Regional Advocacy Since August 2024
An IIT Advocacy Committee Update:
What is the status of the State of Maine’s plan to develop a major port on Sears Island and industrialize Penobscot Bay?
Last August, 2024, the Islesboro Islands Trust Advocacy Committee convened a well-attended informational meeting about the development threat to Sears Island and Penobscot Bay. Opposed to developing the offshore wind manufacturing, assembling and launching facility on Sears Island, IIT favors pursuing the offshore wind facility at Mack Point if any such facility needs to be built in Penobscot Bay.
For more than a decade, Maine looked to offshore wind as an essential component in the state’s renewable energy transition plans. In March 2020, Governor Mills announced an assessment of Mack Point to support offshore wind. In November of 2021, Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT) consultants determined that a proposed offshore wind manufacturing facility could be built at Mack Point or Sears Island. Then, in February 2024, Governor Mills announced Sears Island as the preferred site for the offshore wind facility.
The IIT informational meeting advised islanders of this Sears Island/Penobscot Bay development threat. Eloise Lawrence, IIT Advocacy Committee Chair, moderated the presentations and discussion among Nickie Sekera, Community Water Justice Co-Founder; Jillian Howell, Upstream Watch Executive Director; Pete Nichols, Sierra Club Maine Chapter Director; and Steve Miller, Islesboro Islands Trust Executive Director.
But what has happened to the State’s offshore wind ambitions over the past rough and tumble year?
MDOT released a Draft Alternative Analysis on October 11, 2024, providing what appeared to be justification for developing the offshore wind facility on Sears Island. However, IIT and allies in the Alliance for Sears Island dug into the voluminous, biased material and identified numerous flaws.
Shortly after release of the Draft Alternative Analysis, eyebrows were raised on October 22, 2024 when we learned that the U.S. Department of Transportation rejected a MDOT grant application for nearly a half billion dollars that would have allowed development of Sears Island to proceed. In December, we discovered that another MDOT grant application failed. This fourth denial of a federal grant request effectively pushed financing of the facility on Sears Island into limbo.
None-the-less, in response to the failed grants, then MDOT Commissioner Bruce Van Note promised that, “Our work will continue as we examine other opportunities to secure funding to advance this critical [Sears Island] port infrastructure” and MDOT spokesperson Paul Merrill said, “Sears Island remains the best option for construction of a port for several economic, environmental, and logistical reasons…”
The ups and downs of offshore wind over the past year are perhaps best illustrated by the leasing of sites to deploy offshore wind turbines in the federal waters of the Gulf of Maine. Turbines located there would need to be manufactured, assembled and launched from one or more onshore locations, such as Sears Island or Mack Point or other Maine or New England places.
The proposed 12 turbine Research Array lease area, located offshore from Casco Bay, was approved and finalized in August and September last year. Then, in October, four commercial wind lease areas in the Gulf of Maine sold for nearly $22 million during a Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) auction. Maine officials and supporters of offshore wind called this a “momentous step forward” for Maine’s renewable energy climate goals.
But when President Trump took office in January, he directed federal agencies to “temporarily” withdraw areas on the outer continental shelf, including the Gulf of Maine, from offshore wind leasing and to “review” the Federal Government’s leasing and permitting practices for all wind projects.
More recently, BOEM furthered that Presidential directive by rescinding designated wind energy areas in all federal waters. Although this BOEM action does not directly affect the existing Research Array and four commercial offshore wind leases, it is widely viewed as a major set-back for all offshore wind development.
The industrialization of Sears Island and the threat that poses to Penobscot Bay remains ever present even if the wind port is defeated. During a Maine Legislature March 12, 2025 hearing on a bill that would permanently protect Sears Island, MDOT spokesperson Matt Burns called Sears Island an “extremely valuable economic asset” and indicated that MDOT would “maintain options for development for other purposes.”
Amidst this turmoil of uncertainty around Sears Island and the future of Penobscot Bay, IIT’s legal team and consultants, as well as our extensive grassroots allies, continue to engage public interest, extoll the ecological importance of Sears Island, and remain ready to act when MDOT makes its next development move, as evidence suggests could be soon.
But not all is doom and gloom in the region. Positive efforts such as the movement to restore Little River to full ecological health, in which IIT Executive Director Chloe Joule represents IIT support, and creation of the Penobscot Bay Waterkeeper, which IIT also supports, prove that Islesboro is not alone when advocating for the health of Penobscot Bay.