Dear Ms. Young and Mr. Groening (I know you, Tom),

What is missing from this and the last editorial is news coverage in BDN to buttress and lead up to these editorials. These editorials try to be news reporting (providing the reader with pertinent facts) and the newspapers' opinion after reviewing all the facts -- all at the same time.

Why doesn't the BDN just devote some reporter time to doing a good, in-depth story on this. Why are you reporting the story on editorial page?

The entire premise of both editorials has been the glorification and edification of the concept of "compromise." By the exact same definition of "compromise" that you have set forth in your editorials, half of Mount Katahdin should now be an industrial granite quarry.

Sears Island is the largest uninhabited and undeveloped island left in Maine and New England. There are no other Sears Islands. Your editorial does not call for funding to make another one. Your editorial calls for desecrating it -- and you cannot even offer a single cogent reason why. You admit that Mack Point is not even close to its capacity, or that other sites along the coast could be better suited to handling shipping traffic.

What is the value of half a Penobscot River?

What is the value of half a Penobscot Atlantic salmon?

What is the value of half a Penobscot Atlantic cod?

We know the value of these. Once they are taken, they are gone. They cannot live off half their body, any more than we can.

Sears Island is the same.

It should and must be left alone as part of bringing the Penobscot River and Bay back to life.

Cheers.

DouglasWatts: Even I, as a frequent critic of this increasingly leftward leaning editorial board, have to come to their defense on the issue you raise. This issue has been exhaustively reported on since the "compromise group" started their deliberations. And notice that the editorial provides opinions based on supposition as to the underlying cause of the scuttled compromise, not objective facts that would be applicable in a normal article.

I’d like to answer Mr. Watts’ question why the BDN doesn’t first devote some good reporter time to presenting the facts. The answer lies is the base and selfish nature of most big business. The BDN is such a business and both its editorialists and, sadly enough, even its reporters ultimately reflect the foundation truth that the big bottom line is the big bottom line and nothing else matters. Nothing. A fish? A tree? A precious wild island, largest still in public hands on the Eastern Seaboard? Please, the editorialists at the state’s lockstep daily press might sneer, get real. The only thing that really matters is what benefits the wealthy. In such a mindset big industrial port expansion is a good thing. End of story. Never mind that no one has ever demonstrated a need for a container port on Sears Island. Except for a few isolated years during wartime when ammunition was shipped, Searsport’s mainland facility at Mack Point has always been little more than a utility port for bulk commodities used exclusively in eastern and northern Maine. For oil (originally coal) to heat local homes, for gasoline to run local motor vehicles, for asphalt to surface our local roads, for salt to keep these local vehicles from sliding off these local roads. It’s true a lot of tapioca starch, kaolin clay and chemicals used to arrive in Searsport to supply the state’s paper industry, and the port actually used to export paper. But perhaps the editorialists at the BDN have missed the fact that Maine’s paper industry, in decline since the 1940s, is now in its death throes. The reality is the present contemplated rape of Sears Island would be nothing more than corporate welfare to benefit the people the owners of the Bangor Publishing Co. perhaps feel most comfortable hanging out with. I’m referring to the speculators and their tools at the few bottom-feeder companies that are cannibalizing what’s left of Maine’s paper industry before shipping it offshore. In particular I’m referring to the speculators who bought up the assets of the bankrupt Bangor and Aroostook Railroad (which collapsed in 2002 along with much of the local paper industry). Never mind that a dying paper industry which last built a mill in Maine in 1939 offers pathetically small hope of bringing serious economic benefit to the people of this state. Never mind that the owners of a dying railroad hope to make a killing off a generous taxpayer-supplied grubstake that includes a verdant 930-acre wild island that belongs to the people of Maine. Never mind that there is neither a manufacturing center near Sears Island to supply the high-value goods that go into cargo containers nor a large population center to purchase those goods. Never mind that this scheme is about high-end speculation, not solid economic realities. Never mind that the micro-business owners and the self-employed who, in fact, are the real backbone, blood and guts of the state’s economy are virtually ignored by the state’s economic development wizards. Never mind that the current planning process for Sears Island has corrupted the faux environmentalists at the Maine Sierra Club and at the land trusts, that the entire process of consensus on the extent to which to rape this totally undeveloped island has been corrupt from its conception. Never mind that the final consensus agreement was put together in December 2006 at secret meetings hosted by the Maine Department of Conservation with only the agreeable and compliant allowed to attend. Never mind that the governor and his department flunkies and chamber of commerce cohorts are indistinguishable from the kind of Republicans who have sold out our country over the past eight years. Looking over this entire sorry spectacle I can’t help feel ahead of that inevitable time the wrath and disgust with which future generations will judge us.

Fool

Of course, but try going a little easier on yourself, vichet.

