A recent request for commercial zoning for 50-plus acres next to the heart of Bangor’s Penjajawoc Marsh raises the specter of another potentially polarizing struggle over development and conservation in the Penjajawoc Marsh area.

As both the Bangor City Council and the Bangor Planning Board prepare to consider this request, (the city council Monday at 7:30 p.m.; planning board Tuesday at 7 p.m.), we ask: Can development and conservation coexist in this area, without major harm to wildlife habitat and to the social ecology of our city? How can we improve the sometimes bitter relations that have hindered the cooperative search for answers?

Both sides in this struggle are unhappy. Some landowners have posted properties to prevent entry. A couple even attempted to destroy the beaver dams that have deepened the marsh. On the other side, many area residents feel that the Penjajawoc Marsh, identified by Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife as probably the state’s most important emergent freshwater marsh, is an important economic asset, deserving of protection from bulldozers and pavement, while still respecting the property rights of landowners.

The solutions to this dilemma can be found in the comprehensive planning process. Our current plan is badly out of date. The wetlands information in the 2000 Comprehensive Plan is based on a 1991 report from Inland Fisheries and Wildlife – written 13 years ago, before the full importance of the Penjajawoc Marsh was understood. No wonder it doesn’t address the problem adequately.

BACORD is asking for what state law mandates – full public participation in the plan revision – and an ongoing dialogue with all the parties in this struggle, including the city of Bangor, to create a viable plan, one that will attract creative capital and drive economic development as well as protecting natural resources.

The long-term resolution to the conflict over the future of the Penjajawoc Marsh lies in innovative approaches to municipal, regional and state planning that integrate the various pieces of the Penjajawoc struggle: land use planning, conservation, economic development, protection of wildlife habitat and open space, and clean water policies. It is clearly in Bangor’s long-term interests to expand the scope of our planning beyond the narrow confines of a model driven by solely commercial interests trying to attract as many big box stores as possible to the Bangor Mall area.

We encourage our city council and city staff to explore the variety of exciting models across the country. For example, the city of Olympia, Washington developed an imaginative project for reducing the impervious surface created by pavement and buildings, in order to improve water quality. Having more conserved open space for recreation would improve the quality of life for humans in this area as well as for wildlife, as demonstrated by the success and popularity of the Orono Bog Boardwalk.

One place for interested people to start doing research on such alternatives is an Internet search. The results make for fascinating reading, much of it directly applicable to Bangor’s challenges.

In the meantime, we urge the council and the planning board to deny this proposed commercial rezoning, which goes deep into the heart of the Penjajawoc Marsh. Allowing this rezoning now, while the Comprehensive Plan is still being revised, would be tragic foolishness. Bangor planning needs a chance to explore alternative paths that will maximize the economic benefits to the city from this unique natural resource, while still allowing for responsible economic development to take place.

As an interim solution we propose the following:

. The wetlands on the property for which rezoning has been sought should be carefully mapped by experts before they are disturbed – by clear-cutting or anything else.

. The area within 600-1,000 feet of the wetland edge that is zoned Rural Residential and Agricultural should be kept as a necessary buffer zone with a guarantee that it will not be rezoned to permit more intensive development. A careful professional wildlife habitat study is needed.

. Mall impact and mitigation fees collected from developers should be put into a fund to be used to purchase land in the buffer zone and appropriately compensate landowners.

. The city should create an environmentally appropriate plan for handling the traffic growth that will be created by Shopping and Personal Service zoning – a plan other than the parallel access road – before allowing the zoning change.

. The city must ensure that rezoning will not lead to stormwater runoff that would further degrade the Penjajawoc Stream.

. Site plans submitted to the planning board for large developments in the area around the marsh should be subject to a full public hearing before the planning board – on the entire site plan, not only on “conditional uses” – with adequate public notice.

. The city should convene a group of interested parties to explore and create possible solutions to the disagreements over land use policy in the Penjajawoc/mall area.

We urge Bangor citizens to contact city councilors and tell them that you oppose the destructive and irresponsible request to rezone this parcel before the Comprehensive Plan has been updated to include critical environmental information and perspectives, including the Beginning with Habitat information presented to the city last year. Conservation of special natural resources can enhance economic development; it is up to us to explore and create positive, innovative solutions that will make this happen.

Valerie J. Carter and Hope Brogunier are both Bangor residents and Steering Committee members of BACORD, Bangor Area Citizens Organized for Responsible Development.