
Friends of Acadia were involved very, very early for the first time in their history, in 2004 they purchased an option and eventually bought the property. There were a lot of groundbreaking activities for the park. This is a soft opening. We hope to get the construction trailers removed and have a clear view of the building. There is short-term and long-term parking, RV parking, and bus parking. There is a dedicated place for Island Explorer that separates it from the private vehicle parking. It also provides a short-term charter bus stop so people can get out. There is an automated fee machine to get your park pass near the main entrance. Inside, there are three sources for information; the Maine Tourism Association that is operated under contract with the Maine Office of Tourism which has great information on Schoodic and Downeast, and the National Park Service desk which has information, reservations, park passes, and maps. Eastern National operates a park store that has park specific items and gifts. The main purpose of the AGC is the key transit center, the Island Explorer. The bus stop runs every 30 minutes during the soft opening. In the future we hope to have more express runs and more frequent service, every 20 minutes. Our first Acadia Gateway Center visitors, Tim and Melanie of Wisconsin. arrived at 08:00 in the morning to get on the Island Explorer bus because they were staying at Timberland Campgrounds just up the road. The center is now open with restrooms available for the public, 7:00 a.m. to 9:20 p.m., which is the last bus this time of year. Maine Tourism Association contracts facility services. Main doors are open from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The Eastern National store is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30p.m. We are working on filling staffing and expanding NPS hours. The Acadia Gateway Center will operate through October 15th, which is the last day of the Island Explorer’s operation for the season. There will be a ribbon cutting and grand opening in the spring 2026. It will be held in May, but a date has not been set yet. Kendall Davis: What happens with Thompson Island and Hulls Cove Visitor Center? John Kelly: Thompson Island was identified to be removed and that decision was made in 2019. We will be taking out the parking, building, and the restrooms. Retiring the facility and revegetating that back to a natural state. This was part of the park’s Transportation Plan. The Thompson Island picnic area will remain a picnic area. Hulls Cove will be going through a couple of phases with redesigning. Long term, it will not be a visitor center but a destination with a larger parking area, a museum with information, history, and exhibits. It will be a place to learn about the park and its history, cultural and natural, and get resource information, a multi-use building. MTA is keeping track of the traffic counts across Thompson Island. Thank you to everyone who has been involved and supported the Acadia Gateway Center project along the way. Kevin Schneider: If you are interested in a behind-the-scenes tour of the Acadia Gateway Center, see John or Amanda and they will make that happen. We have one last update from Keith to talk about maintenance and construction projects. There's a lot happening and a lot in the hopper in terms of some major construction and things that are coming along, everything from rebuilding the parking lot to cost and scope validation for the Jordan Pond House to hopefully reconstruct the Jordan Pond House. I want to recognize that the Great American Outdoors Act has been introduced into Congress. The Great American Outdoors Act provided five years of funding to address major maintenance projects. The fifth year of those five years is this year, and so Senator King has sponsored, and Senator Collins has cosponsored a reauthorization of the Great American Outdoors Act, to continue that for another five years. And should that get passed, the project that we're trying to cue up for that is reconstruction of the Jordan Pond House. And so, we're getting costs and scope validation to do that. But that's one of several projects that we have in the hopper right now.Keith is going to do a quick update on all things going on with construction and maintenance. Construction and Maintenance - Keith Johnston, Chief of Facilities & MaintenanceWe will start with the ongoing Great Americans Outdoor Act project at Headquarters which is the new maintenance building. It is coming along nicely, and we are looking forward to moving into that facility somewhere between this winter and spring 2026. And then they'll be able to remove the 1960s building that we are currently in.
