Category: Featured
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Is Maine Offshore Wind Becalmed or Fogged-In?

The Silence is Deafening Loss of federal funding, diminished investor interest and a President Trump anti-offshore wind Executive Order make Maine’s plans for developing a commercial-scale offshore wind manufacturing facility on Sears Island obsolete. To date, neither Governor Mills nor MDOT officially recognize this reality. What is the current state…
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Alternatives Analysis: Costs

As the State of Maine reels from yet another denial of federal funds to support the development of an Offshore Wind Port (OSWP) on Sears Island, it is important to contemplate the significant cost of such a project to the taxpayers of Maine in addition to the costs of this…
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Letter: Time to Abandon Sears Island Wind Port

Image: A sign urging to protect Sears Island, known to the locally indigenous people as Wahsumkik. Maine is eyeing Sears Island to develop a wind port. Credit: Sasha Ray / BDN 12/31/2024 Printed in the Bangor Daily News Now that federal funding for offshore wind has collapsed, and the president-elect…
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Sears Island Development Funds Denied – Again (and Again and Again…)

Tuesday, December 10, we learned that the Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT) failed to receive a $16 million grant for an offshore wind manufacturing facility on Sears Island. This marks the fourth MDOT grant application failure since 2023 for the Sears Island development. It’s past time for the Mills Administration…
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“What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

This well-known quote from the Stother Martin “Captain” character in the iconic movie Cool Hand Luke applies perfectly to the Maine Department of Transportation’s (MDOT) approach to their plans to develop Sears Island instead of Mack Point for an offshore wind manufacturing facility. As a member of the Offshore Wind…
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Significant Vernal Pool Habitat is protected by law under the Natural Resources Protection Act (NRPA)

This past spring, two people went looking for spotted salamanders, wood frogs and egg masses on Sears Island as they and others have been doing for years. This year, of course, recording the presence of these species in vernal pools located where the Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT) wants to…
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MDOT Plans New Sears Island Road and Rail Access Corridor Through Current Conservation Land

5/23/2024 Though Current Conservation Land Can we hold the Maine Department of Transportation accountable for bull-dozing their way toward developing Sears Island and industrializing Penobscot Bay, along the way breaking promises, rewriting environmental protection law, changing the Sears Island conservation easement, withholding from the public important development costs and impacts and…
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Sprague Energy Mack Point Offshore Wind Plan

The Bangor Daily News published an excellent op-ed by Sprague Energy’s Jim Therriault on May 14 (https://www.bangordailynews.com/2024/05/14/opinion/opinion-contributor/sprague-energy-mack-point-wind-port-plan/) that lays out the numerous reasons why building the state’s offshore wind manufacturing, assembling and launching facility there is the best alternative if it is built in Penobscot Bay. For more information, visit https://www.spragueenergy.com/mack-point.…

