Consensus Hard to reach over SI

by Peter Taber
(Created: Thursday, October 19, 2006 12:22 PM EDT)

Deputy Conservation Commissioner Karin Tilberg was clearly moved Monday as she opened the latest in a series of state-sponsored meetings of a special citizens steering committee charged by Gov. John Baldacci with trying to reach common agreement on a plan for the future of Sears Island. Assuming he’s re-elected next month, the governor has indicated he’ll follow any consensual recommendation that might emerge from a group numbering approximately four-dozen members representing a broad range of goals and interests.

More than six and a half hours later as the meeting held in Searsport’s Congregational Church vestry broke up, the question that remained was whether committee members had made any substantive progress toward reaching that goal.

Tilberg observed in her opening remarks that the committee members have been gathering information since they first came together under her department’s watch last spring after the planning initiative was transferred out of the hands of the Department of Transportation (DOT) in a move by the governor to allay suspicion in environmental quarters about the state’s true intentions.

"This is the time to really focus on the consensus building process," Tilberg urged the committee. She called that process “not easy but challenging.” She had no argument there.

The DOT is still the state department legally in charge of the 941-acre Searsport island purchased from private interests in 1997 for $4 million. The sale came some 21 months after then-Gov. Angus King abandoned a nearly two-decade-long effort led by the DOT to build a general cargo port on the island’s western shore facing Mack Point. King’s action marked the end of what remains to this day the longest-running environmental battle in New England history.

Sears Island is prized by many as the largest wild island property in public hands on the East Coast. Because it is connected by a causeway to a point on the mainland less than a mile from busy Route 1, the island has the further attraction of being highly accessible to the public. But other interests, still led by the DOT, see potential in the fact the island faces directly onto deep water dredged in the 1980s to meet the federal shipping channel serving Searsport Harbor. Instead of a general cargo facility, a need met in 2003 as part of an approximately $40 million rehabilitation of Mack Point, port development interests are now exploring whether a marginal wharf might profitably be built on the island to handle possible “short-feed” cargo container shipping.

By the time shortly before lunch when Tilberg had to depart for Augusta to meet with legislators, there remained little if any atmosphere conducive to the spirit of consensus. Nonetheless, Tilberg made a further try in that direction.

"Where is there common vision?" the deputy commissioner asked rhetorically. She urged committee members to contemplate the island’s actual use for many years “while the future unfolded,” to contemplate its continuing existence as a highly valued nature preserve and low-impact non-motorized public recreational area. Then, referring to the state’s decision to turn the unused Brewer-to-Calais railroad right-of-way over for a variety of recreational uses while still retaining ownership against the day it might be needed for its original purpose, she suggested parallel possibilities with the case of Sears Island.

"Is this a model?" Tilberg asked. "It doesn’t permanently foreclose the future. There may be a lesson in that."

A minority within the environmental ranks led by the group Fair Play for Sears Island, whose spokesperson is Searsport resident Harlan McLaughlin, has discussed possible consensus along these lines with supporters of port development led by John Melrose, the former DOT commissioner under Gov. King. While each group disagrees strongly about what outcome they’d ultimately like to see for the island, the past couple of meetings have seen agreement building that each could support an interim scenario in which the island continues to remain totally wild with no permanent structures being built there,

The steering committee next meets on Nov. 9.

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Consensus Hard to reach over SI

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