Maine Currents Returns! 1/3/23: Will Maine Industrialize Sears Island for “Clean” Energy?

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

This month: We’re kicking off 2023 with a topic that I suspect we may be spending a lot of time on this year, the pending decision on where to build a staging facility for off-shore wind power turbines in this area. Theoretically, 3 different sites are being considered: Eastport, Sears Island or Mack Point in Searsport, but some of those close to the project suspect that developing Sears Island is the real goal of the ME DOT.

Guests:
Steve Miller, Islesboro Islands Trust
Rolf Olsen, Friends of Sears Island
Becky Bartovics, Sierra Club Maine

FMI
Islesboro Islands Trust
Maine Chapter of the Sierra ClubFriends of Sears Island Offshore Wind Project Resources page
Study of Searsport to Support and Develop Offshore Wind, State of Maine, Governor’s Energy Office
Maine DOT Offshore Wind Port Advisory Group (OSWPAG)
Governor Mills Announces Assessment of Mack Point Terminal in Searsport to Support Growth of Renewable Energy Industry in Maine, Office of Governor Janet Mills, March 2020
SEARS ISLAND WETLAND ENFORCEMENT CASE SETTLED, EPA, 11/13/1996

About the host:

Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices and Maine Currents, she also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and the First Place 2017 Radio News Award from the Maine Association of Broadcasters.