When Gov. Janet Mills announced last week that she’d selected Sears Island as the preferred site to develop a port for Maine’s offshore wind industry, it was not the first time an ambitious project was proposed there.
The forested 941-acre island at the northern end of Penobscot Bay has long been eyed for a range of industrial developments, including nuclear and coal power plants, a liquefied natural gas terminal and a cargo port proposal that dragged on for two decades.
While each had support for the economic benefits it would bring to the Searsport region, they all failed in the end.
Often they faced pushback from an environmental community that prizes the island’s mostly unspoiled wilderness. Some members of that community appear to be gearing up for another fight, as they push for the wind port to be located not at Sears Island, but at nearby Mack Point on the mainland, which is already home to a shipping terminal.
Here’s a short history of what has made Sears Island such a pitched battleground over development and preservation — as well as a very early look at what could set the Mills administration’s latest proposal apart.
What is so special about Sears Island?
There are two qualities to Sears Island that have long helped explain its conflicting appeal to those who want to either conserve or develop it.
The first is that its woods, meadows and wetlands have largely stayed intact since the island was first discovered by the region’s original Penobscot residents, who called it Wassumkeag. European settlers later made use of it for small-scale fishing and farming in the 18th century.
The most significant changes since then were the construction of a causeway from the mainland in the 1980s, a rock jetty, a communications tower and two roads.
Conservationists frequently point out that it’s rare for an East Coast island to have so much unspoiled nature, which has helped make it a popular destination for day hikers and visitors.
On the other hand, the second quality of Sears Island that’s made it desirable for industrial development is the unusually deep water that surrounds it, especially when paired with the rail infrastructure on the nearby mainland.
Across most of the 400-yard channel between Sears Island and the shipping terminal at Mack Point, it never drops below 40 feet during low tide, local tugboat operator Duke Tomlin told the BDN in 2004.
That makes Sears Island ideal for shipping, since vessels have enough room to anchor, dock and turn around, and unlike at Mack Point, state officials say that dredging probably won’t be required to convert it to a working port.
Sears Island is “a perfect place to put a pier of any type,” Tomlin said 20 years ago.
What projects have failed there in the past?
From the 1960s into the 1970s, there were proposals to open an aluminum smelter, an oil refinery, a nuclear power plant and a coal-fired power plant there, according to news articles. Although Searsport residents supported one of the nuclear plans with a 532-182 vote, Central Maine Power abandoned it after a fault line was discovered under the island.
Another failed energy proposal came during the early 2000s, when Gov. John Baldacci worked to develop a liquid natural gas terminal.
The most drawn-out battle stretched from the 1970s to the mid-1990s, when a succession of governors worked to develop a section of Sears Island as a commercial shipping port. Then-Gov. Angus King finally threw in the towel in 1996, after the project led to the construction of the causeway and access road, but faced numerous lawsuits from environmental groups and its cost had ballooned to $70 million.
Among the biggest concerns with the shipping port were the wetlands and eelgrass beds that were — or stood to be — disrupted by the project.
Who has fought these projects?
Some opposition to these projects has come from industry groups, such as when Stonington lobstermen opposed the oil refinery proposal or paper industry unions resisted the cargo port.
But the most vocal attacks have come from activists who want Sears Island to remain undeveloped for both its recreational and environmental benefits.
In some cases, they have rallied behind larger organizations such as the Sierra Club and Conservation Law Foundation, which filed a number of lawsuits against the cargo port proposal. Smaller, more localized groups have also formed, such as the Friends of Sears Island and the Islesboro Islands Trust.
“The Penobscot Bay story is about environmental integrity and it basically always has been,” said Stephen Miller, executive director of the Islesboro Islands Trust. “When that is threatened, or not fully appreciated or understood, citizens stand up and say wait a minute, how can we proceed with some form of economic development without losing these characteristics that we find important to our livelihood and our enjoyment of this area.”
However, some environmental groups have also been involved with compromises that led to the state’s long-term strategy of developing shipping infrastructure around Searsport, and that in more recent years reserved about two-thirds of Sears Island for conservation while leaving the rest available for a port.
John Melrose, who led the Maine Department of Transportation during the King administration, took aim at environmental activists who have been “walking away” from those earlier compromises meant to balance development and conservation.
“Even today you have well-to-do interests in the Penobscot Bay who do not want to see things happen, but have done things to their little islands and preserves the way they want to develop them,” Melrose said.
Could the wind port be different?
It’s too early to predict how smoothly the Mills administration’s proposed wind port will sail through permitting, development and construction.
But there are some things working in its favor that earlier projects didn’t have. For one, communities in the region are still recovering from the closure of the paper mill in Bucksport a decade ago. They’re eager for the jobs and economic development that would come from developing a portion of Sears Island as an offshore wind terminal, according to Searsport Town Manager James Gillway.
Moreover, some environmental groups have rallied behind Sears Island as the proposed site for the wind port. And even the ones that would prefer it be on Mack Point recognize the urgent need to develop the project somewhere if Maine is to use offshore wind energy to help meet its climate goals.
One of the groups that now supports the Sears Island proposal is the Conservation Law Foundation, which previously opposed the location of a cargo port there.
“We’ve got to giddy up,” said Sean Mahoney, a vice president and senior counsel for the group in Maine. “The state has been flirting with offshore wind for two decades now and we have a really good opportunity” to develop it now.
