Sears Island: Army Corps rejects MaineDOT plan for Sears Island-based umbrella mitigation bank

"Army Corps of Engineers nixes Sears Island mitigation plan."  What a wonderful headline to read. "Nix" has such an air of determination to it. Walter Griffin of Bangor Daily News reports MDOT's discomfiture, and Islesboro Islands Land Trust's Steve Miller continuing affectations of surprise at MDOT's yearnings to dismember Sears Island.  With a few tweaks,  Miller judges the partition as "...not a bad concept" .

Walter Griffin summarizes:
"Under the proposal, the DOT wants to use the 601 acres it has placed in a conservation easement on Sears Island as a mitigation bank. The state contends that having a MUMBI designation on the island would allow it to use that acreage to offset any wetlands disturbed during DOT activities such as road or port construction."
 ...
"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is already on record as being opposed to the MUMBI proposal. The EPA determined in April that the plan failed to address aquatic resource restoration and would cause harm to the island's long-term ecological integrity.
 ....
"In the letter to Gates, the Army corps' regulatory division determined that the document lacked a statement detailing the "legal responsibility" for mitigation and "default and closure" provisions as required by law"......."if the corps approved the MUMBI, the DOT would have to obtain a federal permit each time it wanted to use the island site for mitigation."
...
"We have trouble with some of the details," [Islesboro Islands Land Trust's Steve] Miller said. "It's not a bad concept; however, we do have concerns. This focuses on preservation credits rather than the rehab or creation of wetlands."

FULL ARTICLE:
Army Corps of Engineers nixes Sears Island mitigation plan.
By Walter Griffin, Bangor Daily News
Nov. 26--Searsport, Maine -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has rejected the state's draft application to create an umbrella mitigation bank on Sears Island.

The corps announced its decision in a letter to the Department of Transportation sent earlier this month. The agency determined that the application was incomplete and suggested the DOT revise its proposal to meet federal guidelines.

"It merely slows the process and nothing prohibits them [DOT] from submitting the application again," Army corps project manager Ruth Ladd said last week. "It doesn't kill it because there is always the option to resubmit the application."

The Maine Umbrella Mitigation Bank Instrument, or MUMBI, is the first of its kind to be proposed in New England. Mitigation banks have been established in other regions of the country for years, she said.
DOT spokesman Mark Latti said the agency submitted its draft proposal on Oct. 6 and received the rejection notice a month later. He said DOT planned to file a revised application shortly.

"We are reviewing the areas that are deemed incomplete and we will be resubmitting to the corps for their review within the next few weeks," Latti said Wednesday.

Under the proposal, the DOT wants to use the 601 acres it has placed in a conservation easement on Sears Island as a mitigation bank. The state contends that having a MUMBI designation on the island would allow it to use that acreage to offset any wetlands disturbed during DOT activities such as road or port construction. The wetland bank would cover the entire state. The state has retained another 330 acres on the island for a potential cargo port.

Authority to create a wetland mitigation bank comes through the federal Clean Water Act and is administered by the corps and the Environmental Protection Agency. The corps has established an interagency review team, or IRT, to screen the state's application.

"The corps had to look at it and share it with the IRT, and we determined there were a few things the needed to be addressed and we sent it back to them," Ladd said of the draft application.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is already on record as being opposed to the MUMBI proposal. The EPA determined in April that the plan failed to address aquatic resource restoration and would cause harm to the island's long-term ecological integrity.

In the letter to Gates, the Army corps' regulatory division determined that the document lacked a statement detailing the "legal responsibility" for mitigation and "default and closure" provisions as required by law.

Stephen Miller of Islesboro Islands Trust expressed surprise last week that the state's application failed to meet the guidelines. Miller said that while he expected the DOT ultimately would succeed in gaining MUMBI approval, his group was concerned that the rules do not require the state to restore or enhance old wetlands that already have been disturbed.
"We have trouble with some of the details," Miller said. "It's not a bad concept; however, we do have concerns. This focuses on preservation credits rather than the rehab or creation of wetlands."

Ladd said that even if the corps approved the MUMBI, the DOT would have to obtain a federal permit each time it wanted to use the island site for mitigation.

"Just because there is a bank there's no guarantee they will be given a permit. The idea is to have mitigation that makes the most ecological sense," Ladd said earlier this year. "The umbrella sets up a framework for reporting and tracking. You can put a bunch of projects under an umbrella."

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!

Sears Island - A guilty Sierra Club flees the spotlight

WERU's recent effort to convene a Sears island panel in Bucksport featuring supporters and defenders of the state's divide-the-island initiative fell flat, when Sierra Club (and other NGOs who facilitated the state's "deal" splitting the island) fled in all directions, unavailable for speaking engagements or even for comment!

Sierra Club of Maine's leaders are suddenly all "too busy" with other concerns to spend time justifying their incredible sellout of Maine's biggest undeveloped island. Ditto for Steve Miller and Becky Bartovics. Not available for comment.

Why? Because the one hope, the one thin straw that Sierra Club of Maine, Islesboro Islands Trust & the other sellouts clung to, banked on - that the state of Maine would take a loooong time to decide if Mack Pt was container-portable -has been dashed.

Since June 15th in fact, when these eco-yups were told "No, it isn't suitable unless Irving Oil and Sprague Energy move out" at a secret MDOT mtg in Belfast where engineers from Fay, Spofford and Thorndike did a presentation on their report to MDOT.

To their dishonor, these guardians of the public interest did not then see fit to alert the public as to this fact. and to the looming assault on the west side of the island and its adjoining fish nursery shoals.

So will these three greenish groups honor the agreement they signed with great fanfare alongside of Governor Baldacci and the shipping industry? That agreement endorses a "marine transportation project" on Sears Island, if Mack Pt didn't fly.

Mack Point didn't fly. This was the entirely predictable result of the study, carried out by MDOT's hired consultant Fay, Spofford& Thorndike.

So what do Ken Cline and Joan Saxe of Sierra Club (Maine chapter) do? What will Steve Miller of the Islesboro Islands Trust do? Becky Bartovics who repped both Sierra Club and tiny "Penobscot Bay Alliance" at the Sears Island meetings with government and industry; what will she do? All three signed the agreement. Will their honor make them stand by as the state attacks the western side of the island and its wild groundfish nursery? Or rather, their cupidity.

They ARE busy. Still meeting monthly with government & industry. Money is starting to flow. Judging by the vigor with which green sprawl on Sears Island is moving ahead, the Sierra Club, Islesboro IslandsTrust and their greenwash entity called "Friends of Sears Island" are okay with the industrial port plan. They are getting each their pound of Wasumkeag's flesh.