The other large construction project currently is new housing at Harden Farm. Units for 28 beds are being built right now with 28 more soon to be awarded. This will be bringing 56 new beds online for employees to have a place to stay. It's exciting for us to continue that effort and thanks to the town of Bar Harbor and Friends of Acadia for working with us on the water line and we hope to award the sewer connection project to the Municipal of Bar Barbor, as well. This fall we will be replacing the Great Meadow culvert. This project has been long in queue and talked about many times. We do expect some detours and closures. There is a lot going on in the area related to trail work, trail realignment, health & restoration of Great Meadow, with restoring waterway connections, etc. We have been out there, along with AMC and private land and other lands, so the whole thing is starting to come together, and the major road work will begin in fall. Another project that is going to be coming up this fall is an ongoing project which was started last year. Between the beginning of a one way and the Cadillac Mountain entrance, there are several culverts that still need to be replaced so that will probably cause some disruptions, like one lane closure, etc., where we had these last few culverts replaced in that short section. That will wrap up this fall. The other Great American Outdoors Act project was here at Schoodic. This wasn't the best summer to grow grass, so they'll be back in the spring to seed but the new water system and wastewater system are complete. The SCADA system and sewer system upgrades are spectacular. It's coming along well. And I think the final phase of our major facility improvements over here is the removal of our wastewater treatment plant which was sized for the Navy presence of 45,000 gallons a day. That will all be downsized in a smaller local system and that will get rid of a huge power consumption from that facility and eliminate the need for a licensed operator. That is also going to be starting this fall. The building won't go away, but the facility itself will no longer be required. We are still working on storm damage executions, working to try to get cost and scope validation awarded for projects as a result of storm damage, so we'll have more of a report on that in February. CARL BROOKS: What is the current status on the negotiations with MDOT on the ongoing basis on Seawall Road? KEVIN SCHNEIDER: We're working with the Maine Department of Transportation to essentially use our storm damage funding to provide the Maine DOT to make repairs and resiliency improvements to Seawall Road. And we hope to have an agreement signed with Maine DOT by the first quarter of the next fiscal year. John Kelly has been working on that cooperative agreement. I think probably in the first quarter of the next fiscal year or sooner. Old BusinessNone.
New Business2026 ANP Advisory Commission Meeting Dates – Kevin Schneider
The meetings will be combination meetings, held in person and virtually.
. Fred Erhlenbach moved to accept the proposed 2026 meeting dates for the ANP Advisory Commission, seconded by Kendall Davis. All in favor, No opposed, No abstained. Motion passed.
COMMITTEE REPORTSScience & Education Committee – No Report, Bruce WiersmaI would like to meet before the winter (February) meeting to look at, and get educated about, the
education programs in the park. I'll be in touch with the key park staff and with my committee members to get that organized. Park Use Committee – No Report, Jackie JohnstonLands Committee – No Report, Darron CollinsHistory Committee – No ReportCARL BROOKS: I would like to suggest that Kevin charter the Lands Committee along with the new guy in charge of fire appointed here, who clearly has experience from the Forest Service, to bring potential assistance and to review the wildfire resilience of the Acadia Park Forest. There was a nice article in the Islander on the crew that works on fire prevention here. We are doing a good job with respect to fire. DARRON COLLINS: I will work with Matt and try to hold a meeting before our February meeting. *The Lands Committee will meet with the new FMO to prepare an update on the progress and existing collaborative potential plans and practices for fire management, with a report back to the commission. FRIENDS OF ACADIA – Stephanie Clement, Vice President of ConservationEric Stiles, who is president of FOA, sends his regards. Unfortunately, he could not be here today. First an update on our benefit auction, which happens every August, where we have a paddle raise that helps support park projects. This year we raised more than $200,000 to match National Park Service funding for the restoration of the Carroll Homestead. Carroll Homestead is on the west side of the island, and it's an incredible educational resource. There are many classrooms on Mount Desert Island, and beyond, that cycle through every year and it was great fun for me as an adult to see it in action and the number of families that were there over the summertime. We're happy to support the restoration of the homestead and look forward to seeing it thrive in the future.
