'We were very disappointed:' Searsport residents protest proposed green energy site - WGME

'We were very disappointed:' Searsport residents protest proposed green energy site

BELFAST (WGME) – Searsport area residents are protesting the proposed location for a huge green energy site.

Governor Janet Mills announced Tuesday that Sears Island off the Midcoast is the preferred site for a floating offshore wind port facility.

There were a few dozen people lined up on the Belfast Bridge Wednesday to protest the new site.

They decided to hold it there because a lot of people pass through the area.

Community members expressed frustration about the state's choice.

“We were very disappointed in the announcement,” Isleboro Island Trust Executive Director Steve Miller said.

Miller believes the decision to move forward with Sears Island for the proposed development breaks a 2007 agreement that Mack Point would be given preference for future port development.

“So therefore, we see the decision to put this facility on Sears Island as a breach of that promise,” Miller said.

“We've consulted with hundreds of interested parties,” Mills said.

Mills says both sites were considered and studied extensively for the port facility that would be used for assembling, staging, maintaining and deploying offshore wind energy technology.

“The construction of a port is not insubstantial,” Mills said.

She says the 100-acre area where this would go was reserved for development, is most cost effective and would be less damaging to the environment, with much of the island preserved.

“Mack Point would be the logical place to put it,” Stockton Springs resident Tarun Johns said.

Others want to keep Sears Island completely undeveloped.

“If they were on Mack Point, the infrastructure for heavy trucks and so forth to go down there is already there,” Johns said.

One resident says this could be a great opportunity. He argues the state already owns the site, which would save money, wouldn't require dredging and could bring back jobs.

“They would have just as much economic impact on the town if it's at Mack Point,” Johns said.

“It's disruptive,” Searsport resident Donna Brown said. “I think it's going to disrupt a lot of things.”

Brown says she’s worried about what will happen when the technology goes out into the Gulf of Maine.

“Nobody stops and really takes a good, long look at exactly what the long-term effects are going to be,” Brown said.

The Maine Audubon Society says other similar projects prove this can be done responsibly.

The state says it's going to start the permitting process later this year.

There will be opportunities for public comment.