The Park Service formed Acadia Partners for Science and Learning, an independent 501(c)(3). The board of directors hired Dennis O’Brien as its executive director to work with the National Park Service to manage the facility, called Schoodic Education and Research Center (SERC).
The center is one of 13 such centers funded by Congress. O’Brien said, “Perhaps one of the unique aspects of this relationship is the two-year joint effort of the Department of Defense with the National Park Service and support from the state and congressional delegations.” He added, “Acadia Partners has a very strong board that is highly motivated with regard to the interests of Acadia National Park and the Schoodic peninsula.”
This program, which uses national parks to facilitate science and learning, is all very new. “The centers are all over the country, but we are by far the largest,” said O’Brien. To illustrate how new these centers are, O’Brien said, “One of the other centers is very proud that they’ve doubled their overnight capacity by nine by putting in bunk beds. By contrast, once we’re through renovating, over 200 people will be able to spend the night here. Right now, we can have 58.” Those 58 beds came from the Navy’s on-the-base apartment-style housing units. “Once the whole campus is fired up,” he said, “250 beds is not out of range.”
The plans call for two major buildings, a state-of-the-art auditorium and two meeting rooms, each with a capacity of 125, and the renovation of the barracks, which will become a dormitory with 100 rooms plus a dining room and kitchen.
A groundbreaking ceremony should take place in late August and the project should be completed by the end of September 2006.
“We’re open for business,” said O’Brien, clearly enthusiastic about the program. “We’re an exciting place. Give us a call, we can fit you in.”
He said many people think the center is not open, but this summer he has almost 40 programs running. For example, the Schoodic Education Adventure program (SEA) is for fifth and sixth graders. “They come and spend three days and two nights doing science and environmental — cool stuff — using GPS devices. There’s an exciting amount going on for school kids, teachers, and professionals.” The center even offers a two-day course in “leave no trace” ethics on techniques to minimize camping and hiking impacts.
“I’m very excited about this opportunity,” O’Brien said. “It’s a large facility. If we do this right, we can have an important impact on the [image] of the National Park, and an important contribution for education for the region and the nation. It’s a pleasant place to come and enjoy learning in a beautiful setting.”
The former medical and dental clinic is a natural facility for research laboratories. This summer three graduate students will be there working on their projects.
All this is going to create jobs. “When you bring thousands of people a year — hundreds at a time — to this area,” O’Brien said, “you have an array of things to support … It’s almost a hotel function, in that there is food and clean-up, transportation, registration, office work such as accounting and bookkeeping. And there is the ancillary effect of 250 people going to local shops.”
But he made clear that one of the strategic goals is to make the area economically viable, while retaining the peaceful, quiet nature of the place. As park planner John Kelly said, “We do not want substantial changes in the character of the park. We want to preserve its character. We need to monitor it so it won’t change. It is a concern.”
Running this program will cost money. O’Brien said, “We’re looking for partners who can share the costs of operating this campus.”
Corea: complexity and opportunity
On the other side of the peninsula, in Corea, lies the smaller, classified reconnaissance part of the Navy base, which consists of two huge windowless, bunker-type buildings used for electronic surveillance, according Corea Town Manager Brad Vassey. One building was used for gathering information, the other was used to process it. “The buildings do not readily lend themselves to commercial application,” Vassey said, adding, “[unless] you had somebody who wants to live in a cave.”
But Corea is a fishing and boatbuilding village that, like Winter Harbor, was hurt financially when the Naval Base closed. “The Navy folks spent money in town, married local people, rented or bought houses,” said Vassey. “They were an important part of the local economy.” A satellite tracking facility still exists, which requires approximately 20 people on active duty and a number of civilian employees. “They’ll stay,” he said, “and we’re thankful they will.”
Two mammoth, unwelcoming buildings present an interesting prospect in the form of fish farming. Franklin Aquaculture, under the aegis of the University of Maine, wants to try out a business concept. They’ll put in two fish tanks and pump up seawater into the tanks, Vassey explained, saying, “It is very compatible to our culture. I think people would be in favor of it. It’s been in the planning process for two years.” Then, he said. “Put in a plug for [First Selectman] Dana Rice and for Bill Thayer.”
They were instrumental in pushing this project along. He said, “Eastern Maine Development Corporation and Maine Halibut Farm, LLC, soon will apply for a Site Plan Review.”
Vassey went on, “There is other land available. That land is going to be a Marine and Aquaculture Park. The land was conveyed by the Navy to the University of Maine, which conveyed it again to Coastal Acadia, a nonprofit real estate company affiliated with Eastern Maine Development Corporation, which will subdivide and develop the property.
Filling the void left when the Navy closed its base in Winter Harbor and Corea is complicated because it involves the National Park Service. But it also created opportunity and hope for the future.
As he drove around the Winter Harbor Naval base, Torrey, looking around at the elegant Rockefeller house his father helped build, the attractive multi-family housing units, tennis courts and all, smiled and said, “Dandy, isn’t it?”