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Preservationist proposes Sears Island
compromise
By Tom Groening
Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - Bangor Daily News
SEARSPORT - Though he is squarely in the camp that wants to permanently conserve
Sears Island, Scott Dickerson is working to find common ground with the group
that desires to build a container port on the state-owned property.
At a meeting Monday of the committee working to draft recommendations for the
island, Dickerson challenged the port proponents on the committee to consider
transferring the island to Department of Conservation management.
If a port proposal won the necessary permits and were financed, then the island
could return to its current status, controlled by the Department of
Transportation.
Former DOT Commissioner John Melrose and others in the pro-port group did not
embrace the notion, but did not reject it out of hand either.
The committee, working under the oversight of the Conservation Department, is
aiming to file a report by the end of the year with Gov. John Baldacci, the
Legislature’s Transportation Committee, and the town of Searsport.
The 45-member group is also aiming to reach consensus on uses for the 941-acre
island, which is linked to the mainland by a causeway built in the late 1980s.
Finishing before the deadline and finding consensus have both seemed unlikely at
points in the process. Monday’s meeting saw more displays of the passions that
divide the camps, but there were also moments in which some of the players laid
their cards on the table and seemed to look for common ground.
Transferring management of the island to the Conservation Department might seem
like a win for the preservationists. But Dickerson and others in that camp have
acknowledged that there is no permanence in the political realm, and so it would
not achieve any final protection.
Even though Baldacci has pledged to take seriously the group’s recommendations,
any future governor or Legislature could shred the committee’s report and move
to build virtually anything on the island.
Conservation Department management would still mean the state controlled the
island, which would make it easier for transportation proponents to push for a
port than if the island were transferred to a private group like a land trust.
That part of the proposal seemed to be a concession by Dickerson.
At a committee meeting in June, Dickerson, who is executive director of the
Camden-based Coastal Mountains Land Trust, made a similar compromise overture.
At that time, he asked port proponents if they would abandon Sears Island in
exchange for environmentalists supporting expansion of port facilities at Mack
Point, which is just across a cove from the island on the mainland.
Port proponents rejected the concept, saying the dredging required for such an
expansion would likely not be approved by state and federal regulatory agencies.
Melrose, who was DOT commissioner when Gov. Angus King dropped the state’s bid
to build a port on Sears Island, has been direct with committee members, saying
marine transportation uses should be retained as options for the island.
The deep-water access — 35-plus feet at low tide, thanks to dredging completed
in 1992 — is rare on the coast, he has asserted.
Melrose and current DOT Commissioner David Cole, who was also at Monday’s
meeting, have both maintained that there is no plan by state or private entities
to develop a port on the island.
Cole went further, saying that a bill passed by the Legislature earlier this
year and a directive from Baldacci have taken the matter out of DOT’s hands.
Any proposal for the island must come before the Legislature’s Transportation
Committee, and Baldacci has stated his commitment to the committee completing
its work before any proposal is entertained.
In a discussion prompted by Dickerson’s compromise overture, Melrose said the
island should remain as it is now — open for passive recreational uses like
hiking and kayaking — but retained by DOT for use if and when it is needed.
"What is wrong with the current situation?" Melrose asked in one exchange.
But people like Astrig Tanguay, who owns Searsport Shores Campground, which
faces the island, said the cloud of uncertainty about its future discourages her
from investing in her property.
"We’re hostage to this whole process," Tanguay told the group.
Karin Tilberg, deputy commissioner of the Department of Conservation who is
helping lead the committee, was not present when Dickerson made his proposal.
Earlier in the meeting, she suggested the committee consider the status of the
Calais-Brewer rail line as instructive in reaching consensus on Sears Island.
Though pedestrian uses such as hiking are being developed on the line, DOT is
not relinquishing the corridor in the event a future need arises.
In other business, DOT’s Cole reported that several studies are under way that
might shed light on the need for a container port in Searsport. Those studies
include:
• A four-state, five-Canadian-province analysis of the transportation corridor
from Prince Edward Island, Canada to Buffalo, N.Y. and Toronto, Ontario.
• A re-examination of Maine’s three-port strategy that focuses on Portland,
Searsport and Eastport.
• An integrated freight plan examining all modes of transportation.
Tom Groening
groening@midcoast.com
For more information about Sears Island, to take part in efforts to protect the
island or for a natural history tour, call the Sierra Club 761-5616 and visit our
calendar of events at
http://www.maine.sierraclub.org/calendar.htm . To learn more about this
issue visit the
Maine Department of Conservation's website on the
Sears Island Facilitation Services Planning Initiative.
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