SEARSPORT, Maine — For four evenings next week, the Searsport Planning Board will sit down and listen to people share their thoughts — both for and against — a $40 million liquid propane gas terminal and storage tank proposed for the Mack Point Industrial Zone.
The public hearings will begin at 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 26, and continue through Thursday, Nov. 29.
And although the board will not decide whether to approve DCP Midstream’s application at the end of the series of meetings, the board members said they do expect to learn more about the thoughts of people from around the area in regard to the major project.
The Denver-based fuel company has received permits for the terminal and 22.7 million gallon storage tank from entities that include the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Coast Guard.
It awaits only approval from the town of Searsport.
“We’re just waiting for whatever input at the public hearings,” George Kerper, who sits on the planning board, said recently.
A lot of that input will surely be coming from people who are staunch opponents of the project. They include Pam McKeen and Cary Slocum, both of Belfast, who set up a table Monday outside the Belfast Co-op to get people to write letters to the Searsport Planning Board.
They also were part of a Sunday demonstration outside of Waterfall Arts in Belfast, during which more than 230 people held hands in a circle the size of the proposed propane storage tank. In the middle of the circle, a balloon floated 14 stories above the ground, the maximum height the tank could stretch.
“I’m worried about safety and health,” Slocum said. “I worry that Searsport will turn into a slum because people won’t be shopping there.”
McKeen said that her primary concern is health.
“There’s going to be a big flare burning off toxic fumes that we’ll be breathing in,” she said. “If there was a problem with the tank, it would be a far-reaching environmental disaster.”
“Of epic proportions,” Slocum chimed in.
By midday, the two women held out a thick fistful of letters — counting more than 40 — to be mailed to the planning board. They said that people and groups against the project are trying to organize many individuals to lend their voices to the public hearings.
But DCP Midstream also will be represented during the meetings by several company officials who will make a presentation to the planning board and also answer questions, according to Rosslyn Elliott, company spokesperson.
According to Kerper, while the planning board recently found the company’s application to be complete, questions raised by the attorney from opposition group Thanks But No Tank will cause the board to again look into whether the application really is complete.
He also said that board members will ultimately decide whether or not the propane project meets the performance standards written in Searsport’s ordinances.
The board won’t make that decision until January or after, Kerper said. Board members are expecting to get the results of a risk assessment of the project that is being done by Good Harbor Consulting and that was commissioned in August by the Islesboro Islands Trust. The consulting firm is headed by former White House counterterrorism advisor Richard A. Clarke.
“We’d like to hear that study as soon as it gets completed,” Kerper said.
Would have been interesting if they had done a circle inside of that one that shows how much larger it is going to be compared to the existing tanks.
The largest of the fuel tanks currently at Mack Point are 48 feet high as opposed to the 138 feet the DCP behemoth would rise. Furthermore, the base of this tank would be located about 60 feet higher in elevation and its shining white exterior would be lit at night. This would be the largest refrigerated propane tank on the East Coast and possibly the largest of its kind in the world Don’t for a minute believe the professional liars representing DCP. This is NOT just another tank.
The biggest tank at Mack Point is less than half the diameter of that circle.
Searsport harbor will be closed when the Propane ships are nearby. 1000’s yards clearance zone on each side….
It will be big. Nice photo!
One thing that is noteworthy, although DCP promised to cooperate with the Good Harbor study. They have not.
One has to ask why.
There are many unanswered questions about this project. The only thing that is for sure is that DCP is sharing as little information as possible.
They submitted an incomplete and sloppy application, they keep the planning board guessing on many items related to the project and you can bet they will continue next week at the public hearings.
Agreed, a really nice photo. Too bad the real photographer — the person who really was there — wasn’t accorded the decency of a credit. Ms. Curtis, who wasn’t there but apparently knows how to appropriate other people’s work from Facebook, owes the real photographer an apology.
I would like to explain that when I sent the photo in to the paper I credited it to Thanks But No Tank, but something apparently went awry in the production process. We have made the correction.
Thanks for making “the correction.” Now make the correct correction, please. The credit for this particular photograph should go to Peter Wilkinson, not Thanks But No Tank.
In fact, while many people affiliated with TBNT were there Sunday, this event was neither conceived nor sponsored nor organized by TBNT, as the cutline for this picture suggests. Had you actually been at this event as your article also suggests, you might have learned this. You might have also learned that Mr. Wilkinson, a gifted professional photographer from Belfast who went to some trouble to secure the particular shot you helped yourself to from a Facebook page clearly not affiliated with TBNT, is certainly a staunch ally of TBNT but not affiliated with that group.
