Sears Island facilitator named

Professional to lead planning process for use of state-owned site
Tuesday, May 02, 2006 - Bangor Daily News

Searsport - A professional facilitator has been named to lead the planning process for uses of state-owned Sears Island.

Jonathan Reitman of the Brunswick firm Gosline and Reitman: Dispute Resolution Services was selected from among six firms that provided proposals.

Reitman will lead a meeting to be scheduled for sometime during the week of May 15-19, probably in Searsport.

The meeting, the first of several, will be hosted by a steering committee that aims to create a plan for the island to be submitted to the governor, the Legislature's Transportation Committee and the town of Searsport.

Late last year, the state Department of Conservation was given the task of working with the often diametrically opposed parties who want to nail down final decisions about use of the 941-acre island, which is joined to the mainland by a causeway.

At a meeting in January, interested parties agreed to hire a facilitator to lead the planning process.

The state Department of Transportation administers the island on behalf of the state.

DOT bought the island in the late 1990s, after holding a purchase option for years. DOT hoped to build a dry cargo port on the island, but finally dropped the project in the late 1990s, citing the high cost of meeting environmental regulations.

DOT completed a causeway to the island in the late 1980s, which made the island accessible to far more people to hike, hunt and fish from the shores. It also built a wide paved road from the causeway to the shore, and a rock jetty.

When Gov. John Baldacci took office in 2003, the island seemed to fall off the state's agenda. But later that year, news broke that a consultant working with the liquefied natural gas industry was inquiring about using the island to build an LNG terminal.

Nothing came of the proposal, but it galvanized area opposition to industrial and commercial use of the island.

DOT then encouraged the town to create a committee to come up with a plan for using the island. The committee's plan, filed with the state last fall, essentially lists acceptable development - mostly recreationally oriented.

Throughout the town's planning, DOT maintained it wanted to retain about 280 acres in the northwest corner of the island for possible transportation uses.

DOT officials reasoned that if an unforeseen transportation need arises 10 or 20 years from now - perhaps relating to energy or passenger transport - the state would have been shortsighted to abandon the rare deep-water access that is found on the northwest corner of the island.

But groups like the local Protect Sears Island and regional groups like Sierra Club and Earth First! argue the entire island needs to be permanently preserved in order to maximize its recreational draw.

But beyond the town's plan, the state believes it must open up discussion to wider, statewide input.

Karin Tilberg, deputy commissioner at the Department of Conservation, has worked with a steering committee to create a process for that planning.

The committee is composed of Tilberg; John Melrose, former transportation commissioner who now works as a transportation lobbyist; Joan Saxe of the Maine chapter of The Sierra Club; Kathy Fuller of DOT; Dianne Smith, chairwoman of the town's Sears Island alternative uses committee; Tim Love of the Penobscot Nation; and Sue Inches, representing the State Planning Office.

"Our goal is to work with the many different interested parties to reach a consensus regarding the future uses and activities for Sears Island," Tilberg said Monday.

- Tom Groening

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Sears Island facilitator named

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