Our seasonal employees continue their work through the fall. We've lost a few because they're heading back to their colleges and universities. But we have recreation technicians working with Dr. Adam Gibson on all the research that he has described. We have Summit Stewards out talking with visitors encouraging Leave No Trace ethics in the park as they hike. We have Wild Gardens of Acadia staff who are greeting visitors and talking about the importance of native plants, as well as our stewardship group greeting people who show up to volunteer and give back to the trails and carriage roads. We are so grateful for their continued work and thank our park liaisons for their partnership to give these employment opportunities to people working in the park. The drop-in volunteer program continues through mid-October. Anyone's welcome to show up any Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday morning in the maintenance area at the Hulls Cove Visitor Center to spend the morning working on the trails and carriage roads. And we have been helping the park with the vistas on the carriage roads. Take Pride in Acadia Day will be held on Saturday, November 1st. Registration will open in mid-October via the Friends of Acadia website. That's a fun community event on the first Saturday in November where we gather to help the park rake leaves from the carriage road drainage ditches. We had a special volunteer activity that was run all summer. Lauren Knierim, who is the park's community volunteer ambassador, ran a Save Our Summits hike where volunteers spent 900 hours carrying soil up the mountain for the restoration of the summits there. By the end of the summer, we anticipate the volunteers will have carried over 4,000 pounds of soil up the mountains. And there's actually a very special opportunity this coming Saturday, that's a bark ranger event where dogs and their humans will be carrying soil up to the summit. You have to find those on our website. We're offering our Pints for Purpose every Thursday evening at 5:00 at Terramor. Coming up we have speakers such as Gary Stellpflug who is a very entertaining retired trails Foreman from the park. We also have Billy Helprin, who is the Executive Director at Somes-Meynell Wildlife Sanctuary, talking about the status of loons in the area. And we are bringing in Lois Winter who was the original park liaison to Friends of Acadia and she'll be speaking about the early history of Friends of Acadia. Look for that one on our website as well. I have to say as someone who worked on the Acadia Gateway Center for several years, I was a little worried. Then when I went in and saw it in action, it made me happy. I was joyful to see the number of people going through there last Friday when we had the tour. It warmed my heart. Friends of Acadia has been a happy partner in that project for so many years. Check it out, it's well worth it. Last, I'll mention that we continue to advocate in Washington thanks to our wonderful Congressional Delegation. We're hoping that the Senate version of the appropriations bill will pass because that has better numbers in it tied to operations and maintenance of our national parks than the House version or the President's version. So, stay tuned on that. We have been advocating for the American the Beautiful Act as well which will continue that wonderful Great American Outdoors Act funding which has been very successfully used here in Acadia. And we continue to be watchful about how changes in Washington might affect Acadia. Any kind of reduction in force, even at the regional level or at the national level, could affect Acadia, including reductions at places like the Denver Service Center which has so many technical experts that our park relies on. We want to stay tuned to those kinds of changes in case they affect what the park is able to accomplish here. Again, I want to express my gratitude to our Maine delegation. You've been terrific partners in Washington for us. And I'll conclude by saying this month is Friends of Acadia budget season where we start preparing our budgets for the following year. We're working closely with park staff on contingency planning for joint programs. And everything's changing rapidly, but our goal really is to serve as a nimble friend’s group to try to help be a partner to Acadia without replacing the ultimate responsibility of the Federal Government in maintaining and operating the park, which is really a resource for all Americans to enjoy. So, with that, thank you for the time and if anyone has questions, I'm happy to hear. SCHOODIC INSTITUTE UPDATE – Nick Fisichelli, President & CEO, Schoodic InstituteWelcome to the learning center campus here at Schoodic Institute which co-leads with our National Park Service partners. This year is 25 years since the inception of the idea for the research center. At our June meeting 25 years ago, the resource management chief of the park, David Manski, submitted an application to host the research center here on campus where the Navy would be departing. It is really because of those long-term partnerships that so much science and education and engagement work happen here on this campus and in Acadia National Park.
A big thank you to the Congressional Delegation for their support of this place and the building that we're in. Thank you to Senator Collins for Moore Auditorium and finding the funding to build it, the only new building on the Navy campus. It is a great space to be in, and we're continuing to work on renovating and maintaining this campus and working together with NPS on the Schoodic Shores overnight accommodations. They are original accommodations to the Navy. Every August there's a big uptick in traffic around August 8th which is the Winter Harbor lobster festival and also the Navy reunion day is held here on campus. So, we have lots of former Navy staff that come back out here. Some of them even stay in Schoodic Shores and they'll comment to us that it looks just the same. It's been 23 years since the Navy left so it's really time to renovate those accommodations. We're working really hard on that. I do want to also thank FOA (Friends of Acadia) and NPCA (National Park Conservation) for their leadership roles in governmental relations work on supporting the park. And lastly, a lot of our science and education work is done through partnership with the National Park Service, Friends of Acadia, Maine Coast Heritage Trust and others as well. . Tomorrow evening, we have our final summer lecture series event right here in the auditorium across the way and it will also be held on Zoom. It's on new ideas to protect Acadia's forests and it will be a host of speakers of Chris Nadeau, Lauren Gibson, Jesse Wheeler, and Lauren Knierim. So, I do encourage you to check out schoodicinstitute.org, where you can learn more and sign up for the lecture and learn more about the partnership with Acadia.