Being a good reporter entails more than regurgitating handouts from so-called official sources and catching on the fly a couple of on-the-street comments. Whatever one’s position on the DCP propane mega-tank issue, this is a HUGE story and you and Mr. Groening should be paying closer attention.
Penobscot Bay may be at a tipping point between, on the one hand, an existing and cherished way of life economically dependent on non-destructive exploitation of our beautiful natural resources, and, on the other hand, massive industrialization that could make the Bay look like portions of the Jersey shore. Covering that story properly requires spending less time marveling over the new showroom renovations at Dutch Chevrolet or dwelling on the salacious details of the most recent crime or accident. It requires actually getting to know the players — all the players — and all the factors involved and putting that information together in a fair and honest way.
Get the factual story in this week’s Republican Journal written by Ben Holbrook, a journalist who was present at this inspiring, grassroots event that included folks from Damariscotta, Pittston, Searsport, Unity, Union, Monroe, Hampden, Clinton, Sullivan and more to map the footprint of the mega-tank and to proclaim loud and clear, “IT’S A REGIONAL ISSUE.”
This is such an important point. DEP should have moved the original permit application to the DEP Board where there may have been some opportunity to address and deliberate the enormous gap the Le Page administration created in our legislative and regulatory framework in their hasty and ill advised compete deregulation of LPG.
Multi- Community impact is one of the key factors which should govern when an application would be reviewed by the DEP Board instead of as a routine permit by DEP.
An official at DEP has said that since DEP did not take this route and no one asked them to take this route within 20 days of the initial application it is too late now. Even though it is now clear that there are very significant multi community impacts and identified safety issues that no law in Maine or Searsport addresses like whether the tank is too big for that site, the absence of a back up generator to maintain safe temperatures during power outage and the absence of an adequately trained applicant funded safety and hazardous response team DEP is still treating this as a routine permit. The application for a transfer of the permit to DCP Searsport LLC affords a new opportunity to transfer this to the Board and good reason to do so since it is not clear whether DCP Searsport LLC has any corporate capability at all or financial capacity. It appears to be an entity designed to reduce DCP Midstsreams loss exposure to near zero while at the same time relying on a regional network of volunteer fire departments to take on the risk and liability of managing any emergencies.. Commissioner Aho has just issued a letter to all interested parties that the transfer itself has no multi community impacts or other aspects that would cause it to come under the jurisdiction of the DEP Board. The public though can appeal both that decision and any decision the DEP may make on the transfer if it has not adequately and responsibly considered all the information brought to its attention on the issue. That appeal would be made to the DEP Board and can bring it under Board jurisdiction whether or not DEP itself chooses to place it under the DEP Board.
Our building in Searsport is one of the most historic structures in town. Located
on Main St. (Route 1), it was built by town forefather and sea captain Jeremiah
Merithew in the 1830s. It is the site of the first Searsport Bank and is on the National Historic Registry.
Since investing most of our life savings in purchasing the building,
we have spent much time, money, and planning to lovingly restore the interior
of the structure to it’s original condition by removing false walls and old carpet,
restoring wood floors, repainting the tin ceiling, and many other upgrades. All this
was done with the vision of opening a small business at this location in hopes of
contributing to the local economy. We love Searsport and will work together with
neighbors to keep the historic village vital.
However, if the town of Searsport approves this tank project, our hopes of living and working here will be lost. We will be forced to sell our property, and most likely
at a considerable loss. Our vision for a small business will be taken someplace else, somewhere safe to invest in. A place that is safe to live and raise a family without this fear of incineration at a moments notice. This is not why people move to or live in Maine.
There is no emergency response system in the area that could handle a
potential emergency of such magnitude. That is obvious and the Coast Guard concurs.
We ask officials, as fellow tax paying citizens of Maine, to please say NO to this tank. In the name of good judgment, please say No to this tank. For the sake of the beauty of the Maine coast, we ask you to please say NO. If you care about the SAFETY of your family and that of the Searsport and surrounding communities, please say NO to this 137ft tall, 220ft wide, 14-story explosive liquid propane gas tank. Please do YOUR part to stop it before it’s too late. We ask officials to please not make excuses or pretend that somehow you have no control over the situation. Lastly, ask yourselves honestly if this tank is necessary and worth the all the risk.
How will you be “forced to sell your property”? You make it sound like the town is going to turn into some barren waste land if this project is approved. If you stuck to the facts people might listen to your desperate pleas, but when you load it with misinformation and exaggerations it just makes you look pathetic.
