Sears Island planners get surprise visitor

SEARSPORT – The Senate chairman of the state’s Transportation Committee paid a surprise visit Friday to the Sears Island Joint Use Planning Committee meeting at the First Congregational Church.

Sen. Dennis Damon, D-Trenton, praised the group but urged caution about not losing sight of the mission to keep part of the state-owned island for possible future port development.

“The members of my committee are very interested that this asset we have, Sears Island … is of vital importance to the state of Maine and this whole region for its transportation opportunities,” he said.

“They want to make sure that it’s reserved as an opportunity for transportation,” Damon said. “I think what you’ve been doing, is doing that,” he added. “It would be very unfortunate that if anything we did now, in drafting this document, would preclude that.”

The Joint Use Planning Committee, which evolved in June 2007 from the Sears Island Planning Initiative, was charged with creating borders on the 941-acre island between a conservation area and a parcel that could be developed into a container port. The committee is to complete its work by the end of June.

Meeting for three hours Friday, the committee heard a presentation from Deane Van Dusen, manager of the Maine Department of Transportation’s Field Services and Mitigation Division, about the Federal Umbrella Wetland Mitigation Prospectus and a meeting of the interagency review team in Augusta on May 13.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which chairs the six-member interagency monthly meetings, identified a mitigation review team made up of representatives from the Army Corps, which will chair the team, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Marine Fisheries Service, Maine Land Use Regulation Commission, and Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

Committee member Becky Bartovic asked whether there would be a public hearing on the mitigation report, and she was told no.

Ciona Ulbrich, project manager for Maine Coast Heritage Trust, the proposed conservation easement holder, reviewed about half of the easement before meeting time ran out.

During a discussion over identifying wetlands on the conservation easement portion of the island, committee member Steve Miller of Islesboro argued against creating a vaguely defined wetland to compensate for losing one.

Van Dusen had said there was a 2-acre wetland in the conservation side that needed to be resolved, and another acreage that had not been identified.

When Miller objected to identifying wetlands and a 2-acre zone for a survey, Committee member Robert Grindrod replied, “Don’t take the 600 acres, then,” and added, “If you don’t want it, walk away.”

“We’re talking about a conservation easement that’s to be filed in a perpetuity law,” Miller said.

The committee plans to meet again June 6.

gchappell@bangordailynews.net

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