It is now September, which means my kiddo is back in school and also means that the SEA (Schoodic Education Adventure) program is starting. That's the middle school overnight multiday education program that happens on this campus led by NPS and Educators. FOA and Schoodic are the partners in that program. And we have a full, decent number of schools here this fall. We have 18 schools and more than 450 students on the schedule for fall. So, we're really excited about that. We're also part of this larger statewide Maine Outdoor School for All initiative where we partner with other outdoor schools, like the Ecology School, the 4-H Centers, Kiev, Lavis, and the Chewonki Foundation, and others with the goal that every kid in the state has a chance to come to an outdoor school program such as this program. We did get state legislation passed this year to create the program. It passed with a $500 note attached to it. So that's enough for 1 ¼ kid to go to an outdoor school program. But it created the framework for the actual program, which is to be administered by Maine extension. We have raised $425,000 in private funding donations to start that program with an ultimate goal that we could get every kid in the state to want to be fully transformative school programs and use our program to connect with nature and Maine's outdoor heritage, and really to create a pipeline for careers outdoors. Certainly, in conservation, but also in fishing, forestry, farming, etc. We are really excited about that. And then last thing I'll mention here, Adam's report on all of the visitors here sees them as park visitors. I see them as data collectors. These are citizen scientists, that can help us understand Acadia, what's happening here, how it's changing and to really inform management. Of all of these visitors, I would say 99.73% of them have one in their pocket, which is a very powerful data collection tool. So, using I-naturalist, using e-BIRD there's some other platforms for citizen science. And over the years, there have been over 700,000 citizen science observations in Acadia. Just a massive number of these observations. So, we need to make sense of these observations. What can they inform us about data management? And our staff has created a computer code that scrapes all available data online in the last week and shares it with managers in the Monday morning email of all of the new observations and specifically ones that fall into three categories; Invasive Species, Threatened and Endangered Species, and then Species of Conservation Concern. So, this morning's email went out with 13 new species observations, 3 new Threatened and Endangered Species, and 25 new species of conservation concern observations. So, through our partnership, we're able to try to put these data collectors that are coming to Acadia in ever greater numbers, we're going to put them to work to engage in science, engage in nature here and help inform. And I will stop with that and happy to answer any questions. Carl Brooks: What is the status of the Town Hill Housing Property? JOHN KELLY: It is a great partnership project, and we have made great progress. We have identified the ROW for access to the property. We expect to have preliminary plans for subdividing the property and developing at least the Bar Harbor’s portion by next spring. PUBLIC COMMENTLILI PEW, Seal Harbor: Are you seeing an increase of Carriage Road maintenance and/or repairs because of the increase speeds and different types of vehicles there? And also, accidents in the park with regards to bikes. Thank you.
KEITH JOHNSTON: Lately we're not -- as far as accidents I don't have that data. But in terms of use and/or changes, what we have seen is that the surface wear is higher. But I couldn't attribute that to either eBike or regular bike. But we are seeing a degradation of the surface at carriage roads at a slightly higher rate, which is probably just likely due to increased use, the eBikes go up hill faster than traditional bikes. But there's no real documentation to show that one or the other bike is contributing, more or less to the surface wear. KEVIN SCHNEIDER: And as far as accidents are concerned, if there are more accidents now, there's more people on the carriage roads and more miles being traveled as a result of increases, so we haven't done the sort of statistical analysis to see if there's something significant going on or different related to, or even if the number of sort of requests for assistance or accidents has occurred over time. I just don't have the data. .MIKE FEDOSH, Selectman from the Town of Isle au Haut: Good afternoon. I'm a selectman from the town of Isle au Haut and I plan to have a continued presence attending these meetings and, hopefully, I am not raising my hand at every one. Thank you to the Park Service and Friends of Acadia for holding a Meet & Greet in Stonington. It was very good and people are still talking about the contacts and ideas that were brought up. So, thank you. It did work. I would like to say there has been an increased number of float planes landing on Long Pond. The park is located on the western shore, and I don’t know if there is a park service solution. It looks like they may be tours or maybe leaf peepers. I notice the same planes. I was out last week, and they buzzed my kayak twice landing on the pond. He scared two eagles in the trees on the shoreline. Is that under the FAA or the
Park? JOHN KELLY: They are flying under the National Air Tour Management Act. It is under FAA control and out of our hands. KEVIN SCHNEIDER: They can land on park waterways, but it is not a park waterway. .ELIZA TOWNSEND, Appalachian Mountain Club: I serve as main conservation policy director of the mountain club. I'm joining you today to bring attention to the secretarial order 3442 issued by the Secretary Burgum of the Department of the Interior on September 4th. Our organization leads a coalition in support of the land and conservation fund, our nation's most powerful tool for protecting public lands, safeguarding outdoor access and supporting conservation projects. This nontaxpayer fund has strengthened communities in every state. Investments of $25.4 million from the LWCF have played an integral role in acquisitions to expand and connect protected areas within Acadia. For example, in 2014, the addition of 37 acres at Lower Hadlock Pond opened up 1600 feet of lake frontage and trails.
