Competing visions for Sears Island presented

loading...

BELFAST – The 45-member committee trying to craft consensus recommendations for state-owned Sears Island heard two competing proposals Tuesday: one for making the Searsport island a preserve, the other for keeping open the option of building a container port.

Yet even with the conflicting visions, discussion revealed a sliver of common ground – the island could become a preserve with transportation officials making the case for building a port there when a demonstrable, compelling need arises.

Committee member Scott Dickerson, executive director of the Coastal Mountains Land Trust, presented “Preservation and Port: A Recipe for Prosperity” on behalf of himself and a dozen other committee members, each with an interest in Sears Island or representing people with an interest.

The proposal focused on a “permanent vision” for Sears Island and Mack Point, the nearby liquid and bulk cargo port operated by Sprague Energy Inc.

“‘Permanent’ is very important to this group,” Dickerson said.

After 30 years of strife over proposals to build an oil refinery, aluminum smelter and nuclear power plant on the 941-acre island, he said, the fate of the island must be settled.

At the same time, Dickerson noted, any compelling transportation use could trump the “permanent” preserve status.

“Keep in mind that every level of government has powers of eminent domain,” he said. “There is no permanent solution to real estate.”

The group’s core recommendations are that all of the island be permanently committed to conservation, outdoor recreation and environmental education, while at the same time supporting full use of Mack Point. In essence, the group agreed to accept the inevitability of expansion of existing port facilities – just a half-mile across Long Cove from the island – as a trade-off for preserving Sears Island.

The group envisions:

. Trails, beach access points and hand-carried watercraft launching.

. Signs and kiosks to provide natural and human history interpretation.

. A building at the north end of the island of about 2,000 square feet.

. Composting toilets.

. A small, screened parking area.

Dickerson’s group opposes the concept, suggested over the past two decades, of a port and preserve co-existing on the island.

“We don’t understand how that could exist compatibly with [trails]” because of noise which would interfere with the “quiet contemplation” of enjoying nature.

The group suggested the island could continue to be owned by the state with a conservation easement held by a land trust or the town, or the island could be owned by a federal resource agency or nonprofit organization.

Melrose, who led the effort in the late 1990s to build the container port, noted than any federal ownership would negate the eminent domain option for the state.

In his presentation, which was supported by 10 other committee members and groups, Melrose argued that 25 years ago the state’s three-port strategy – developing ports in Portland, Searsport and Eastport – was “a compromise between economic and environmental interests.”

In his written proposal, Melrose said coastal shorefront conservation “has increased significantly approximating 900 miles today and is still trending upward.”

At the same time, shipping demand is increasing, he argued, and Sears Island offers attributes that are rare on the coast of Maine:

. The largest available land area of the three ports.

. Gently sloping lands and adequate buffers with existing residential areas.

. Rail access that includes the ability to “double stack” containers and ship them to Montreal and the Midwest.

. Relatively low dredge requirements.

Melrose said containers are off-loaded in ports in New York or New Jersey and trucked to Maine. A container port would allow businesses here to get goods more cheaply, he said.

Sears Island is now owned by the state through DOT “exclusively for the use of marine transportation,” he asserted.

Passive recreational use can continue as long as operations at Mack Point are not compromised, Melrose’s group stated.

A key point in his group’s proposal is that if a container port proposal is ever made, it will have to clear a high regulatory hurdle, including passing muster in an “alternatives analysis” that would look at using Mack Point first.

“A stellar proposal that could secure such approvals should not be arbitrarily foreclosed today without knowledge of the potentials,” the group said.

The committee, convened by the Department of Conservation, meets again Oct. 16 and Nov. 9. The group is aiming to file recommendations by the end of the year with Gov. John Baldacci, the Legislature’s Transportation Committee, and the town of Searsport.