AUGUSTA, Maine — The Board of Environmental Protection has settled on a compromise that aims to reduce red tape for landowners who want to build near wetlands while maintaining protections for ducks, herons and other birds that depend on the habitat.
After lengthy discussion, the board on Thursday endorsed new rules that likely will allow property owners to receive building permits near “moderate value” habitat for inland waterfowl and wading birds in less time and with fewer out-of-pocket expenses.
By using the state’s “permit-by-rule” process, landowners could receive an expedited review by DEP staff alone, often receiving a permit within 14 days. The current full-review process is more lengthy and costly because it involves gathering feedback from other state agencies as well as potential scrutiny from abutters and outside groups.
Maine Department of Environmental Protection officials sought the changes — which are subject to legislative approval — after fielding complaints that the current rules were discouraging business growth and needlessly impeding landowners’ use of their property.
But some environmental and conservation organizations said the DEP’s proposal loosened the rules too much and could lead to development that harms fragile populations of ducks and other birds that nest, breed or feed near wetlands. As a result, the department presented the Board of Environmental Protection with several alternatives meant to address concerns raised by both outside groups and board members.
On Thursday, the board endorsed extending the no-build buffer in the proposed rules from 100 to 150 feet. Additionally, the compromise would require consultation with biologists from the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife on any projects built between April 15 and July 31 when breeding or nesting birds are especially sensitive to disturbance.
Nick Bennett, staff scientist with the Natural Resources Council of Maine, described the compromise as a “significant improvement.”
“We are pleased that the board really listened to the science supporting larger buffers,” Bennett said. “I think [the DEP] brought forward those options because of the good testimony showing that larger buffers are better.”
DEP Commissioner Patricia Aho said Friday that she also was satisfied with the result, saying the board “undertook a very thoughtful and deliberative process” to come up with something that will address landowners’ concerns without harming wildlife.
“It clearly gives more options to landowners than there were before,” Aho said. Aho predicted that the new rules would be used largely by landowners looking to build single-family homes.
Environmental groups had raised concerns that commercial developers or landowners looking to build subdivisions near wetlands could avoid public scrutiny by using the permit-by-rule process. The board did not directly address those concerns but Bennett said the larger buffer zone should help to minimize impacts.
The board also voted to allow the DEP to request a lighting plan in cases where exterior lighting could affect nearby wading birds or waterfowl.
The rules now will go to the Legislature’s Environment and Natural Resources Committee for review.
More controls over more private property is “compromise”? This administration and legislature were supposed to be for reform doing away with this nonsense, not imposing more of it in the name of “compromise”. “Compromise” to the viros always means taking what they can get and coming back for the rest later in a process of progressively increasing social controls imposed and enforced by the state.
Expanding the control overlay in Audubon Ted Koffman’s ‘bird habitat’ scam to 150 feet is another example of it and will not be the end of it. The viros have claimed that their “science” demands taking 1000 feet at a minimum, and they have sought for decades to seize private property for all kinds of ‘habitat’, not just in the name of ‘birds’.
The ‘bird habitat’ control overlays on private property should be summarily eliminated just as fast as they were snuck into place by Koffman because he and the viros knew they were too controversial to stand up to honest open consideration. But once they get their power it is practically impossible to make them give back what they took.
Let’s operate our planet as a business.
As a fire sale.
Sounds more enjoyable than a prison camp…
That has absolutely nothing to do with what I wrote. Keep your hands off other people’s private property and stop pushing people around.
The prior poster has nothing to do but criticize. Don’t take him seriously. You can safely
bet your last dollar he doesn’t know the first thing about the details of the compromise.
I don’t follow “Heartofsky” and so don’t know how much detail he knows, but he doesn’t seem to care. Criticism in rational discussion would be good to air openly but all we get from these preservationist activists are whitewashes of their power and smears against their victims.
My home is ensnared in this power grab. Expanding the scope of non-objective law giving more discretionary power to DEP, extending 100 ft. to 150 ft. in the name of “compromise” as they take more of what is not theirs to take, is making this mess significantly worse. This whole power grab has been unethical in both goals and means in a strategic activist campaign by Audubon for over ten years; it is fundamentally corrupt far beyond any particular details in the latest round of maneuvering being pawned as “compromise”.
You only own a ‘title’ to any piece of land. You cannot consume it.
Gee, are these the same enviormental groups who endorse industrial wind farms? Industrial wind farms pose a real and present danger to birds. The spinning blades tend to kill migrating birds and raptors. Time for these groups to get consistent with their concern for wildlife.
Some of them are consistent. They would sacrifice us all for daring to show a ‘footprint’ on the earth.