Activists into Eco-Yuppies Part 2: Islesboro Islands Trust-worthiness in question

Continuing on in our review of the role of moderate and astroturf green groups in the industrial attack on Sears Island, we come inevitably to the Islesboro Islands Land Trust and its executive director Steve Miller.

What a difference a decade and a half can make! Check out Steve Miller back then:

On September 28 1995, in a letter to the US Army Corps of engineers - one of many IILT letters to federal and state regulators about Sears Island - Mr. Miller urged the Corps "to deny the Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT) application for a permit to build a cargo port at Sears Island in Searsport, Maine and, in so doing, irreparably alter marine and freshwater wetlands."

A few months later, December 11, 1995, Miller wrote to Maine's Marine Resources Commissioner Robin Alden, telling her that his initial reaction to DMR's October 13, 1995 letter to the Army Corps of Engineers challenging the federal agencies' evaluation of the effects on fisheries habitat of Angus King's Sears Island port plan: "ranged from disbelief to horror.....it is abundantly clear that the letter was not intended to further either conservation or development of Maine's marine and estuarine resources."

In his letter to DMR, Miller went on to write: "... I believe the [National Marine Fisheries Service's] Evaluation is pointing to a complex grouping of numerous attributes that, altogether, create an impressive and significant ecological assemblage. I live on an island just two miles south of Sears Island but we do not have nearly the numbers of different species and attributes as were collected in the one 940 acre area on Sears Island. Its proximity to the mainland, while still being an island, as well as its position at the mouth of the river, is truly unique. "

Alas, that was then. This is now:
“The governor’s involvement was very important,” fawned Steve Miller in the Downeast Magazine bizarre tale on How Sears Island was enslaved. “I don’t know that we would have been functioning without the governor’s support. He was critical.”

According to Diane Smith the virago who worked as flak catcher during JUPC meetings, allow Miller and his fellow buy-ins to avoid having to answer any questions from the inquiring audience.

Now it turns out , according to Smith, that Miller finds the idea of filling the bay with container freighters bearing cargo bound for Montreal, and turning the upper bay into as Asthma cluster zone with the incredible array of internal combustion machines aboard ships, trains and trucks at the port, will be somehow "greener". Judging by his happy countenance at the later JUPC meetings, the green that Steve and his bank-owned land trust are actually so thrilled by is known as the Long Green" c-notes. Lots and lots of 'em.

How the mighty have fallen!