FOPSI /PBW meeting participants agree: ultimate goal is one Sears Island, undivided.

Friends of Sears Island  met October 4 2009 at the Yardarm Motel in Searsport. The group was formed in 2004 but incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non profit only last year.  Its mission is ostensibly to steward only the 601 acres of the island under conservation easement, and ignore the other third of the island which is in peril of port speculation.

Special Guests Ron Huber of Penobscot Bay Watch and Harlan McLaughlin of  Fair Play for Sears Island examined how deeply the group is attached to the 601 acres-only stewardship limit, by urging a larger approach to protecting the full island. They found little if any resistance to the notion, but FOSI is presently focusing on the introductory baby steps as a newish organization with little if any budget.

Highlights:

* Sears Island advisory group described (run by MDOT)

MDOT  David Cole, Duane Scott and Deane Vandusen 
MDEP Andrew Fisk
MCHT Doug McMullen and Ciona Albrecht
CMLT Scott Dickerson 
Searsport Bob Ramsdell repping


Comments noted this was very top heavy with govt types, and likely to be not very useful for conservation purposes.

* FOSI Next Steps.   Build a kiosk/information signboard at the entry way with a map & other info.
  Seek grants.

* FOSI Grant Proposals
The group has grant proposals out to Maine Dept of Conservation, for  $8-10K for an  Ecological Survey  and a lesser amount for trail maintenance from the Conservation Corps(?)
* Trails Expansion Much discussion fo grooming the trails and getting permission to open up new ones.  Difficult to have an island  perimeter trail  because the wetlands that top the bluff along west side of the island would need major boardwalks to do it without stopping up the wetlands flow of nutrients onto the beach and bay.  The island's western beaches are fully submerged at high tide.   

* Promotional events: kayak races, swim round the island races, Strongly urge group to specifically do around-island events so not pigeonholed to the 601 acres only but identifies with protecting entire island.

* On skiing Noted that state requires crosscountry ski trails to be quite wide - more than the Sears Island path people want to go.

* Aquaculture proposal Billy Vaughan the Massachusetts based would-be oyster aquaculturist has not applied for a lease next to the Sears Island causeway, Nor has he followed up on his offer to be part of the shellfish committee either.


* Refuge HQ proposal USFWS selected Rockland over Searsport but their negative depction of the Searsport site may inhibit other potential scientific tenants of the island.

* Eco-World?: No educational center proposal has surfaced from MCHT or anyone else, yet

* Mack Point - FOSI hopes to still promo Mack Point over Sears island. Islesboro Islands Land Trust, FOSI  and Sierra club feebly  protested MDOT's consultant's determinatin tht mack Point isn't suitable Suggestion that Offshore wind energy task force interested in bilding a port at Sears Island to offload windmill parts.

* Jimmy Freeman is off the FOSI bus. His presidency of that outfit was bringing unwanted "fire" down on the FOSIs. They appreciated the stairway, though, and were quite put out by the mocking poster someone had emplaced nearby. But, Jimmy brought the fire down upon himself by tattletailing of Sears Island defenders plans to the authorities,  by his suppression of port opponents in Maine's green communities, and by his threats on behalf of the governor's plans. He has forever cast his true allegiance in doubt among environmentalists (beyond the Freemanistas who do his bidding irregardless of his behavior.)

* Ecological survey Suggested the value of expanding survey to include the beaches, intertidal areas  and shoal waters all the way around the island. 


* Beach seine surveys to be done around island by Penobscot Bay Watch using university seine.- Could FOSI take part?  Yes.  It was observed that shortnose sturgeon were unexpectedly detected by use of nets in waters north of Bucksport

* Other data sources. Poorly researched upper bay because of the politics of pollution and Sears Island.  Check with universities and suggest research plans for university professors to take to their students looking for things to do their theses or doctorates on.  Unity College did some research on Sears Island beach recently.

* Get schools involved.

Nice meeting. Harlan and Huber left satisfied that  they'd give the FOSIs some ideas to exploit.

Activists-into-eco-yuppies. The secret role of NGOs in government's 4th attack on Sears Island

The remarkable general & near-absolute refusal of Maine's ENGO nature conservation community to take part in repelling the state's third major Sears Island Port Initiative in 15 years invites analysis. . In Part 1, below, we will consider the state of Sears Island conservation , including a detailed look at one key figure in the so-far-disastrous history of the latest Sears Island struggle.