Peter do you yourself have all the facts? I can clearly say that I do. I have watched this project for the past couple years and read as many reports and surveys as I could have possible read. I've visited many websites and talked to many people about the matter. Do you know about the Container port in Halifax? Do you know about the SECOND port they are building in Nova Scotia? Do you know about the congestion in the Port of New York. And do you know that from New York to Halifax there is no other deep water world class port? We aren't talking about importing materials just for the state of Maine. Same goes for exporting. No we are talking about opening a gateway from Europe to the US. Actually as a matter of fact a lot of imports come in the west coast headed for the east coast. Los Angeles is so congested that they have started sending boats across Panama to the east coast to unload. The idea of this port is to bring in Containers, put them on a train, and have them as far as Chicago in 2 days. Almost everything you see around you can go in a container. The implications here are pretty obvious. This could be the Eastern most US large container Port. The amount of cargo it could pull in is huge. This is an opportunity not just because its another container port, this is an opportunity because geographically, Maine holds the upper hand. And you want to preserve the Island for what? Why don't you head North or East and see all the preserved land out there. We have plenty of that already. The time to act is now.

Also for your enjoyment heres some of the Facts.

http://www.maineports.com/documents/Port_Strategy_Study_001.pdf

If you want more I would be more than happy to provide.

Peter Taber and Douglas Watts:

Not that it's particularly germaine to the discussion, but would

you both reveal to us where it is that you reside? Thanks.

Old Bangor

Assemble all the enviromentalists on sears island, then sink it. I'm tired of hearing about it.

Hey, wallyo, why not just shut up if you have nothing to contribute? Frankly, I'm tired of hearing from anonymous idiots like yourself safely venting their hostility.

Old Bangor, if where Doug Watts and I live isn't "particularly germane to the discussion," then why are you interested?

Chastings, sorry I'm only just now responding to your comments, which are both civil and, for anyone not really familiar with the Sears Island story, seemingly reasonable. As a Maine newspaper reporter I covered this story much of the past 20 years. Not only was I present a couple of years back when the Cornell Group unveiled the "study" you refer to at a gathering at Belfast's Hutchinson Center, I was among the first to view several other such "studies" over the years. None of these was a study in the strict academic sense; rather, each was a package of statistics and generalizations heavily slanted to please the client and make the case for what the client wanted, no matter what the reality might actually be.

Believe me, I've repeatedly seen "the experts" conclude one industrial scheme or another on Sears Island promised to be the greatest thing since the proverbial sliced bread. I've also seen these same "experts" deliver similar rosy results to would-be port developers in Portsdmouth, NH, and Quonset Point, RI. The dream of a rail link connecting Montreal and the Canadian Midwest to an Atlantic port at Searsport is an old one. That was the hope of the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad in 1905 when the company extended a line down to Mack Point. Guess what, nearly a century later the successor company to Sprague Coal Co. was still making do with the original steam engine-powered gantry cranes that were installed when Theodore Roosevelt was the President.

With respect to a container port at Sears Island, a developer is going to have to compete with Halifax for the trade. Since the late 1940s, Halifax has pioneered development of the very container link that the bs artists at Maine DOT, Maine Community and Economic Development and at the Governor's Office have pipe dreams about diverting traffic off from. Halifax hasn't been asleep in the interim years. Its major weakness has been a limited overland transportation corridor to manufacturing, production and population centers in the interior hinterlands of the Midwest. The Canadian government is currently expending about $3 billion to develop that corridor with both a new highway link and a second rail line. Add to that the fact that a ship departing Halifax is at least a day closer to European ports. It also doesn't have to first crawl 35 miles south down a narrow frequently fog-shrouded Penobscot Bay passageway before turning onto the open sea.

The really important issue for us citizens of Maine is the need to refocus the state's economic endeavors. The mediocrities currently in charge are either clueless or too busy looking after big corporate business to weigh the real value to the people of this state. Just look at the fawning attention Gov. B. and his staff give to what's left of the paper industry. Just look at the perfidious snakes at the now bakrupt Red Cloud in Old Town. The wizards in state government would rather see Maine inundated with all the demolition debris the other New England states refuse to deal with themselves, toxic crap that can be burned to save what amounts to a handful of undependable jobs. The state's Sears Island plan is little more than a scam to bail out the speculators who bought up the assets of the bankrupt B&A and renamed it the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway. Why did the B&A go under? Because throughout the First World the super-rich in their usual sociopathic fashion are maximizing profits by transferring manufacturing to the Third World.

I like to think that Maine is still small enough it might respond to democratic forces instead of serving such despicable masters.

Bravo Peter Taber.

Peter Taber:

Is it Taber or Tabor? No matter....Your residence might not be particularly

"germaine", which I mis-spelled on purpose, but I DID have a feeling you

would refuse to reveal it, although I DO believe you're the one that lives

in Waldo County. Douglas Watts remains silent and out of earshot...

Truth be known, I would be 100 per cent behind you, Peter, if Sears Island

were truly a pristine piece of nature as we find further down the coast in

Washington County. However, during its history, this island was completely

denuded of trees and then farmed. What grows today is just like the regrowth

we see all over Maine on abandoned farms. All of the environmentalist sites

on the web either ignore or soft-pedal this fact. And a fact it is!

You, Peter, sound like a very angry person. You also sound like a person who

believes that his opinion is "THE" opinion, and anyone who deviates even the

tiniest BIT from it is, well, you fill-in the blanks. I don't care to use words like that.

