Maine Owl

thanks for the heads up
Ron

Posted by ron huber on June 29, 2010 at 18:23

Great, "optimistically projected zero marine industry interest" is no reason to rethink this!

Sears Island could be an economic engine as an ecological reserve -- now! This process instead has devolved into disastrous delusion, even amongst those who we might think should be allies.

Commenter Ron Huber is too modest for not linking these recent posts:

http://penobscotbay.blogspo...

http://penobscotbay.blogspo...

Posted by The Owl on June 30, 2010 at 11:08

Sally Jones might have had the courtesy to put our comments about zero industry interest in building a container port on Sears Island into context. MDOT and the Maine Port Authority (who, by the way, while enthralled by industry are, still, government agencies) had just wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars in ridiculous "studies" and marketing trying to please some corporate power broker and no one was reporting it.

Our piece read:

"Thursday, December 17, 2009
According to Maine Port Authority chief John Henshaw, MDOT "received no responses to our [Sears Island] RFEI by the November 25 deadline." The Request For Expression of Interest (RFEI) was prepared for MDOT by California consultant Moffat and Nichol at a cost of $100,000.

"Hired by MDOT in July, Henshaw said then that the response to the Moffat and Nichol RFEI "will help the state determine what kind of interest there is in developing a port on the island, as well as what the current needs of the marine transportation industry are, given the state of the economy. That will tell us what ultimately ought to be built there and when."

"Given that there were absolutely no responses to the RFEI, it would appear that those who argue that Sears Island cannot economically support a container port are correct.

"For example, Chop Hardenbergh, editor of Atlantic Northeast Rails and Ports, who spoke to the tugboat pilots organization in May of this year, said, "No new container terminal is needed in Searsport." He went on to say, "Studies claiming we need a new terminal in Searsport start with questionable assumptions, miss the boat on local need and port congestion elsewhere, over-estimate the value of rail capability, and anticipate a tsunami of traffic that is a mirage."

"It is unclear what MDOT will do with the 350-acre portion of Sears Island set aside for possible port development now that it is known there is zero marine industry interest in building a container terminal on Sears Island."

Which, of course, doesn't remove the threat of misguided public ventures. But a Sears Island port has always been about the money and it is news, good news for those who hope never to see it developed, that the money isn't there.

This is, on the other hand, a wonderful time to join the thousands who are spending time on undeveloped Sears Island right now. And tell your friends. Sears Island already generates economic benefit, whether from the ecological functions it provides or from the indirect revenue from visitors who stop in Searsport.

Steve Miller

Posted by Steve Miller on July 03, 2010 at 14:29

Steve, thank you very much for providing this fuller context. While I have been out of state for a few months, I had not posted on the results of the $100,000 "RFEI" contract. I thank readers for noting all of these updates.

Posted by The Owl on July 03, 2010 at 17:04

PART 1:

Beware of wolves in sheep's clothing.

Steven Miller professes to be interested in saving the entirety of Sears Island, yet he was one of the faux environmentalists who signed MDOT?s highly contrived "consensus" agreement explicitly stating it is "appropriate" to take over a third of this remarkable completely wild island, the largest in public hands on the U.S. East Coast, and build a container port there. This is a shameful reality this Islesboro Islands Trust executive director cannot deny.

Miller may claim expedience in his decision to sign -- indeed, his equally guilty colleague in environmental perfidy, Scott Dickerson, executive director of Coastal Mountains Land Trust, cynically claimed just that in an email to those trusting souls who believed these two sinecure-grasping do-nothings were actually sincere in their efforts to save the island from development. Miller and Dickerson and the yuppie crew at the Maine Sierra (Hiking) Club protested they were actually working to establish a major protected area as a first step toward total island preservation. Their strategy, they said, was to play along with the state long enough to gain control of some two thirds of the island, but if MDOT were to actually proceed with port development they would in effect doublecross their new allies of convenience and renew the battle for total island preservation. (I happen to have a copy of this email.)