The present state of this latest attack.
The so-far 4 year long Sears Island Joint Users Planning Committee (JUPC) -a government consensus group decision making organization set up by Maine DOT, shows either superior strategy and initiative on the the pro-port stakeholders on the JUPC committee (state/ municipal government, shipping & rail industry), or an inexplicable nonchalance by the environmental heavies on Sears Island protection: Sierra Club (Maine Chapter), Maine Earth First! under the Friends of (Part of) Sears Island false flag and Islesboro Islands Trust, as far as holding up the ecological end of the Joint Users discussion table has gone.

Defeats so far:
Consider the results since the 2006 start of the Joint Use Planning Committee meetings & events in Searsport, Belfast and Augusta, courtesy of the above ENGOs

* They have given away with scarely a murmur more than ten times the island acreage they so fiercely fought to keep undeveloped by Governor's McKernan and King.

* they have declined to consider the devastating impact of their JUPC decisions on the future functionality of the island's intertidal and subtidal nursery shoals, critical to both Penobscot Bay and Penobscot River restoration.

* They have consensed with the state and federal agencies to waive MDOT carrying out a standardized review of the island's ecology, its recreational resources, and its fisheries and historic & prehistoric assets, normally required under federal guidelines before planning starts on a major transportation-related project.

* They have consensed with the state & industry that there shall be no piercing of the unlawfully-built tidal flow-extinguishing solid stone causeway that MDOT rushed out to Sears Island under the legal pretence they were building a "bridge". Reopening this water route around Sears Island once more will spur the repopulating of the massive clam flats of the area, previously the bay's richest. Yet piercing the Sears Island Causeway is the most important short term need of the Estuary Complex surrounding Sears Island

The grassroots thought: These battle tested veterans of decades of successfully defending the Atlantic
Seaboard's largest, most important state owned unprotected natural island/estuarine complex from the build-it-they-will-come port speculators: surely they will hold their own (and better) in fending off yet one more port-first/enviromental review later plan. This time being the second by Governor John Baldacci.

Surely great meetings would be convened, where the public could help shape the outcome of the fate of this public island, as they so ably had against the McKernan Container port, the King woodchip port, and the Baldacci LNG terminal. All three plans reside in in the Dustbin of History thanks to the inspired and unstinting labors of some remarkable people in the aforementioned organizations.

But that was then. THIS IS NOW: Since they ratified the MDOT-Eco-Yuppy Deal in 2007, and then finalized it earlier this year as a perpetual conservation easement(2.5mb pdf) by MCHT over 2/3 of the public island, the Sierra Club, Earth First!/FOPSI, Islesboro Islands Trust and their allies have continued meeting privately with government and shipping officials, and have even sought and secured funding from them to carry out greensprawl on Sears Island

In fact, since their induction into Maine DOT's Skull & Bones-like closeknit consensus JUPC comunity, all those groups have both declined to answer citizen questions during the Q&A period all have repeatedly, stubbornly refused to come to any community forum to explain and defend their decision to support Island partition. and as Freedom of Access law documents show, bigfoot groups like NRCM were lurking around the edges, seeking their own piece of the pie.

BY SEEKING OUT AND AIRING THE REASONS BEHIND THE PRESENT DAY PASSIVITY OF THE EARTH DEFENDERS RE SEARS ISLAND, WE ACHIEVE ENGO ACCOUNTABILITY FOR THEIR ACTIONS ALLEGEDLY ON BEHALF OF SEARS ISLAND'S NATURAL INHABITANTS AND HER SURROUNDING BIOFREGION .

WHEN GREENS JOIN THE DARK SIDE

It is one thing to be asleep at the wheel, as , alas, hard working Sierra Club Maine chapter leader Joan Saxe, right, frequently was at the JUPC meetings.
But it is another to agressively take on a role actively supporting the port nidustry and its partisans and in suppressing the island's defenders as much as possible

One of the central figures in causing this remarkable disengagement: the president of a little known, recently tax exempted non profit corporation called Friends Of (Part of) Sears Island, or FOPSI.

FOPSI is a special piece of work. Its 501(c)(3) status set up by IIT's law firm, FO(P)SI is represented at the Table of Power by ex-Earth First!er turned NGO president Jim Freeman. Mr. Freeman lead a series of activist campaigns in 1995 and 1996 opposition to dividing up Sears Island Under Freeman the group methodically weeded out its pro-wild island members, then cut a series of side deals with state officials and the landtrusts that powered up Freeman's group. A deal from which in exchange for cooperation, it is now reaping its financial rewards. As part of the deal, NGO watchdog Freeman warned the governor of an upcoming protest of Baldacci's port plan, and then offered to disrupt the grassroots event, which was held across the avenue from the Governor's mansion - an offer the governor's staff sensibly declined. Freeman's most bizarre action to date, however, was leaving a detailed death threat on one Sears Island defender's answering machine.)

