Portland Press Herald - failing the Sears Island debate

Portland Press Herald - failing the Sears Island debate
It is with a sense of wonder that one observes the great pains the Portland Press Herald takes to avoid news coverage or even block commentary on the most important coastal issue that Maine has faced in years - the push to industrialize Sears Island at the head of Penobscot Bay.

The natural island - fallow since the dawn of the twentieth century, and recolonized by a remarkable and unique mix of Maine's coastal species; a natural Noah's Ark, if you will - is flanked on the western side by a large eelgrass-dotted shoal.

Here, the brackish waters created by the meeting of fresh river water with salt bay water host the Bay's great fish nursery, as diverse it its makeup as the island above. Here young salmon have their first encounter with salt water, learn to school and head oceanward. Here myriads of the small shrimp Pandalus Montagui prowl the muddy bayfloor, and are greedily seized upon by juveniles of cod, haddock, flounder, themselves heeding the Call of the wild Gulf of Maine.

But this is well known to the Press Herald's Dieter Bradury; he covered the successful fight to block the Angus King port plan for Sears Island, which was withdrawn by King once it was shown the impacts to marnie and upland wildlife would be too severe to mitigate.

Hey Deets! Where are you? Dieter is surely aware of the Joint Use Plan that the Baldacci Administration is pressing forward on. The one that would legislatively zone the western side of the island for a marine container port that would of necessity torpedo this Noah's Ark; the roar and thunder and diesel stench of the container port would drive most wildlife from the island; it would certainly reduce the revenue of the resorts on the nearby coast; the nursery shoal would largely disappear, to the great loss of the Bay's marine ecol9ogy and its fishermen.

But he is silent. As are all Portland Press Herald reporters and the rest of the Blethenian newspapers. Bradbury's last coverage, comically enough, was fawning coverage of a December 07 award & tribute to Sierra Club's Joan Saxe as "Environmental Hero" for, among other things, saving Sears Island from Angus King's machinations. (Joan is presently the Sierra Club point person in selling out the island to the Baldacci port proponents.)


But it's not only Dieter. John Richardson, environment reoprter for PPH is likewise silent.

The Press Herald's editorial staff has apparently decided that public dissent with the Baldacci administration on the future of the island is...too heretical to be allowed to grace their letters section or their op ed page. The perfidy of the Maine Chapter of the Sierra Club in supporting the Baldacci plan is likewise not a topic that the Press Herald considers appropriate. Their total editorial section publications on Sears Island for the last three years?

Sears Island report a sensible compromise May 20, 2007
and
Don't foreclose idea of Sears Island cargo port November 24, 2006

Why? How could this mighty newspaper kowtow so deeply to the gods of commerce that they selfcensor with such vigor on this topic?

Is it even smarmier? Are certain editors themselves Sierra Club members, circling the wagons against the besmirching of the Club's honor?

What?