PERRY – For months it has been all about LNG, but on Sunday it was about TLC as area residents cleaned up Gleason Cove.

Although heavy rains pounded the area off and on all morning and fog was so thick you couldn’t see out into the bay, that didn’t stop some hardy Washington County folks who showed up to celebrate Earth Day by picking up trash.

“We just sort of feel that this is kind of a special place for Perry and the area,” Perry resident Gary Guisinger said. “We thought we’d do a little Earth Day celebration and clean it up some. We have some of the Cub Scouts working and other people as crazy as I am. We’re going to see if we can’t help it a little bit.”

The park has a picnic area and barbecue pits, a boat ramp and a parking area “There are ample places for people to park and get down to the water and have picnics and bonfires, what people normally do at the beaches,” Guisinger said.

Even with all of the anti-littering information regularly on the airwaves, Guisinger said he was surprised that people continue to dump trash. He said the local Cub Scout group has faithfully cleaned the area in years past.

On Sunday, they found a hodgepodge of things. “We found clothing, styrofoam, beer bottles. We found some [hypodermic] needles. We’ve cautioned the kids to be really careful about those kinds of things,” he said. “I can speculate what [the hypodermic needles] were used for. I don’t think a doctor was out here giving flu shots.”

Although fog hung like a curtain over the area and visibility went from poor to none, Guisinger said if a liquefied natural gas terminal were built there it would dominate the area. “The tanks and pier would be the largest structure in this region from Saint John [New Brunswick] to Belfast probably,” he said.

The Passamaquoddy Tribe at nearby Pleasant Point last year partnered with an Oklahoma developer in plans to build a $400 million liquefied natural gas terminal on 42 acres of Gleason Cove.

Last year, tribal members approved going forward with construction. This year, Perry residents rejected the plan even though the tribe and developer offered residents $1 million annually.

The town weighed in on the development opportunity because of a 19-year-old arrangement that automatically would allow Perry a say over commercial development on 390 acres the town transferred to the tribe in 1986. The proposed facility would occupy 42 acres within the 390-acre parcel.