Top FOPSI Jim Freeman - in photos with MDOT Commissioner Cole at a JUPC meeting in Searsport- attended nearly every meeting of the Sears Island Joint Use Planning Committee. Yet, as the recordings of the meetings reveal, beyond the occasional quip Freeman rarely spoke up over the course of the dozens of SIJUPC meetings. (

Freeman, president of newly tax empted Friends of Part of Sears Island, allegedly represented the Public Interest. With his strong history of organizing creative, civilly disobedient actions in response to attacks on Sears Island by former governors Jock McKernan(R) and Angus King (Ind-ustry). Freeman's considerable skills in shaping the "tone" of the successful struggle to save Sears Island from those two port wannabes.


never once consulted with the public as island dismemberment and port plans were hatched, nurtured and expanded by MDOT and ever-greedy-for-acres MCHT and its partners in landtrustery. During those proceedings, President Freeman maintained an eerie silence, a passivity as great as that of Joan Saxe, Maine Sierra Club leader also seated at the green side of the Joint Use Planning Comittee table. Both sat by as the wonderfuly skilled facilitator that MDOT's hired for this odd bit of MDOT Consensus Governance carried out his paymaster's wishes for maximum portifacation of Wasumkeag the industrial decisionmakers and land trusters spun their port 'n' park fantasy into ever more solidity during the two year JUPC decisionmaking process.

Now, as a reward, the FOPSIs, eyes still firmly averted from the codfish nurseries and wild salmon refuges off the third of Sears Island (that pesky "other part" that they so blithely condemned to destruction in return for rights to deepen existed fragementation of the "protected part" of our public island), are striking deals with a variety of state agencies to gain their financial backing for further strikes into the "protected" part of the island.

The silence of the led-to-slaughter ENGO lambs apparently, won't extend FOPSI whenever a debate take off from WERU Community radio; FOPSI's getting fat & happy, and will doubtless genially agree to disagree, grinning all the way to the bank. One is minded of Pickwick's servant Sam Weller, advising his master not to fret about a certain rogue: "Hold still, Sir: wot's the use o' runnin' arter a man as has made his lucky, and got to t' other end of the Burough by this time?" Indeed Jim and his fellow FOPSIs are experiencing bliss as they burrow into the warm bosom of the industrial state.

Leaving nothing out, the FOPSI commander has kept a close alliance as well with State senator from hell Dennis Damon, who chairs both the Transportation and Marine Resources committee. Damon has ruled the Transpo Committee with an iron hand; earlier this year forcing bewildered freshman legislators to approve the plan (mp3) to dismember the island - without reading a line of the agreement first!

As for the Marine Resources Committee, Senator Damon has completely blocked any briefing of that committee on the probable nasty consequences to Penobscot Bay's lobster and groundfish fisheries if a port is actually built and the bay's best nursery shoals are dredged away. Silence is golden, in Damon's book, echoing his pal Jim Freeman's response of stubborn silence to public entreaties that he save the island or at least explain what FOPSi and the rest of the JUPCites were and are up to.

And then there's the Sierra Club. Looking and acting guilty as sin, from Maine chapter to the highest floors of Sierra Club Tower, their San Francisco HQ. Mindful of the historic fight that Sierra Club put up in defense of Sears Island in the 20th century, the current crop of leaders has worked feverishly at seeking public relations solutions that will allow them to gracefully spin their rejection of club members' efforts to get their leaders to explain their part in chopping Sears Island apart. Their Sears Island webpage is a giggle

The Sierra Club's excuse for declining attendance at a proposed public forum at the Alamo Theater in Bucksport next month positively reeks of well thought out disingenuousness:

The Club, Cline has sadly informed forum host WERU FM Community radio, will not take part in any debate ab0ut its role in dismembering Sears Island. Why? For fear that its "volunteer" who would take part in the discussion might be subjected to "slander and abuse" by those ruffian whole-islanders.