Anyhow, I take a differing view, as you might have guessed. Sears Island will

need to be developed on its Western Shore by private enterprise. Especially in

these times, this will not happen unless the plan is feasible. I personally see

NO REASON why this should not happen, given well-thought-out regulation and

oversight. In addition, Searsport itself has a long and proud seafaring tradition.

Might be nice to see it survive into the 21st Century.

People? I sense a slash-and-burn response on the way. Well, Peter, at least try

to make it Brief and To-The-Point, okay? And don't insult my parentage, education,

sanity or dental health while you're at it. For a "Journalist", you're certainly very

long-winded! Never had an editor like ME!

OldBangor

To Old Bangor:

I find your comments to me manipulative, patronizing, personally invasive and generally offensive. But this is not really the forum to deconstruct them and, besides, that would take up a lot of space. Also, you urged me to be brief. I don't want you to feel unduly assaulted by an excess of information.

On the issue of Sears Island, you're setting up a straw man when you refer to its agricultural history. No one in my camp which seeks to fend off all development -- whether it be a port or the EcoWorld theme park the Maine Sierra Club and the other Quisling environmentalists want to build -- has ever even suggested the island is "a pristine piece of nature," in a word, wilderness. After more than three centuries of European-variety human meddling that would be absurd. We've never denied that much of Sears Island is reverted farmland, but after at least four generations with no serious farming taking place it's fair to say the island is totally wild. As such it is extraordinarily valuable. This is especially so because, sitting a mile south of Route 1 and connected by a (now artificial) causeway, Sears Island is so easily accessible to so many ordinary people -- you know, the kind of folk who don't happen to own a sailboat.

What is this "proud seafaring tradition" bs? More windy chamber of commerce balderdash? Searsport's seafaring years, however proud, ended about 140 years ago. Get real.

Also, why exactly do you think the island "will need" to be developed? Who says so? The opportunists at Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway? The bureaucrats in state government, equally opportunistic, trying to justify their positions by peddling the development-at-any-cost line to their unimaginative bosses? How about the hand-wringing souls who claim they're environmentalists but lack the courage to stand up to the port development bullies, the people who have already agreed a port on the island is "appropriate" as long as they get their chance to build their own brick-and-mortar empire there?

You think I'm angry, Old Bangor? I think it's more accurate to say I'm disgusted. Disgusted at the moronic march of progress whose idealogues believe everything was put on this planet for us humans to mindlessly exploit, this even as the handwriting is on the wall that we're headed into environmental disaster. Disgusted at the illegal and dishonest manipulations Gov. B's subordinates in state government employed to manufacture the disgraceful consensus agreement that yet threatens to render the island a pathetic wasteland. Disgusted at the weakness of the supposed guardians of the environment who chose to do what was most comfortable, sell out and hope for the best rather than take a principled stand.

Peter Taber:

Believe it or not, you have just proved my point far

better than little old me could ever have done!

Angry! Narrow! Superior! Dismissive! Inflexible! BLIND!

Proud Seafaring Tradition? Careful! They've got a MUSEUM!

Thank you, Pete! You're doing my work FOR me!

You ALSO still need a good editor..... WAY too prolix!

Nighty Night!

OldBangor (no space...)

Peter You are gonna have a stroke.. yep nothing to add here.

You guys are so cool. If only I could be half as witty.

arent you?

It seems as though this "discussion" has digressed to being little more than a verbal brawl, but i would still like to correct a few points.

First off, despite the efforts of some in our government to make Maine into a state that is too expensive to do business (our electrical rates are tied with New York as the highest in the nation), Maine is second only to Wisconsin in paper production. New paper mills were constructed in Jay in the 1960s, in Skowheagn in the 1970s, and substantial investments have been made since, such as the $110 million in the new paper machine at the mill in Millinocket. Obviously, as witnessed by the Millinocket mill, the industry has fallen on some hard times. But I don't know of anyone who knows of the paper industry who is ready to announce a death sentence.

I do not think the state is currently in a position to start developing Sears Island. (By the way, the maritime approach to and from Sears Island is not unfavorable by any means.) Any commerce destined for maritime transit could be moved via other ports. But the need for a modern seaport could develop, and when it does, all options should be on the table.

I don't want my state to become an industrial wasteland, but I do want it to grow economically. Sears Island has the attributes of a world-class seaport.

Absolutely, Steamship.

Thank You Steamship!

I hope you don't count me as a "Brawler". What I DO hope to see is our

Legislature endorse the plan that has been developed so as to at least

leave the door open for things to happen in Searsport when the financial

and economic situation improves. I also have no objections to appropriate

regulation and oversight. This is, however, an area where our esteemed

Maine Bureaucracy has been, at times, TOO good. If they can proceed in

a reasonable fashion as opposed to a TOXIC one, I see good things on the

horizon for everyone! The one thing I worry about most is Frivolous,

Obstructive Litigation by a teensy-weensy minority.

That's It!

OldBangor

Hey Petertabor Im not the longwinded fool you are