So cite the misinformation and exaggerations.
Alternatively you may be forced to hold onto property that you cannot sell at any price.
The tank is dangerous, unsightly and unnecessary. It will put thousands of people in harm’s way and will have a net negative impact on the local economy by depressing property values, disrupting boat traffic in the bay and vehicle traffic on the roads, and crippling the area’s tourism industry. There’s absolutely no justification for it. None.
The proposed DCP liquid propane tank and the ancillary projects associated with it are a threat to the rustic nature of Maine and its countryside. The tank will store LPG from overseas at a time when the United States is about to become the world’s leading producer of fossil fuels. Simply stated, the tank is an unnecessary corporate boondoggle whose only purpose is to enrich the coffers of its owners.
The dredging of the harbor will create a port from which tar sands will be sent overseas, tar sands entering Maine along the proposed East/West corridor or through existing pipelines running across the southern part of the state and along Sebago Lake. We cannot keep using fossil fuels; we cannot tolerate tar sands in our state; we cannot import liquid propane gas. This is a recipe for the ravaging of Maine, and eventually climate disaster for the world as a whole.
This inappropriate project needs to go away, the sooner the better. If you are against it, make your voice heard at the Searsport planning board meetings next week. Show up, and express your opposition by speaking, holding up a sign, whatever — just show up and make your views known. There is a very serious danger that this project might happen, and next week could be your last, best chance to stop it. Please show up!!!!
The public hearing will be suspended after the 29 Nov session, until the Good Harbor study is complete. The expected completion date of the study had to be moved back from around Thanksgiving until maybe Jan because DCP and the Army Corps Of Engineers [ACOE] have refused to co-operate with the Good Harbor team. And then there is always the Waldo County Emergency Management Plan that must be evaluated but does not yet exist. Thats right, we don’t even have a plan yet our local officials are convinced we can handle whatever comes.
Why would they refuse to cooperate with the study? I think they are trying to hide the fact we are woefully unprepared for the results of any type of industrial scale accident/disaster this tank might bring. The ACOE is required to approve DCP’s request for a permit or else the project dies. And ACOE approved the permit based solely on the statements from local Emergency Management personnel who told them they were prepared for whatever might happen and could handle it.
Now, if this turns out to be untrue and we are not prepared and the Good Harbor study points that out, that will cast doubt on the ACOE permit and their credibility. So, they are trying to ignore Good Harbor and hope they go away. But they won’t go away and neither will we. This is a regional issue and the region is against industrialization of the bay.
DCP shouldn’t be allowed to bully their way into our lives. Like everything else, this is about a few people making lots of $ at the expense of the gullible public. Only there is much more at stake here than just $. The health and safety issues are real and substantial and unnecessary. This tank is not a good fit for our town and we should not let them trick us into thinking it is.
A simple welding accident was responsible for the 1988 PEPCON explosion that leveled a comparable factory and damaged homes up to a 10-mile radius. It is hard to believe that DCP and the town of Searsport can assure its neighbors no similar destruction due to accidental or deliberate fire, and the lack of public oversight and review to date merely fuels suspicion that DCP has something to hide.
In the wake of Katrina, Fukushima, and Sandy, we know that disasters do not follow scripts. Their ecological and economic effects often ripple far beyond the initially impacted area. In the case of the proposed tank in Searsport, LPG trucks on our roads and supertankers in our Bay provide ample opportunities for natural catastrophes and targets ripe for terrorism up and down the mid-coast region.
What provisions have been made for paying for repair and cleanup of the potential damage resulting from trucking, shipping, and storing 22 million gallons of explosive liquid in our neighborhood, including economic harm caused by the obstruction or defilement of our popular Penobscot Bay and Routes 1 and 3?
What has Belfast run out of daycares to protest opening in their city ?? LOL..
You think you’ll still be laughing when an angrier version of Sandy hits the Midcoast. The ice storm will seem like an outing to DisneyWorld. and you, tragically, will still be loling.
The State of Maine, in anticipation of, and to facilitate this project, completely deregulated LPG so all that should be in place at the State level to properly review an application for a terminal facility of this enormous size just isn’t there. This creates an enormous unfunded liability exposure for all Mainers.
What is in place in the tiny town of Searsport is not adequate for this facility nor should it be. It is a state responsibility and the state has simply opted out.