The passive-aggressive use of "Sierra Club volunteer" in their excuse to WERU instead of "Sierra Club leader" is clever but reprehensible. Cannot one of the Sierra Club Maine Chapter's leaders, such as the one who an environmental law professor, take part in a open public forum held by a respected public radio station at a well guarded small town venue?
Perhaps criticism from the public, whose "interest" the Club, like the FOPSIans, supposedly represents, would be too undignified a situation for a Member of the Club to risk encountering.

Or is the prospect of having to make a stand at the Alamo Theater in Bucksport is too rich with gloomy portents to bear...?

Sears Island waits for you. And waits. And waits.

LURC locked down by earth First! over Plum Creek

Four Maine Earth First!ers are locked down in the office of the Land Use Regulatory Commission, demanding the Land Use Reggers come out and explain how they decided to coddle Plum Creek and blow off the nearly two thousand Mainers opposed to the plumcreeking of Lily Bay and beyond.

Penobscot Bay Blog reached two people on the scene and recorded interviews with them and documented the voices of the locked down and those of the security agencies trying to control the thoroughly muckled situation.

Stay tuned...

Sears Island - who gets to carve it up?

Like the West divvying up the Ottoman Empire, the players aboard the Sears Island Joint Use Planning Commission are poised to slice up Sears Island .

Today's Republican Journal's article today
"How will Sears Island be managed?" by Tanya Mitchell, describes how on March 28th, the
Sears Island Joint Use Planning Committee
"wrestled" over how the 600-acre conservation area will be managed once the planning ends and any activity there begins.

The ever-more-tightly-closed-circle of 'deciders' making up the Joint Use Committee have consensed on giving Maine DOT -big winner this go round of attempts to slag the island- two presents: a free hand in port configuration, and an iron hand over the conserved part of the island.

Expect commissioner Cole's post DOT future to be most richly rewarded, should he deliver Sears island to the global industrial transportation network.

How the mighty have fallen! Observe the state to which even once visionary Earth First! activist extraordinaire Jim Freeman has come. This formerly indomitable defender of natural Sears island, and to this day an implacable opponent to the E/W highway, the Transamerica NAFTA highway and all those global corporate byways and highways strangling our planet, has consensed and signed off on a port configuration for Sears Island that will double the amount of cargo containers entering and departing Maine by rail and truck! A port that will stimulate the East West Highway, and will tie neatly into the NAFTA highway from Mexico to Canada. But that is just what Mr. Freeman has done. According to Mitchell's article:

"JUPC member Jim Freeman said if a group like Friends of Sears Island was interested in occupying the island, it would need to draft a use plan and meet with the council to discuss its intentions. would go through a bid process that would spell out details on intended uses for the island and associated construction costs. Once the final proposals and bid information is compiled, Freeman said, DOT will make the final decision."

While Jim is unarguably a contractor par excellence who has played a role in the revitalzing of downtown Bangor, turning use of Sears Island into a biddable competition is not likely what the Great Spirit had in Mind for Wassumkeag's shining sands.

Perhaps a Sears Island live call-in show should be organized on WERU Community Radio which has featured Sears Island in earlier years There, Freeman and others of the Sears Island Joint Use Planning Committee can explain their new plan for Sears Island to the local Maine environmental community.

Sears Island: Raising the bar for MDOT

Will her wetlands and eelgrass, her ferns and forests, her historic and prehistoric artifacts, her beaches and sandbars be protected from industrial development?

In the 1990s, the answer was YES

But if Maine Department of Transportation has its way this time: NO. (Click pic for larger image)

MDOT proposes divvying up Sears Island, taking a third for a future industrial port, leaving the other two thirds natural, (though allowing ENGOs to build an educational center in that natural area.)

But before the deal becomes official, Maine DOT has to satisfy the federal government that it has obeyed a certain federal law: 49 USC § 303 Policy on lands, wildlife and waterfowl refuges, and historic sites Because under the regulations of this 4(f) law, the Federal Highway Administration can not approve plans for future development of a port on a public land island until Maine DOT:

(1) identifies the wildlife, historic and recreational resources that would be affected directly or indirectly;
(2) Shows there is no feasible and prudent alternative to the use of land from the property; and
(3) Demonstrates how the proposed action includes all possible planning to minimize harm to the property and its resources resulting from such use.

So before Maine Dept of Transportation can move ahead with any plans, it needs to submit a report to the federal government showing:

(1) what wildlife, historic and recreational assets exist in, on and adjacent to their third of the island. Lots of info pertaining to WILDLIFE is available from the 1990s Environmental Impact Study (EIS) made for proposed port on the island in the 1990s. Not so for HISTORIC and RECREATIONAL assets. Maine DOT will have to hire a consultant to gather information on those two assets.

