Sears Island: Village Soup stirring the pot lately.

While the Press Herald continues to dither over reporting developments in the Sears Island epic. Shlomit Auciello of the Rockland Herald Gazette is digging deep into the Gordian Knots entangling the Sears Island port plan. Oho the Army Corps isn't happy with MDOT. The Maine Legislature isn't happy with Maine DOT, let alone the litigating citizens. Go, Shlomit, go! Her earlier piece laid out the litigation issues.

Where's the Press Herald? If you wanta port-hug ladies and gents, go right ahead and spin it that way. Don't just do a big brotherian blackout on the story, for gosh sakes. BDN is on the ball, and so is MPBN Even Maine Biz has done a creditable job informing about Sears Island.

Sears Island lawsuits - PPH holds out against coverage.

The Press Herald appears to be continuing the non coverage of the Sears Island lawsuits. Maybe if the editors at PPH hold their breaths and stamp their feet, the cases will just...go away.
But they are out there. Here's an update:

SEARS ISLAND UPDATE: 3/01/09

LAWSUITS FILED AGAINST MDOT SEARS ISLAND DIVISION PLAN

Third lawsuit joins two filed earlier against Sears Island Port/Conservation Easement plan

Three petitions for judicial review opposing the partition of the US east coast's biggest unprotected publicly owned island have been filed before three Maine Superior Courts.

The seek to invalidate the Maine Department of Transportation's recently approved "Joint Use Plan" that grants two thirds of the 950 acre island under a perpetual conservation easement to Maine Coast Heritage Trust, but two of them also want the Court to invalidate Public Law 277 as unconstitutionally giving decisionmaking power over Sears Island to a Legislative committee.

A Searsport man has filed a petition in Maine Superior Court in Belfast asking for MaineDOT's Sears Island Conservation Easement to be set aside. The move follows February 19th filing of a similar petition (pdf) by Rockland, Maine activist Ron Huber in Knox County Courthouse, and a February 20th filing (pdf) by Augusta resident Douglas Watts in Kennebec County Superior Court that also asks for the Sears Island Conservation Easement to be rescinded.

"The fact of three Sears Island cases already pending before courts in three different counties should be a warning to potential port investors: STAY AWAY, unless you have deep legal pockets."

All three Mainers have filed Petitions for Review of Final Agency Action. The petitions challenge the lack of environmental review that the state subjected the plan to, even though it was required to under the Maine Sensible Transportation Policy Act and the Maine Site Location of Development Act".

Two of the plaintiffs, Mr Huber and Mr. McLaughlin, also take issue with the constitutionality of Public Law Chapter 277 "An Act Regarding the Management and Use of Sears Island", which granted the Maine Legislature's Transportation Committee executive branch-type power to approve, disapprove or modify Maine DOT's Joint Use Plan partitioning Sears Island.

Huber and McLaughlin say PL 277 violates the Maine Constitution's distribution of powers section and asks that the Court declare the January vote by the Transportation Committee approving MDOT's division of Sears Island unconstitutional and thus invalid.

The plantiffs also vary in their "standing" assertions. Doug Watts describes himself in his petition as "an avid user of the Penobscot River and its tributaries near Sears Island since 1982." and wrote to the court that the conservation easement signed by MDOt and Maine Coast Heritage Trust "will irrevocably harm his ability to continue using and enjoying the Penobscot River and these tributaries as he has done since 1982."

Huber notes that he hikes the island "and snorkles the island's shallows in communion with the natural residents he was charged in 1992 by God Almighty with stewarding and restoring; in particular the brackish water nurseries and diadromous fish shelter habitats surrounding Sears Island in Searsport Harbor, Long Cove and Stockton Harbor. The final agency action he seeks to be reviewed will irrevocably harm his ability to enjoy, use, steward and restore this area."

McLaughlin explained to the court that he "has been an avid user and protector of the natural resources and wild residents of Sears Island and her surrounding estuarine water complex since 1947. Mr McLaughlin hiked the island and swam in the island's shallows with his grandparents and now enjoys those same activities with his own grandchildren. Mr McLaughlin feels a strong
responsibility to ensure our generation passes on the treasure that is Sears
Island as a gift to future generations. The final agency action he seeks to be
reviewed will irrevocably harm his ability to enjoy, use, steward and restore this area"

All three plaintiffs are asking the Court to "rescind" the Jan. 22, 2009 conservation easement until the MDOT has fully complied with the requirements of the Maine Sensible Transportation Policy Act

Watts played an important role in development and passage of the Maine Sensible Transportation Policy Act late 80s and early 90's.

Huber played a role in fending off Governor Angus King's woodchip port plan in 1996, and Governor Baldacci's LNG port plan in 2005.

There are as-yet-confirmed reports that a fourth Mainer will file a petition for review of Maine DOT's Sears Island plan later this week .

For more information:

Ron Huber 207-691-7485 e: coastwatch@gmail.com

Harlan McLaughlin 207-548-9962 pearlsb4swine@bluestreakme.com
Doug Watts 207-622-1003 e: info@dougwatts.com

###

Sears Island - Press Herald strains, but just doesn't get it out.

