Sears Island Panel Selects Trust to Hold Conservation Easement

By GEORGE CHAPPELL; OF THE NEWS STAFF

SEARSPORT – A statewide land conservation organization is being considered to be the holder for protecting 600 acres of Sears Island from development.

Maine Coast Heritage Trust of Topsham was selected Friday by the Sears Island Joint Use Planning Committee to be the conservation easement holder of 600 acres of the state-owned, 941-acre property.

“There was one proposal, from Maine Coast Heritage Trust, and the committee by consensus agreed to consider the trust to be the holder,” said Scott Dickerson, a planning committee member and executive director of Coastal Mountains Land Trust in Camden.

Dickerson said MCHT met all 11 criteria for selection and had the interest and qualifications outlined by the committee.

Although the island’s easement is not designed yet, Dickerson said, the holder will work with a subcommittee to draft an easement by the Feb. 8 meeting of the committee in Searsport.

Founded in 1970, MCHT has four offices along the coast and 42 full- and part-time staff members. It holds 178 conservation easements covering more than 14,000 acres and owns and manages more than 70 nature preserves, many of which are coastal islands that are open to the public.

Ciona Ulbrich, project manager of the MCHT field office in Somesville, on Friday presented her organization’s proposal to the planning committee.

Ulbrich said Monday the agreement is still provisional until it is approved by the Maine Legislature.

“I also don’t have my board’s authorization yet,” she said. “Now we’ve got to move forward with the subcommittee to write a draft in ‘plain English’ working with the April 2007 consensus agreement by Feb. 8.” That agreement determined the appropriate uses for the island to be compatibly managed for marine transportation, recreation, education and conservation.

She wrote in her proposal letter to the committee that MCHT had watched and been involved in the “long series of discussions surrounding Sears Island in many stages,” and that it was prepared to protect the designated portion of Sears Island into the future.

The Joint Use Planning Committee was formed in June 2007 and took up where the former Sears Island Planning Initiative left off. That group had worked for a year to create an agreement between those who wanted to conserve the entire 941 acres and those who wanted to reserve the island for future port development.

Jurisdiction of the island will remain with the Maine Department of Transportation, which will collaborate with the town of Searsport and other interested parties to put into effect the terms of the consensus agreement.

gchappell@bangordailynews.net

236-4598

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