Conservation at center of Sears Island panel debate

SEARSPORT – After years of debate over conservation vs. industrial use of the state-owned Sears Island, the arguments for conservation remain as intense as ever.

A discussion during the Sears Island Joint Use Planning Committee meeting Friday provoked a long public input segment.

The committee, with participants including the Maine Department of Transportation, environmental groups and others, was formed three years ago to determine the future of the island. A compromise agreement recently set aside 341 acres on the island as a location for a future container port, while leaving the rest of the island for recreational uses.

The committee is charged with creating boundaries between the 600-acre conservation area and the 341-acre container port area, and met Friday to prepare for a public meeting June 25 at the Hutchinson Center in Belfast.

But some committee members said they feel they are not ready for such a meeting.

“How can we have a public hearing when we don’t have a conservation easement yet?” asked committee member Becky Bartovics. “I don’t think we should rush through this.”

Transportation Commissioner David Cole said it was important to move along expeditiously.

Searsport resident Harlan McLaughlin of the conservation group known as Fair Play for Sears Island said the committee had ignored the public’s comments during the last public hearing.

“You ignored the will of the people,” he said. “Ninety percent said they wanted no development whatsoever.”

Peter Taber of Searsport asked Cole whether he understood that federal rules say there can be no port if there is no easement. Taber said he could produce the document that proved his point.

Cole responded by saying he would like to see the document.

Committee facilitator Dianne Smith told Taber the committee was not involved in that particular discussion.

Taber asked the committee what was being done about wetland mitigation.

Deane Van Dusen of the DOT said his agency was working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on a wetland mitigation schedule.

Smith said the public “does want an opportunity to ask questions.”

“I don’t want our answers to be fluff,” she said.

Smith next reviewed the Sears Island Planning Initiative progress guiding the committee in its work.

Van Dusen reviewed a chart showing the committee’s progress from the beginning and a deadline for its destination.

Smith introduced a letter from Gov. John Baldacci encouraging the committee to proceed in its “elegant and creative achievement of conservation and appropriate reservation of marine-related transportation.”

In a discussion of personal use of the island, Sally Jones of Hampden said a favorite family pastime was to walk around the entire island.

Would she and her family be able to continue to walk around the periphery of Sears Island once it is marked off with boundaries for conservation and transportation, she asked.

Van Dusen of the DOT told her, “No.”

“I am going to miss that walk,” she replied.

gchappell@bangordailynews.net

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