To Ms. McKeen and Ms. Slocum: I would love to hear a response from you about your following comments “If there was a problem with the tank, it would be a far-reaching environmental disaster” & “Of epic proportions”. My question to you is this: Do you realize what General Alum Chemicals has on their property, just a short distance from where the LPG tank WILL be built? Do you realize that this chemical plant poses a far greater risk than this LPG Tank could ever possibly have, even under the most far fetched circumstances. With LPG the only threat is explosion, which given the safety features such as relief/release valves is nearly impossible. However, the chemicals at GAC could possibly harm areas as far away as Bangor. If there was a catastrpohic event (as you people seem to be so fond of mentioning), the caustic acid, sulfuric based products and numerous other chemicals they work with here pose a far greater problem than one large LPG tank.
Also, as far as ruining the landscape for our precious tourists and out of staters (like most who are against this project), have you taken a look at Mack Point. How is one really big tank going to make that much of a difference when there are already 15 or so large tanks already there. You people make it sound like this tank is being built in some wildlife sanctuary or park. It is an INDUSTRIAL area people, open your eyes.
As a lifelong resident of the Searsport-Belfast area I am so sick of the people who have lived the majority of their lives out of state and then come to Maine and want to tell Mainer’s how to run our towns and what we can or can’t build in our own backyards. “Thanks but no Tank” lost when we voted, get over it. Move on to your next big project, I heard there is going to be a big development built on Sears Island. Why don’t you make this your next big cause, god knows we would hate to see some economic development and good paying jobs in this area.
So let’s make Searsport more industrial???
Are you listening to yourself?
All the “industrial” companies are relatively new to the area compared to the history of Searsport. And most of the companies at Mack Point are not even American companies.
So we have a “cancer cluster” (Check USA Today) in Searsport compared to other Waldo County locations, let’s put in a tank that will potentially be venting burned and unburned LPG into the air.
And let’s bring in more trucks because we all love traveling Rt.1 with the current Mack Point trucks.
For how many jobs? For how many actual Searsport residents??
How many people who work at Mack Point actually live in Searsport anyway?
Searsport has a long maritime history. But back when it was a seafaring town
all the business owners lived in the town and contributed to it.
It was not just a pit stop for big trucks and multi-national coporations
that keep asking for more and more tax dollars for very little return to this town.
I would be for anything on the site that actually meant real jobs and a real future for the town.
This is a bad fit.
Yes, we know about GAC–we can smell it when they process fish oil.
You can see the lagoons on Google Maps.
But they are already here. And our Emergency people tell us things are great.
Why wouldn’t we believe them? Huh?
They say DCP’s facility is going to be safe. Their cryogenic LPG and vast trucking and safety experience speaks for itself!
Once again, HoleMinded, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
The chemicals at GAC are mostly benign, the people who run that operation have demonstrated they’re responsible and unlike DCP truly interested in being good neighbors. They have been phasing out their chlorine operations and have shifted to a safer form of caustic soda. With no requirement to do so, GAC is now taking steps to clean up their shoreline which was sullied by decades of past bad practices by previous plant operators. There is nothing explosive there that begins to compare to nearly 23 million gallons of refrigerated liquefied propane that has suddenly — Ice Storm of 1998 repeat anyone? — lost its refrigeration.
Unlike the three giant exclusively foreign corporations — Swedish, French and Canadian — that operate at Mack Point proper, nearby GAC is a relatively small all-American family-owned firm whose primary operations are in Searsport and which employs as many or more (local) people as the other three combined. And, unlike the Big Foreign Three, GAC has never been the recipient of tens of millions of dollars in corporate welfare supplied by the U.S. and Maine state taxpayer. (Those of you who voted recently for the Transportation Bond may not know that you approved indebting yourself to the bankers for $2 million to help the multi-billion-dollar Axel-Johnson Group in Stockholm pay for some conveyor belts at Mack Point. You lobster fisherfolks who did so may not know that you helped leverage $13 million-plus to help the company’s gas tanker ships get in and out of Mack Point by dredging at least a million cubic yards of toxic spoils, and possibly up to three times that quantity, that will be dumped smack in the middle of your nursery grounds halfway between the Rockland Breakwater and the Fox Islands Thorofare.)
Furthermore, the chemicals GAC produces are used in making paper and providing clean water. I happen to like using paper and drinking clean water. How about you? The U.S. is now EXPORTING a glut of propane derived from the new fracking and horizontal bore technology developed in just the past half dozen years. We don’t need to import foreign propane — especially the stuff coming from unstable, unfriendly places like Qatar and Algeria where DCP has been getting much of its overseas supplies. DCP in its myriad of corporate forms is merely a front for two of the largest fossil fuel corporations in the world, Duke Energy and Phillips66, which care about nothing else but maximizing profit. This year alone DCP has cynically paid out over $60 million in fines as the cost of doing business, allowing the corporation to continue making far greater profits by poisoning the air over the American Southwest.