To shine a light, is to cast a shadow, it is said. Maybe it is a reluctance to illuminate those shadows that has kept the Portland Press Herald clinging so determinedly to its course of refusing to recognize public dissent to Governor Baldacci's Sears Island plan.

Even when it is playing out in the courts, the Maine Sunday Telegram is as silent as if it had lost its telegraphic code key that it taps out the news with. The Press Herald's voice is quite stopped up too, when it comes to news of those that would protect Wasumkeag , the beautiful wild island estuary complex.

Some of the editors and reporters there in the PPH/MST have grown old with their Sierran friends. Are Clubbers, themselves.

Questioning the partition of Sears Island? Why, that would be questioning the decision, of local Club leader Joan Saxe. One simply doesn't insult the honor, the decency and judgement of this Cape Elizabeth doyenne over the accusations of some wild riff raff from Rockland or worse.. Not in the pages of the Prtland Press Herald.

For it was Joan who sat through the many meetings of the Sears Island Joint Use Planning Committee as it wended its way through first its Joint use Plan, and then the line by line details of the perpetual conservation easement at meeting places in Searsport and occasionally in Augusta.

But it was a silent sitting, as Saxe peacefully dozed away the dreary hours of negotiations.

Meanwhile her henchperson Becky Bartovics -putatively representing the Penobscot Bay Alliance, but in actuality, given there IS no such Alliance, beyond a mailing list of donors and an executive director who occasionally pens the odd letter to an agency; in actuality, I say, Becky was effectively and hence inappropriately the voice of both her Alliance and the Sierra Club at the MDOT's Joint Use meetings. - while never consulting the thousands of members in the Maine Chapter of the Sierra Club -not once - during the years of negotiations with the MDOT's and industry's skilled negotiators.

Too much work. Too expensive, the Leadership intoned. Why harass Club members over a minor (MINOR?) thing like pi**ing on three decades of hard-fought Sierra Club precedents keeping the wild island whole and safe.

Like freely surrendering to the industrial hordes hundreds of acres of forest, meadow, cliffs, streams, beach, cobble & eelgrass.? Whatsa big deal?

Listen: do you hear that tiny hiss at the edge of hearing? It's the sounds of the late great John Muir, spinning, spinning, spinning in his grave.

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?

Portland Press Herald's John Richardson: Plum crazy about sprawl.

In his recent article "Plum Creek plan aired, 2nd hearing set for today in Augusta" 12/2/07 (which, thanks to the reduction in reporters in the Blethen Company's Maine bundle of newspapers, appeared simultaneously in the Maine Sunday Telegram, the Kennebec Journal and the Morning Sentinel) reporter John Richardson repeatedly salutes the "historic" nature of the massive Plum Creek sprawl proposal for the Moosehead Lake region, and relegates nearly all opposition to the proposal to the distant parts of his article well beyond the fold.

Get a grip, John: what's "historic" here are the untrammeled views and natural wide spaces of Moosehead Lake, better known for the last few thousand years as Mousinibes, btw, and its environs. Not the sprawl wannabe.

He starts off well, contrasting the pro and con one liners of two residents of Greenville , the small town nestled on the southern tip of Moosehead Lake. But it all goes downhill from there.

Richardson found that "Strong opinions weren't lacking" at the Saturday meeting, but manages to quote only the strong opinions of Plum-huggers Ray "Bucky" Owen, Millinocket resident Dan Corcoran, Rep. Doug Thomas, R-Ripley, "one of several current and former state legislators who spoke in favor of the plan" (did any speak against, one wonders), Randy Comber ( owner of Moosehead Cedar Log Homes, obviously a potential beneficiary of a building boom at Moosehead Lake, and Christopher Fife, of Moose River, in Jackman, west of Moosehead Lake.

Richardson's selection of opponents verged more on the milktoasty: "Some opponents agreed that the plan today is better than the one first unveiled by Plum Creek three years ago" Richardson writes, going on to quote only one of the "some", Sally Farrand. Her position?

"I think we can all agree the current application is much improved," said Sally Farrand of Beaver Cove. But, Farrand said, "I ask that Lily Bay be removed from the development plan."

Certainly every other opponent of the Plummers will agree that the shore of Moosehead Lake's Lily Bay shouldn't be sprawled upon; they also, however, urge the same status for the rest of the acreage within Plum Creek development footprint. All of it

While he does acknowledge there are 'critics' of the plan, they are given short shrift and are, apart from one, exiled to the end of the article, and in general portrayed as merely quibbling over bits of the Plum Creek proposal, not against the whole kaboodle as the overwhelming number of Mainers across the economic and political spectrum are.

Come on, J-Man: What's this? You're not doing a fair 'n balancin' act on us, are you?

The bright stars and Milky Way reflecting on Moosehead waters in the deep dark of unspoiled night. The keeping of this vast lake largely in a state of Nature through all these years and now into the 21st century. That's Maine history, alive and well.

Large scale developer wannabe Plum Creek's plan isn't historic. It's the very opposite of historic. It is the destroyer of history.