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Sears Island’s the beating heart of Penobscot Bay, very close to the mouth of the Penobscot River. It’s not just sitting there idly — it protects our bay. It’s the home of a vast array of living ecosystems. Its eelgrass beds are nurseries and feeding areas for fish that inhabit Penobscot Bay. It’s part of the migration route of countless birds.
The things that Sears Island does for the Earth, for the bay, and for us, are things we don’t fully understand. If we did truly understand nature and how dependent we are upon the living natural world, we would never ever destroy it, not even to build a futuristic wind turbine marshaling port.
Our future survival depends upon protecting and preserving as much of Earth’s natural biodiversity as possible. According to E.O. Wilson, “In the same way the ecological footprint is scattered in pieces around the world, so are Earth’s surviving wildlands on the land and in the sea. The pieces range in size from the major desert and forest wildernesses to pockets of restored habitats as small as a few hectares.” Sears Island is indeed a precious surviving wildland, and we can still save it.
The wise thing to do, right here in Searsport, would be to adopt a true balance in what we save, untouched, and what we inevitably destroy through industrialization. A marshaling port at Mack Point on rehabilitated land might not look as elegant, or perhaps be as easily built, but it could still work admirably. And to build there and save Sears Island at the same time? Well, that’s human genius.
Sally C. Jones
Stockton Springs
