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Notes from APP and NMDC
Volume 2, Issue 80
Jan. 24, 2013
In This Issue
New Videoconference Equipment
Forestry Working Group
Grant application which orginated downstate to benefit Aroostook and Washington counties
   Steve Pelletier, Fort Kent Planning and Economic Development Director and Paula Bouchard, Bookkeeper Fort Kent, unbox some of the new videoconferencing equipment being installed in the Fort Kent town office.

    FORT KENT - A letter written nearly three years ago, in support of a downstate grant application, has resulted in better video conferencing capabilities in Aroostook and Washington counties.

    Back in 2010, a grant writer was putting together a Rural Utilities Services application to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for distance learning technology on behalf of MSAD 75, down in the Topsham-Bowdoin region. The grant writer knew that including an organization in a federally designated Empowerment Zone, of which parts of Aroostook County were, would give the grant proposal more weight. That led to the grant application actually being submitted from the Northern Maine Development Commission's (NMDC) Fort Kent office.

    "The deal was if they [MSAD 75] got funded they would give us four of the distance learning technology units," said Ryan Pelletier, Director of Economic and Workforce Development at NMDC.

    Three years later the collaboration is paying off in the form of $77,000 in videoconferencing equipment to be installed in three Aroostook County communities and one in Washington County.

    "We had to locate one of the units in the town where the application was written, so we have agreed with the town of Fort Kent to host one of the sites in their large conference room which will expand our abilities to accommodate more people in video conferences," he said.

    Currently NMDC can only accommodate about six people for video conferencing in the Fort Kent office. The municipal office can host roughly 50.

    Pelletier said each site has agreed to allow public use of the equipment, which was very important to NMDC, to have the resource available when needed, as scheduling would allow.

    The other sites, where the video conferencing equipment has been or is being installed, are at the Aroostook County Action Program offices in Madawaska and Houlton and at the Washington County Community College in Calais.

    Pelletier said all the equipment should be functional in the first quarter of this year.


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APP solidifies workplan to help improve the forest economy of Aroostook County
    A Region 2 forestry student in Dyer Brook gets some real world experience with a modern piece of equipment.

 

    CARIBOU - The Aroostook Partnership for Progress (APP) forestry working group has adopted a guiding document to lay the ground work for efforts to grow the forest products and manufacturing economy of northern Maine.

    As part of the Mobilize Northern Maine strategic planning initiative, the forestry sector was identified as one of Aroostook County's largest strengths with a huge asset base. It then became a key focus area for APP, which formed a working group to identify strategies to grow the industry, concentrating on value added processing/manufacturing initially for Aroostook and ultimately statewide.

    Meeting Wednesday, the group, which consists of governmental representatives, forestry experts, the banking sector and others, adopted a vision and guiding document to help prioritize its efforts going forward.

    "Maine is in a very unique position to provide for a more vibrant forest economy with more manufactured products translating into more jobs and prosperity for the State," said working group member Don Tardie, former mill manager for Maine Woods Products.

    The mission of the initiative is for Aroostook and Maine to develop a more vibrant, competitive and sustainable forest economy that will provide greater prosperity in the forest industry.

    The guiding document calls for five strategic components: provide for workforce development to support the mission; create new value added processing and products utilizing available forest resources; encouraging Maine to provide a consistent policy and regulatory platform enabling growth of the forest economy; for Maine to develop an long range economic development platform that is competitive to other states and regions; and for the group to develop a comprehensive communications plan to support this effort.

    Some of these components will fall on APP and the working group, while others will be met by engaging with other strategic partners throughout the State.

    Initial stages of the effort will focus on establishing a workforce feeder system.

    "We will place a priority on training," said Bob Dorsey, APP president. "We have a May break coming and need to focus our short term effort on spearheading some follow-on contractor training, similar to the Northern Maine Development Commission program that was so successful last spring for logging company owners and their bookkeepers."

    The two-day workshop at the University of Maine at Fort Kent attracted more than 50 participants and may serve as the pilot to replicating the effort elsewhere in Maine.

    Dorsey said efforts will also include helping startup mills find the necessary workers and enhancing the image of the forestry worker.

    Working group member Dana Saucier, a forestry consultant, who also served on the Mobilize Northern Maine goals setting team, said to effect change requires a clear vision of where you want to end up.

    "It is the focal point around which everything else revolves; telling your story, seeking and obtaining buy-in, measuring your progress, determining success (or failure), etc," he said. "A very simplistic way to think of this is to imagine change management as taking a trip -Where am I going. How will I get there, and when will I know I have arrived."

    Other near term steps for the group will be to address specific regulatory barriers hindering the growth of the industry and identifying value added opportunities in the secondary and tertiary processing of timber.

Brownfield assessements continue in Aroostook County
    
    CARIBOU - It has been slightly more than a year since Northern Maine Development Commission (NMDC) received a $400,000 combined Brownfield grant from the Environmental Protection Agency. In the last year, significant field work has been completed by our environmental consultant, County Environmental Engineering of Cross Lake.

    A Brownfield is a property, the expansion, redevelopment or reuse of which, may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant.

    Nine environmental site assessments (ESAs) have been completed in the following communities, Fort Kent, Caribou, Limestone, Ashland, Littleton, Fort Fairfield and Sherman.

    "Site assessments have helped allow for the redevelopment of Brownfield properties in each of these communities and have taken vacant buildings and put them back into productive uses," said NMDC Senior Planner Jay Kamm.

    The program is free of charge to applicants that meet site eligibility requirements. 

    "Typically Phase I ESA would cost in the $2,500 to $3,500 range, while Phase II ESA usually begin at approximately $10,000 and have cost as much as $56,000 depending on site specifics," he added.

    A Phase I Environmental Site Assessment is a historical and record review of the property and looks into the history of what the land has been used for in the past to see if any activities at the property could have caused on-site contamination. A Phase II Environmental Site Assessment, if needed, involves a more detailed examination of the property, such as ground water and soil sampling, to determine if contamination actually does exists on the property.

    If you would like more information regarding NMDC's Brownfield program, please contact Kamm at 498-8736 or by email at [email protected].

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