(2) what wildlife, historic and recreational assets the port would destroy or damage that exist in, on and adjacent to their third of the island. Again the 1990s EIS and other studies and reviews carried out by federal and state agencies in the 1990s will describe much of these assets and the likely adverse impacts of port development on Sears Island.

(3) What alternatives there are that would allow similar kind of development, but off of the island. Mack Point? Orrington, Bangor? Portland? Halifax?


So lets look at some details of what ought to be in Maine DOT's DRAFT version of their Section 4(f) report to the FHWA.

1. Description of Project
Describe the proposed project, including the purpose and need for the project.

2. A brief introduction that identifies:
a. The basic requirements of Section 4(f).
b. The Section 4(f) resource(s) affected.
c. The alternatives under consideration that would affect the Section 4(f) resource(s).

3. Description of each Section 4(f) resource:

a. A detailed map or drawing of sufficient scale to identify the relationship of the alternatives to the Section 4(f) property.
b. Size (acres or square feet) and location (maps, sketches, etc.) of the affected Section 4(f) property.
c.Type of property (recreation, historic, wildlife.) and ownership (public, private etc.).
d. Function of or available activities on the property (swimming, golfing, baseball, wildlife habitats.).
e. Description and location of all existing and planned facilities (tennis courts, baseball diamonds, etc.).
f. Access (pedestrian, vehicular) and usage (approximate number of users/visitors, etc.).
g. Relationship to other similarly used lands in the vicinity.
h. Relationship to ecologically important wildlife areas adjacent to the prooerty.
i. Applicable clauses affecting the ownership, such as lease, easement, covenants, restrictions, or conditions, including forfeiture.
j Unusual characteristics (flooding problems, terrain conditions, high value viewshed, rare or significant wildlife habitat or other features) that reduce or enhance the value of all or part of the property.

4. Environmental impacts during construction for each alternative on each Section 4(f) property (quantify where possible):

a. Acquisition of land (acres or square feet) and facilities (include map).
b. Access.
c. Aesthetics.
d. Air Quality.
e. Noise.
f. Water.
g. Wildlife/Fisheries
h. Land use in the vicinity.

5. Environmental impacts during operation for each alternative on each Section 4(f) property:

a. Acquisition of land (acres or square feet), if different from construction impact, and facilities (include map).
b. Access.
c. Aesthetics.
d. Air Quality.
e. Noise.
f. Water.
g. Wildlife/Fisheries
h. Land use in the vicinity. Include impacts of growth induced by project.

6. Avoidance alternatives and their impacts.

Identify and evaluate location and design alternatives that would avoid harm to the Section 4(f) property and its surrounds.

Generally, this would include alternatives to either side of the property. Where an alternative would use land from more than one Section 4(f) property, the analysis needs to evaluate alternatives which avoid each and all properties (23 CFR 771.135(i)).

The design alternatives should be in the immediate area of the property and consider minor alignment shifts, a reduced facility, retaining structures, etc., individually or in combination, as appropriate.

Detailed discussions of alternatives in an EIS or EA need not be repeated in the Section 4(f) portion of the document, but should be referenced and summarized.

However, when alternatives (avoiding Section 4(f) resources) have been eliminated from detailed study, the discussion should also explain whether these alternative are feasible and prudent and, if not, the reasons why. (T 6640.8A, p. 45.)

7. Mitigation measures, commitments, and monitoring procedures to minimize harm. Discuss all possible measures which are available to minimize the impacts of the proposed action on the Section 4(f) property(ies). Detailed discussions of mitigation measures in the EIS or EA may be referenced and appropriately summarized, rather than repeated. (T 6640.8A, p. 46.)

8. Coordination with other agencies The coordination should include a discussion of avoidance alternatives, impacts, and measures to minimize harm:

a. State Historic Preservation Officer/State Wildlife/Marine/Environmental Commissioners.
b. Local officials with jurisdiction.
c. Historic societies, conservation and environmental groups, museums, academic institutions.
d. Historic consultant.
e. Archaeological consultant.
f. Wildlife Consultant.
g. Fisheries.
h. Wetlands Consultant
i. Recreation Consultant.
j. Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP).
k. Indian Tribes

IT IS DOUBTFUL THAT MAINE DOT HAS INCLUDED ALL THESE DETAILS IN THEIR SECTOIN 4(F) APPLICATION TO THE FHWA.

Let's make make sure they do it, and do it right!