BEP members formally deny Wal-Mart permit

AUGUSTA – The application for the state permit needed to build a Wal-Mart Supercenter near the Bangor Mall was formally denied Thursday, despite the developer’s eleventh-hour attempt to withdraw it.

During a meeting in Augusta, Board of Environmental Protection members voted 5-3 to ratify the denial order they had directed staff to write after their March 20 vote. During the March meeting, the board voted – also 5-3 – to deny the application for a site location of development permit submitted by New York-based Widewaters-Stillwater LLC.

The developer needed the permit in order to build a 224,000-square-foot store on a roughly 28-acre parcel near the Bangor Mall and the Penjajawoc Marsh, which state environmental officials consider a valuable wildlife habitat.

Thursday’s vote to ratify the denial order followed a two-hour debate on whether Widewaters should be allowed to withdraw its application and whether the BEP had the authority to approve the withdrawal, which BEP staff said would have been unprecedented in a matter of such intense public interest.

Widewaters’ legal counsel, Virginia Davis, reportedly faxed a letter to state environmental officials after office hours Monday asking to withdraw the application.

Davis was unavailable for comment Thursday. Widewaters’ spokesman Kevin Kane did not return telephone calls made to his office in New York, nor did he comment after the March 20 vote.

The request triggered a flurry of letters from attorneys representing conservation groups who essentially complained it would be unfair to allow Widewaters to withdraw its application at this late stage in the process that has persisted for more than two years.

After hearing from several of the attorneys on both sides of the issue, as well as the board’s legal counsel, Assistant Attorney General Peggy McCloskey, the board voted 6-2 against the withdrawal.

“It was an obvious attempt to circumvent the board process,” said Jody Jones, a wildlife ecologist for Maine Audubon.

Members of Maine Audubon and Bangor Area Citizens Organized for Responsible Development, or BACORD, both of which were represented Thursday, have opposed the project from the start because they fear it would irreversibly damage the marsh and nearby wildlife, most notably the bird population.

Landowners also have been watching the project closely. Some saw BACORD’s unsuccessful push last year for a halt on large-scale development near the mall as an encroachment upon their property rights.

“Things ended well for us,” BACORD spokesman Valerie Carter said late Thursday afternoon. “This was a hellacious process to get through.”

Jones was among the conservationists who took issue with a remark by Severin Beliveau, Davis’ colleague at Preti Flaherty, that the application process would resume once conditions were “more favorable.” The terms of three of the board’s 10 members are slated to expire this spring.

The board conducted an unprecedented six days of hearings last year on Widewaters’ bid to build a 224,000-square-foot store at the corner of Stillwater Avenue and Gilman Road near the Bangor Mall.

The proposal touched off what became a bitter, two-year battle between project supporters and the environmental groups and Maine Audubon.

In a draft order issued in late November, DEP staff recommended that Widewaters be granted the permit, contingent upon meeting 22 conditions.

Sticking points cited by board members included:

. Continued dissatisfaction with plans for mitigating damage to the environment and wildlife. Inadequate provisions for fitting the project “harmoniously” into the existing natural environment.

. A lack of evidence that Wal-Mart is legally responsible for financing project costs above the $2.9 million committed earlier by KeyBank and the $4.8 million Widewaters planned to commit to the project.