The outcome was Miller, Dickerson & Co. arranged for 601 acres of the island belonging to the people of Maine to be transferred to their colleagues at Maine Coast Heritage Trust. Subsequently, they laid out a detailed vision for turning this area into a kind of environmental theme park with rental office space (for operating income), classrooms, an indoor auditorium, an outdoor amphitheater, a demonstration windmill of unspecified height, solar panels, battery sheds, restrooms, septic fields, paved parking lots and roadways. Some so-called environmentalists certainly have a peculiar idea of environmental preservation.

(continued below)

Posted by Peter Taber on July 06, 2010 at 20:03

PART 2:

The outcome of all this skullduggery? Miller and his colleagues gave the soulless cretins in Augusta what they wanted. The soulless cretins immediately proclaimed that everybody now believed the lie it is truly possible to take a largely closed system like a small wild island, clearcut and level a third of it, lay down 4.5 miles of rail track and a highway loop for heavy truck traffic, dredge out a major fish nursery area along half a mile of the island's western shore for a concrete and steel wharf topped by 100-foot cargo cranes AND STILL HAVE the same "environmental gem of Penobscot Bay" (Miller's words) that at this point in time at least remains the reality.

Since then, the soulless cretins at MDOT have proceeded just as authorized under the "consensus" agreement "to market" the island. At the same time, the land trust opportunists have been all but silent, their earlier bold talk notwithstanding. I reckon they're still keeping their fingers crossed that no thanks to them a container port won't be built because "the money isn't there."

In fact, these sad excuses for environmentalists were all on hand as special guests at the Blaine House last fall as some glib hack honored Gov. Baldacci as Downeast Magazine?s environmentalist of the year, along with those members of the Sears Island Planning Initiative Committee who signed the "consensus" agreement.

It was a sickening spectacle made all the more sickening by a little snitching on the part of EarthFirst and Maine Greens representative Jimmie Freeman. Another "consensus" agreement signatory, Freeman wanted the governor to know of his concern that Ron Huber, executive director of Penobscot Baywatch and one of the genuinely honest and courageous environmentalists involved in this whole sorry mess, intended to show up for a peaceful protest.

The reason for Downeast's accolades for Baldacci and by extension for the committee members who sold out Sears Island by signing the "consensus" agreement? Downeast's Jeff Clark indicated it had something to do with the governor's skill at "balancing conservation with commerce."

"Baldacci sought to put the controversy [over Sears Island] to rest once and for all," Clark explained. "He created a task force representing every possible opinion about the Searsport island and told them to come up with a solution. Amazingly, they did."

What an amazing solution! Amazingly, in spite of Clark's starry-eyed naivete, many people still smell the rat behind this travesty. Downeast reader Mark Bacon, who lives next-door to Sears Island in Stockton Springs, aptly pointed out the absurdity of the governor's amazing solution. Referring to Clark's account of Downeast's decision to honor the governor and his patsies, Bacon wrote, "Your article gives the impression that building a port on an unspoiled island is somehow an environmentally friendly thing. I find that very strange."

So do many of us.

Peter Taber
Publisher
Wild Maine Times
Searsport

Posted by Peter Taber on July 06, 2010 at 20:04

I'm certainly happy to host here the contentious debate about Sears Island. Following my links, you will see that I come down clearly on the side of preserving the entirety of the island as an ecological reserve. The type of "environmental" center Peter Taber describes in such a provocative (and personal) way does not feel right to me. That said, I have no reason myself to characterize the motives of others. Further, I'm not ready to say nothing at all (interpretive center, park facility perhaps?) ought be built.

Meanwhile, it's helpful to re-listen to the programs WERU has run over the past couple of years, especially those surrounding the "consensus" agreement Peter Taber mentions. The debate suggested in this post is hashed out pretty well in those programs. Find all of those WERU shows HERE:

http://archives.weru.org/?s...

Thanks to Amy Browne and Meredith DeFrancesco at WERU for making those important radio programs possible.

Posted by The Owl on July 07, 2010 at 13:54

You can also listen to hours of recordings of meetings of the Sears Island Joint Use Planning Committee and of the Maine legislature's hearings on the Sears Island partition plan. Hear Steve Miller, Peter Taber, Ken Cole etc etc. Includes link to Angus King's famous whine about eelgrass. Click on http://tinyurl.com/wassumkeag

Posted by Ron on July 07, 2010 at 23:00

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