Alliance for Sears Island

9/13/2023

The importance of developing renewable energy in Maine requires accurate information. Unfortunately, the September 13 Portland Press Herald Commentary: Much thought led to recommending Sears Island for offshore wind port contains numerous misleading statements.

The Alliance for Sears Island, a coalition of individuals and organizations, supports developing an offshore wind port at Mack Point and opposes doing so on Sears Island, if any such facility is to be built in Penobscot Bay. We feel compelled to correct the inaccurate statements presented in the Commentary.

Three of our members served on the Off Shore Wind Port Advisory Group (OSWPAG), established by the Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT), as did the three authors of the Commentary. The OSWPAG process revealed that primary options for the wind port are Mack Point or Sears Island. No consensus was reached by the members of OSWPAG as to which was best.

Port construction costs are essentially equal based on current MDOT estimates:  Mack Point, $460 Million; Sears Island, $470 Million. During the June OSWPAG meeting, MDOT acknowledged that whoever operates the offshore wind port would pay a lease fee, whether at Mack Point or Sears Island. Both ports will have some variation of lease fees charged to the corporate entity manufacturing, assembling and launching turbines and, of course, those operating costs will ultimately be borne by ratepayers.

Further, the MDOT construction cost estimate for Sears Island includes $0 for the cost of mitigating environmental damages incurred when building the port. At least 20 acres of subtidal and intertidal marine habitats will be destroyed, and more severely altered, by filling and using a port quay on Sears Island. Clearcutting more than 75 acres of the island’s forest and bulldozing more than 1,000,000 cubic yards of soil to level the port will destroy freshwater wetlands, streams, and vernal pools. Statutorily required mitigation costs to construct the port on Sears Island are expected to be enormous, not $0. Mack Point, an industrial port for more than 100 years, is not a pristine natural place that will incur even slightly comparable mitigation costs.

While some dredging will be necessary to repurpose a portion of Mack Point for the off shore wind port, the volume of dredged material is not yet known. As the OSWPAG evaluation proceeded and optional designs for the Mack Point port were developed, the volume greatly diminished. Sprague Energy’s Jim Therriault informed the June OSWPAG meeting that further refinement of Mack Point’s plan could reduce dredging volume even more. Once tested, the dredge materials might become fill for the new quay at Mack Point, end up in a secure upland location, or be moved to confined aquatic disposal. Until testing and plan development are complete, it is not known how dredge material will be disposed.

When dredging in the marine environment, there are numerous ways to ensure that dredging limits risks to the health of the bay. These include using turbidity curtains, timing to avoid fish presence in the area, closed dredge buckets, controlled bucket cycles, and not overfilling the scow.

The decision to build at Mack Point or Sears Island must compare the environmental risk of limited and well-managed dredging at Mack Point with the irreparable, permanent harm to a wide range of ecological services provided by undeveloped, natural Sears Island. Such services that would be lost or degraded include habitat for commercially and recreationally important fish, shellfish, and lobsters, birds, other wildlife, and carbon sequestration. Mack Point, already industrialized, does not provide those ecological benefits.

The Commentary ignores the actual text of the 2007 Sears Island Planning Initiative agreement (the “settlement”) regarding use of the marine transportation section of the island. First, the State of Maine was prohibited from harvesting soil anywhere on Sears Island, and most importantly, that “Mack Point shall be given preference as an alternative to port development on Sears Island.”

This port siting decision should not be influenced by superficial slogans or name calling. Mack Point and Sears Island, located about 3,000 feet apart across Long Cove, are both parts of the Alliance for Sears Island’s backyard. We cannot be called a nimby when we simply say that the offshore wind port should be put in one part of our backyard–where an industrial port can repurpose obsolete infrastructure and under-utilized areas with a renewable energy facility–and not destroy the part of our backyard that offers outdoor recreation, ecological services, environmental education, natural habitats and scenic splendor.

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Submitted on behalf of the Alliance for Sears Island by Rolf Olsen, vice president of Friends of Sears Island; Steve Miller, executive director of Islesboro Islands Trust; and Scott Dickerson, citizen and former executive director of Coastal Mountains Land Trust. The Alliance is a coalition of hundreds of individuals, Friends of Sears Island, Islesboro Islands Trust, Sierra Club Maine Chapter, Friends of the Harriett Hartley Conservation Area, Friends of Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuges, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, and Upstream Watch.