Gov. Paul LePage today announced a plan that would merge the Maine Department of Conservation with the Agriculture Department. It's an idea that has been proposed and rejected by the Maine Legislature before. The governor says the move would strengthen Maine's natural resource-based economy. But there is concern that it could shift priorities.

The Department of Conservation oversees the management, development and protection of 17-million acres of forest, more than 10-million acres of unorganized territory, several dozen parks and historic sites and more than 590,000 acres of public land. Its mission is to promote stewardship and ensure responsible, balanced use of Maine's natural resources.

The Department of Agriculture is the smaller of the two agencies. According to it website, its mission, among other things, is to expand Maine agriculture, promote a safe and wholesome food supply and to promote the stewardship of natural resources.

"It's basically a very sound concept," says Conservation Commissioner William Beardsley. "We just think it makes a lot of common sense and the governor's been very supportive of it."

Beardsley says the idea is to bolster Maine's natural resource-based agrarian economy in rural Maine by giving a merged Department of Agriculture and Conservation greater scale and better coordination. Beardsley points out that both agencies already share funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, along with entomologists, hydrologists and soil scientists.

And he says they share a common identity. "Agriculture and forestry--they morph into each other on a continuom. An awful lot of forestry is really producing a product on a particular amount of acreage not unlike a cornfield, only it goes over multiple years," Beardsley says.

Shortly after the governor announced the planned merger in a news release, Maine's largest environmental organization issued a statement of its own. Cathy Johnson is the North Woods project director for the Natural Resources Council of Maine.

"You know, we're just not persuaded that combining these two agencies is a good idea because it seems to suggest that Maine's woods, waters and wildlife should be treated like crops and readied for market," Johnson says. "And that's not how our public lands and state parks should be treated."

Agriculture Commissioner Walter Whitcomb says there's a distinction between forest lands in private ownership and trees that are grown on state-owned, public land which is managed for timber or scenic value.

"We're not reorganizing anything in terms of those kinds of laws," he says. "I mean that's a discussion probably more appropriately around the whole LURC discussion. For most of the world this is real inside baseball."

LURC, of course, is the Land Use Regulation Commission. It oversees development in Maine's unorganized territory, which comes under the jurisdiction of the Department of Conservation. But Russell Libby of the Maine Organic and Farmers' and Gardeners' Association is also concerned about the implications of restructuring the departments.

"Under this proposed restructure how do we make sure that the entire range of natural resource industries have a voice in the governor's office?" he asks. "Those are the real measuring blocks to me of any of these restructuring proposals, because the structure really isn't as important as the agencies having enough resources to do their jobs effectively and to work well."

Commissioner Whitcomb says the governor's merger plan is not designed to get rid of workers, although both he and Commissioner Beardsley say it's possible unfilled jobs in both departments could be eliminated. The plan also calls for the elimination of one of the two commissioners at the governor's discretion.

"And if the governor chose to ask me to be commissioner, I certainly would be honored to work in that regard. But that's quite a ways down the road, to be honest with you," Whitcomb says.

The proposed merger will require legislative approval. And according to the governor's news release, enabling legislation toward that end is currently being drafted.

A.J. Higgins contributed to reporting on this story.