PERRY – It’s a Trojan horse, not a gift horse, say opponents of a proposed $400 million liquefied natural gas terminal on Indian land.

And they don’t want an LNG facility in their back yard.

Last year, the Passamaquoddy Tribe began to explore the possibility of siting a terminal on reservation land at Gleason Cove. The tribe entered into an exclusivity agreement with the Oklahoma City-based Quoddy Bay LLC. For months, the two sides were silent about the project. They didn’t hold press conferences or reach out to local communities.

Perry resident Bill Love said he was concerned about the secrecy surrounding the project. Although the tribe and company have created several hundred pages of contract language, neighboring communities don’t have a clue as to the content of that contract.

“What I feel is that it is sort of like shooting at a moving target; whenever we have an objection, they have an answer right away,” he said. “We are really looking at a proposal that has no concrete shape right now. We really don’t know what they are proposing.”

Two opposition groups – Perry Citizens for Responsible Growth and Save Passamaquoddy Bay Three Nation Alliance – have used radio, television and newspapers to get their messages out. Groups on both sides of the issue have courted Perry voters, who on Monday will decide the fate of the proposed project.

In 1986, Perry voters agreed to allow the Passamaquoddy to annex land on Route 190 near where the LNG terminal would be built. Article 40, as it was listed, had one condition: that the town would have veto power over any future commercial development.

Jeanne Guisinger, a Perry resident since 1976, described herself as a “reluctant activist.” She said it was Article 40 that motivated her and others to circulate a petition to get the question before voters.

Her husband, Gary, said the terminal could destroy the social fabric of the area.

“There are people who have come here and who have been here their whole lives and don’t want to live in New Jersey, and that is the type of thing that happens to an area like this when you put in a plant like that,” he said.

While opponents have raised questions about safety and environmental issues and the impact on the aesthetics of the area, Quoddy Bay point man Don Smith has assured Perry residents that LNG is safe.

He didn’t score any points with opponents when he suggested at a recent public hearing that Gleason Cove technically was not considered a pristine area.

“The bay at Gleason Cove is not pristine. The bay at Gleason’s Cove has the weir in it, it has anchorage in it. It has a lot of activity. It is not like a pristine area where motorized vehicles are not allowed,” he said. “The area is suitable to put a pier. The area is suitable to put a ship for 12 hours a week.” Smith assured people the company had no intention of turning the area into an industrial park.

Opponents disagree. “It will alter this region forever,” Passamaquoddy tribal member David Moses Bridges said. “It will invite heavy industry into this region. It will have a negative effect on the resource-based economy and on tourism.”

Bridges’ mother, Hilda Lewis, who is a tribal councilor, said the project ran counter to Passamaquoddy culture. “I live at the very far end of the reservation, and I can’t imagine looking out over the water and seeing that thing sitting out there,” she said. “To me this is the beauty of the land, our waterways our little islands. This is the land that I grew up on. It was just such a wonderful playground.”

Eastport resident Linda Godfrey called the developers “home wreckers.”

“It was there [at Pleasant Point] that I … heard the stories of 12,000 years that they have been here. I was totally touched to the very deepest that my soul could be touched that people would have stayed here to protect their homeland,” she said. “To have people who don’t know this story, don’t care about this place, who don’t regard the Passamaquoddy people and their history, to be so shallow about all of this is just not appropriate.”

Godfrey’s husband, Robert, said he viewed the project as “opportunism at its worst.”

“These people went about this backwards. There should have been a plan that looked at where is the best place on the East Coast for such a terminal,” he said.

Other communities on the East Coast, including three towns in Maine, have turned down similar projects. Eastport resident Linda Sisson said a neighbor summed it up best. “Why would anybody think we would want something here that every other community on the East Coast is fighting, why here in Washington County?” she asked.

Love agreed. “If this is such a great deal, why don’t people just fall all over themselves to get it?” he asked. “Why didn’t the town of Harpswell want to take $8 million?” That was the annual amount the developer offered that community to support an LNG facility.