Leave Sears Island alone, say county commissioners

By Peter Taber/The Waldo Independent July 14, 2006

The growing faction that wants to see Sears Island preserved in its present wild state gained a boost Tuesday when the Waldo County Commissioners went on record as favoring the same thing. A resolution signed by the three commissioners considers the 941-acre island’s intrinsic assets and concludes it should be “set aside as land to be retained in its natural state for the use and enjoyment of the public.”

"I think this represents the best interests of the people of Waldo County," John Hyk, who chairs the commissioners, said just before the vote. Hyk has been prominent in the ongoing planning initiative called by Gov. John Baldacci seeking recommendations for a permanent solution to the island’s future. As a member of the steering committee for that initiative, he intends to rally the preservationist faction with a call to caucus when the committee holds its third meeting on Wednesday of this week.

"Well done, John," Commis-sioner Amy Trafton said after the vote as she complimented Hyk on the wording of the resolution.

Commissioner Greg Boetsch, who offered the second, confessed tongue-in-cheek, "I’ve become such an environmentally sensitive fellow."

This was a prompt for Hyk to josh his fellow commissioner how "Greg has the biggest skidder in Waldo County." Boetsch, who is a firewood dealer in his hometown of Lincolnville, has a reputation as an independent conservative voice among the commissioners but conservationist was definitely his style when it came time to vote.

In their resolution, the commissioners begin with a statement of their shared view that access by the public to the coast is "a birthright for our children as well as one of the most valuable features our county offers citizens and visitors."

Their next point follows up on this thought by observing "Sears Island now provides the longest continuous stretch of undeveloped coastline in Waldo County if not the entire state." According to statistics offered by Conservation Commissioner Patrick McGowan in a speech at Orono this past spring, the island’s more than five miles of continuous undeveloped shoreline represents perhaps a fifth to a quarter of all the state-owned wild shoreline in Maine that’s available for public recreation.

The commissioners further note in their resolution how "development of our coastal lands during the 20th century has been so great that public access to undeveloped scenic vistas in Waldo County is now significantly limited.” They also go on record in the shared belief that the island “should be established as a public preserve so as to place it beyond the reach of routine executive or legislative whim."

This is not the first time the commissioners have weighed in on issues related to Sears Island. Almost three years ago, soon after officials at the state’s transportation and economic development departments and at the governor’s office talked with energy industry executives about putting a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on Sears Island, the Stockton Selectmen protested to Baldacci they were being left in the dark about potential developments next-door.

The selectmen never got a reply but they took their complaint to the commissioners who wrote to Baldacci on the town’s behalf asking for answers. Instead of a reply from the governor, the commissioners got a form letter by way of the Department of Transportation (DOT) acknowledging their concerns in a general way but offering no answers to the selectmen’s questions. At that point, Hyk drove to Augusta to make a personal visit to Baldacci. The next letter the commissioners got was personal and signed by the governor.

The current planning initiative has with each succeeding meeting seen momentum build in support of a no-compromise position that all of Sears Island should be preserved in its wild state, that even any services that might support its possible educational functions should be established off island.

At Wednesday’s public planning session, which is scheduled to run from noon until 5 p.m. at Belfast’s Hutchinson Center, advocates for particular recommendations for the island will be invited to get together to caucus or, in the words of Jonathan Reitman, the independent facilitator hired to run the process, to form "affinity groups."

In his invitation letter being distributed this week to steering committee members, Hyk notes his responsibility as a commissioner to look out for the best interests of the people of Waldo County. "What I hear from my constituents is, almost without exception, that this publicly owned island should NOT be developed," he writes. "None of it. No development of any kind."

He goes on to declare, "I believe this myself. I believe the highest and best use for Sears Island would be as some sort of non-motorized recreational area, that such a designation would be in the best interests of the people of the area and beyond." After suggesting the state’s own Land for Maine’s Future program as one highly popular and successful model for how to ensure the island’s continuing preservation, the commissioner says, "The truth is there’s zero evidence at this time demonstrating a legitimate need to extend development to Sears Island."

He backs up this assertion with figures taken from the DOT’s own ocean freight statistics. Among these are a more than 10 percent decline in freight tonnage handled at Mack Point when comparing the 1994 and 2004 figures. He also notes that while 114 ships docked at Mack Point last year, 30 years earlier there were some 144 ships.

Maine, like much of the developed world, is moving out of a manufactured goods-based economy, Hyk argues. What is replacing it is an economy increasingly based on information and on other more abstract commodities.

"The evidence is in front of us in Maine every day," he commented during a break in Tuesday’s commissioners’ proceedings. "It’s almost all bad news coming out of the paper industry. It’s tourism that’s now ousted paper as our number one industry. Close behind are those other aspects of this burgeoning new economic culture, that so-called ‘creative economy’ the governor says he wants to promote. I’m thinking of the positive economics that come into our state every day with the arrival of well-heeled retirees and those creative professionals who can now live anywhere they want but choose Maine precisely because so much of it is still not ruined by development."

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Leave Sears Island alone, say county commissioners

By Peter Taber/The Waldo Independent July 14, 2006

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