The following editorial was written by Mike Brown of Hometown News Service - Published in the 11/26/09 Ellsworth American
Note: this is a transcription. Any spelling errors are the transcriber's)

"Sears Island Gadfly"

Sears Island -the battle-fatigued island at the head of Penobscot Bay- must feel like it did at its birth all those years ago, when a mile-high icecap melted and left this 900 acre spot on earth's map to face the challenges of mankind.

And for the last 100 years Sears Island, which is deep water accessible to worldwide maritime commerce, has indeed been embattled. Its manipulation as a pawn of environmentalists and commerce finally ended last year. Or so it was presumed, when a joint committee agreed that the island acreage be designated 2/3 for conservation and 1/3 for commerce. It was not an easy decision for either side but Governor Baldacci was in agreement as was the legislature's Transportation Committee. which has statutory oversight of the publicly owned island. Even the sometimes radical Sierra Club, which had originally opposed cargo port activity on Sears Island, came aboard.

But not everybody.

Penobscot Baywatch is a gadfly enviro outfit headquartered in Rockland and headed by Ron Huber, who is an irritating critic of any industrial commerce on Sears Island. In fact, he filed a civil suit claiming in substance that the Sears Island agreement violates state law.

To those who dream that the Baldacci administration, et al, would adhere to the agreed position on Sears Island, it was surprising that two departments of the administration seemed to be assisting Huber and his outfit in gathering evidence for his goal of preserving Sears Island in environmental chastity, and preventing any industrial development there. On October 22, 2009, the Department of Marine Resources, by order of Commissioner George Lapointe, issued a special license to Ron Huber representing Penobscot Bay Watch and 6 PBW volunteers to beach Seine Juvenile fish species, once a month, primarily around Sears island. The special license is valid for one year October to October, with a pending renewal on January 1st 2010

You don't have to be just off the gurry scow to see what Huber is up to. Create supposedly credible evidence that Sears Island is surrounded by, in his words, "a teeming juvenile fish nursery". Huber claims that by his November survey one could easily estimate more than a million juveniles on a 100 acre shoal "feasting on great swarms of shrimp-like krill". Huber did not mention that over decades, the same waters have seen weekly traffic of many thousands of oceangoing tankers and freighters, which apparently have not been an issue in the teeming juvenile fish nursery of Sears Island that he describes.

There are several disturbing issues surrounding Huber's special license. First, Penobscot Bay Watch and Huber are not qualified as marine biologists to conduct such a survey. Second, why did two departments of the Baldacci Administration sign off on this environmental experiment?

MDOT Commissioner David Cole, who was instrumental in the final agreement, with government Baldacci and the DOT legislative committee was asked why PBW, as a critical opponent of the Sears Island agreement, and being obviously unqualified to do biological research, should be granted a special license.

The query goes as follows: "Would you comment on DMR granting a special license to Penobscot Bay Watch to sample by netting juvenile fish, primarily near Sears Island? PBW are not certified biologists, and their obvious goal is to prevent any industrial activity on Sears Island, while DOT is trying to find a developer for such activity. This is a conflict of administration. The purpose of PBWs permit is obviously environmental health interest and not that of public ownership or joint agreement of use for the island."

Cole was too busy apparently to personally respond, but a DOT spokesman, Herb Thompson, replied: "Our understanding is that the Maine Department of Marine Resources routinely issues permits to conduct this research, and agency officials had no reason not to do so. Penobscot Bay Watch, like any compatible entity, is entitled, with the appropriate license, to conduct these activities irrespective of any speculated end use of the data. We at Maine DOT can always presume that Maine DMR is satisfied that PBW's research is lawful, and poses no threat to Maine's people or its environmental assets. "

One can presume from the vapid response that MDOT didn't know what Maine DMR was doing and apparently didn't care. Now perhaps neither DOT nor DMR informed governor Baldacci that freelance unsupported experimental special license fish surveys will be used in an effort to prevent the Sears Island agreement from going forward.

Governor Baldacci proved that any job growth for Maine depends on if he keeps his word. On the Sears Island agreement, he should keep both eyes and a strong hand on his cavalier and wayward departments, and not allow gadfly enviros to trespass with special permit waders.

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RON HUBER'S RESPONSE (Published by the Ellsworth American a week later)

Poor Mike Brown! From his Saturday Cove eyrie, this lonely eagle of Maine journalism watches over downeast Maine's politics, forestry and commercial fishery management, pouncing whenever he perceives humbug. To fall under his eye is to be skewered by his pitiless editorial talons. A decade has passed since Mike last roasted us; how it smarted at the time, even wrong as he was!

Here he goes again. In his column last Thursday Mr. Brown attacks me and my organization Penobscot Bay Watch for beginning a two year presence/absence study of marine life living near the shore in Stockton Harbor, Searsport Harbor and Rockland Harbor. He swoops down on Maine DMR for granting us a special license to do so, and thumps Maine DOT Commissioner David Cole for not somehow stopping DMR 's issuance of the license.

Mike is so alarmed that he finds himself praising the Sierra Club and damning fish nursery protection. He fears that the results of our study could stymie the MDOT/ENGO plan to industrialize western Sears Island. "[...freelance unsupported experimental special license fish surveys," Brown bemoans, " will be used in an effort to prevent the Sears Island agreement from going forward" .

But as successive governors and judges have learned, there is already a wealth of peer-reviewed scientific data demonstrating the importance of Sears Island's shoals as a key component of a giant fish nursery in upper Penobscot Bay. Our little net surveys will have little if any bearing on the ongoing legal struggle to protect the nursery from being dredged away to provide container ship access to Sears Island.

Worse, we're "not qualified as marine biologists" to conduct such a survey, Brown complains, a slap in the face to the hundreds of fishermen, students and civic groups that the DMR has granted special licenses to over the years. Very few of them are "qualified marine biologists" in Brown's academic meaning of the term. Shall all their work on scallops, urchins, and lobsters be thrown out, Mike?

Of course not. DMR is thrilled when anyone offers to do sentinel work for them under a special license. The agency is perennially strapped for cash; field work is often the first thing to go as budgets are cut. These citizen studies can raise flags showing scientists where to direct their scarce research dollars. They are not a substitute. Sadly, facts are of no interest to Mr. Brown, who has thrown over a lifetime's caring about Maine's commercial fisheries to become a "player" in the statehouse political game, where all is illusion and bluster, and fish and fishermen matter not at all, save as bargaining chips in the Great Game of Maine politics.

It appears the eagle's wings have been plucked; this season, Mike Brown resembles more closely our other avian national symbol - the bird that graced my and many other tables on Thanksgiving !

END