Sears Island planning panel to meet May 30
Monday, May 15, 2006 - Bangor Daily News
SEARSPORT — A statewide planning process to determine the final disposition of Sears Island gets under way in earnest May 30 when a steering committee meets.
The meeting is open to the public but will be mostly organizational in nature, Karin Tilberg, deputy state conservation commissioner, said Friday.
The Conservation Department is leading the planning to avoid any perception that the state Department of Transportation, which administers ownership of the island for the state, is trying to influence the outcome of the process.
In the coming months, two meetings devoted to gathering public comment on the island will be scheduled, Tilberg said.
The steering committee’s role is to guide the process, she said, “taking the fruits of the discussions and trying to synthesize them” into a plan. The group’s aim is to produce a final report, perhaps recommending a final disposition of the island, by the end of the year; the report will be given to Gov. John Baldacci, the Legislature’s Transportation Committee and the town of Searsport.
The fate of the 941-acre, state-owned island — connected to the mainland by a causeway built in the 1980s — has been passionately debated for 30 years. Proposals to build a nuclear power plant, aluminum smelter and coal-fired power plant have come and gone.
The last and most protracted debate came when DOT sought to build a dry cargo port on the island. Beginning in the early 1980s, the state’s bid was hampered by lawsuits from the Sierra Club, and work proceeded in starts and stops.
Finally, in the late 1990s, the state dropped its cargo port proposal, citing the high cost of meeting environmental regulations. Along the way, DOT inadvertently contributed to those escalating costs, as a contractor working for the state illegally filled wetlands. DOT then had to restore the filled land.
The island had been essentially mothballed, though it was used by people for hiking, hunting, kayaking and camping. Then, three years ago, Baldacci’s office was contacted by a consultant working for the liquefied natural gas industry. Though no LNG terminal proposal ever came forward, the concept galvanized some area residents and environmental groups to fight for final protection of the island.
The DOT urged the town of Searsport to create a plan for the island, and a committee worked for two years on that task. Its final report lists activities and development the group would find acceptable on Sears Island, most of it oriented toward recreation. The town committee clashed with the state over DOT’s insistence that 280 acres on the northwest corner of the island be reserved for possible future transportation uses.
DOT officials also said they would take the planning process to a statewide audience after the town completed its plan, and that stage is now getting under way, under the auspices of the Conservation Department.
The meetings will be run by Jonathan Reitman of Gosline, Reitman & Ainsworth, a conflict resolution firm in Brunswick. Ground rules for meetings and creation of subcommittees are among the items on the May 30 agenda.
The steering committee consists of:
Dianne Smith, chairwoman of the town planning committee; Joe Perry, Searsport selectman; James Gillway, town manager; Sen. Dennis Damon, Transportation Committee chairman; Sen. Carol Weston, whose district includes Waldo County; Tim Love of the Penobscot Nation; Joan Saxe of the Maine chapter of the Sierra Club; Stephen Miller of Islesboro Island Land Trust and Protect Sears Island; Astrig Tanguay, co-owner of Searsport Shores Camping Resort, and a member of the town planning committee and Protect Sears Island; John Melrose, former transportation commissioner and now consultant for transportation lobbying group Maine Better Transportation Association; Jonathan Daniels, Eastern Maine Development Corp.; David Gelinas, Penobscot Bay and River Pilots; Tilberg; Martha Freeman, director of the State Planning Office; David Cole, current transportation commissioner; Jeff Sosnaud of the Department of Economic and Community Development; and Alan Stearns, the governor’s senior policy adviser.
Tilberg said representatives of the fisheries industry and of educational and academic institutions may be added to the committee.
The meeting will be at 9 a.m. Tuesday, May 30, and will conclude at 3 p.m. at the First Congregational Church of Searsport, which is on the Penobscot Marine Museum campus, just off Route 1. The steering committee will post meeting notices, minutes and other data at: www.state.me.us/doc/initiatives/SearsIsland/SearsIsland.shtml.