I’m sorry to learn you apparently despise anyone who, unlike yourself, is a peasant “from away,” not someone who thinks of themselves as a deserving member of the Maine nobility because they had the wisdom and foresight to arrange to be born here. Enjoy your questionable sense of superiority but whether you like it or not also know that “our precious tourists,” as you so snidely call them, are without question the heart of our local economy. The arrival of Big Tank would likely prove the tipping point for the industrialization of Penobscot Bay. With 99.9 percent of the profits flowing to places like Denver and Houston, DCP’s foothold in Searsport would undoubtedly mean a massive net loss of jobs.
By the way, the vote in Searsport you refer to was simply about taking a couple of months to consider the ramifications of the proposed project. It’s true a majority voted against this spurred by DCP’s expensive and deceitful campaign to interfere in a local democratic decision, a campaign that pitted neighbor against neighbor and exploited the kind of hate-the-people-from-away prejudice you so clearly demonstrate. It was NOT, however, a vote on the project itself and it didn’t gauge opinion beyond Searsport. Big Tank, as Sunday’s event demonstrated, is without question a regional issue. That much cited vote doesn’t begin to reflect the feelings of the tens of thousands of people in communities throughout Penobscot Bay, both natives and “foreign”-born alike, who are increasingly waking up to the threat this destructive and unnecessary project poses to their way of life.
Excellent response!
the NIMBYs were out in force! let’s hope the whole solar thingy works out
Try having a community get-together on the first of the month and watch how many searsport people show up.
I’ve never been to Searsport, but an Industrial Zone sounds like a pretty good place for a propane tank… I don’t really see how putting in another tank in an Industrial Zone is going to turn the town into “slums” as these people claim.
Then I would suggest coming to the town and seeing where it is going.
Maybe then you can see the issue.
The Industrial Zone Ordinances were modified after DCP wrote the ordinance changes.
If the Town and Planning Board was a little more forthright in the beginning when DCP asked the town to change the ordinance from allowing 60′ tall tanks to allowing 150′ tall tanks, we would not be in this situation.
This change got sold as part of a deal where Mack Point (Remember–they are all foreign companies down there) got a free crane that was taller than what was then allowed.
We taxpayers got to pay for it. There were three height changes made on that vote–all together. They could have been voted for individually but that did not happen.
That vote, to change three height limits passed by 13 votes, mainly because of the free crane.
This whole process is riddled with small town politics run amuck.
Unfortunately, the BDN has missed most of it.
Look at that picture again. Forget about the preconceived notions that you might have about the people there and just try to grasp the scale.
This is very, very big and is not with the rest of the tanks at Mack Point, it is quite close to Rt.1 and many residences.
With the awareness blooming in the consciousness of citizens across our country that climate change is real, most are highly alarmed when recognizing the time span we have to bring a halt to the rise in global temperature is very short. (Articles/reports by James Hansen, Tony Ingraffea, Robert Howarth and Rene Santoro and Bill McKibben). It is with this understanding that I have joined in support of the Thanks but no TANK in Searsport and surrounding communities. The level of pursuit of extreme fossil fuels, whether oil, methane gas or coal, is taking us all on a path of no return….following the pied pipers (CEO’s) of greed. The current environmental and economic damage inflicted upon communities with future repercussions by permitting the Tank facility is huge. It is with critical eye that I read of the TANK facility – and ponder the downfall of a beautiful region of Maine’s coast. Instead of pursuing this monstrosity for LPG storage, time and resources spent on other economic generators that provide sustainable livelihoods within local marine, agriculture and small businesses…with a nod to the future, all would be better off. Once you know…you can not, not know. The TANK is a monster that you will not be able to put back in the box. We too, face an imminent danger with LPG storage in the Finger Lakes, with the proposed storage in old salt caverns below Seneca Lake. One only has to read of the Sink Hole in Assumption Parish Louisiana to grasp the danger of salt domes as a means to store LPG.
I wish all the creative leadership to work towards the best outcome. This means NO TANK.
Brillant, powerful. We thank you for our region here in Maine, whoever you are.
We the people of one of the few unspoiled places in the country, do not want or need a volatile operation taking place in the beautiful town of Searsport. The bully LaPage will not shove this upon us, in two yrs he will be shoved out of office. So we must stand strong against this dangerous LPG facility…No Tanks.