Order 3442 undermines the success of the Great American Outdoors Act. President trump's signature achievement the that permanently secured LWCF funds only for their intended purpose, protecting public lands and expanding outdoor access. The secretarial order contains several provisions that harm the land and water conservation fund and threaten the future of conservation at a moment when it is more important than ever. I would specifically like to draw your attention to the following. . The order gives state and local jurisdictions veto power over federal public land projects. Limiting the private property rights of landowners and inserting obstacles to a successful program. This additional level of bureaucracy is onerous given that projects are fully vetted where it's required to rank high enough to compete for oversubscribed funding. It would politicize the LWCF projects and could limit friction projects as we saw happen earlier this year in a project in Somerset County.
The order inserts -- includes language allowing states to use LWCF state and local assistance program funds to purchase federal public lands. We are concerned that this provision could help create a pathway for federal land sales. Further, it could require states to divert funds to acquire places already conserved rather than to act on new opportunities. The order prohibits partnerships with nonprofit organizations on certain types of projects. Often, 501(c)(3) organizations like the conservation fund or the trust republic land are able to step in to purchase desirable properties allowing others to raise the funds needed for permanent conservation, limiting those partnerships will surely mean the loss of parcels, including working forests to development. The order prohibits the use of LWCF to purchase scenic easements. The secretarial order specifies only five allowable uses of LWCF for purchase of easements. Scenic easements which have been used by national parks and historic sites, historic battlefields, national scenic trails, Parkways, and other areas are not listed as an allowable use of the LWCF. And finally, the limitation of LWCF projects to those within unit boundaries means that units without designated boundaries are not eligible to receive funding. While Acadia's boundary was set in 1986, this provision could prevent the protection of key portions of national scenic and historic trails. This order comes in addition to the Department of the Interior's request in the FY26 budget to eliminate LWCF projects on federal public lands seeking to divert those funds to address deferred maintenance which has never been an authorized use of funds and specifically prohibited by Congress. The bill reauthorizes the national parks and public land legacy restoration funds. . I appreciate this opportunity to share information, and I hope to work with you to reverse the problematic secretarial order. And thank you for the opportunity.
BRUCE WIERSMA: Thank you, Eliza. I remind you, however, that Acadia National Park Commission's scope is restricted to Acadia National Park. I may personally say I share your concern. But it is not a commission issue. However, sitting in the room here are representatives of some of our most esteemed representatives and I'm sure they would be more than happy to deal with you on a one-on-one basis. CLOSING COMMENTSThe Commission Chair made closing comments.
ADJOURNMENTThe next meeting is scheduled for February 02, 2026, 1:00 pm, Acadia National Park Headquarters, Bar Harbor, and it will continue to be an in-person and virtual meeting as published in the FEDERAL REGISTER.
I move we make a motion to adjourn. Kirk Emerson made a motion to adjourn. Kendall Davis seconded. All agreed – no opposed. Motion carries. Meeting adjourned at 2:50 pm Minutes Submitted by Kathy Flanders *These minutes will be formally considered by the Commission at its next meeting, and any corrections or notations will be incorporated in the minutes of that meeting. “The Acadia National Park Advisory Commission meeting minutes of September 08, 2025, were certified by the Chair, G. Bruce Wiersma, on December 03, 2025” |
Last updated: January 15, 2026