Like nearby Moose Point and Fort Point State Parks, Sears Island is owned by the State of Maine. The difference is that the first two are owned specifically under the Bureau of Parks and Lands, while the latter is owned under the Maine Department of Transportation. It’s a distinction that matters.

The state acquired Sears Island over a period of years through various funding mechanisms, including $17.5 million dollars raised through voter-approved transportation bonds in 1981 and 1983. The state’s clearly stated objective in acquiring the island was for port development.

No Land for Maine’s Future bonds or other dedicated conservation funds have ever been used to acquire the island, nor have any conservation groups contributed to its purchase. Yet today, two-thirds of the island is permanently protected from development, with full public access. The conservation easement allowing public use of this MDOT-owned property specifies that the remaining 330 acres are reserved for future transportation use.

Now, in a desperate display of buyer’s remorse after having signed the Sears Island Consensus Agreement, some environmental groups oppose the “joint use” of transportation and recreation on Sears Island as outlined in that agreement.

Some have gone so far as to suggest that earthwork necessary for port construction is analogous to “soil harvesting,” a prohibited use under the agreement. Opponents of a Sears Island wind port facility have placed misguided emphasis on the agreement’s stipulation that “Mack Point shall be given preference as an alternative to port development on Sears Island.”

This specification does not mean that the state must try to make a square peg fit through a round hole by spending additional hundreds of millions of dollars to lease a privately owned facility that lacks sufficient size, shape and water depth to accommodate the unique needs of floating offshore wind. Sears Island’s Transportation Parcel has much more usable area than the remaining available acreage at Mack Point, has sufficient water depths without the need for dredging and allows for a dock orientation that minimizes impacts from damaging southerly winds.

Further, the state has, in fact, lived up to the agreement to give development preference to Mack Point. In the 25 years since the Sears Island Consensus Agreement was signed, the state has invested tens of millions of dollars on infrastructure upgrades at Mack Point, including the procurement of a 144-ton mobile harbor crane; a conveyor system for loading ships; and by funding improvements to the rail yard servicing the port.

Sears Island has 40 feet of water available at low tide immediately adjacent to the Federal Navigation Channel. In contrast, Mack Point would require thousands of yards of dredging and ocean disposal to make it functional for offshore wind.

In 2019, the Maine Chapter of the Sierra Club and the Maine Lobstering Union supported L.D. 1287, An Act to Protect the Penobscot River and Penobscot Bay from Mercury Contamination. Their testimony to the Legislature stated that “dredging (hydraulic or mechanical) always involves the resuspension, or remobilization, of sediment. There is no way to avoid this with existing dredging technology. All dredging, even of perfectly clean sediment, causes harm to lobsters and damages the lobster catch for years after a dredge. Habitat is damaged or lost, and all lobsters (young or fully grown) in the area of a dredge are killed, buried, or suffocated by sediment disturbed during the dredge.”

By promoting Mack Point, opponents of the Sears Island wind port facility are ensuring the need for such dredging. While those groups now prefer to ignore their documented history heralding the hazards of dredging, it is doubtful that regulatory agencies will overlook their past protestations.

Gov. Janet Mills made the right choice in selecting the dredge-free alternative for the location of Maine’s floating offshore wind port facility. In doing so she has delivered on a promise made decades ago to Maine citizens: the promise of a truly “joint use” for Sears Island.

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