Back in the 1980s when I bought a hunting license each year, my then-brother-in-law and I would go deer hunting on Sears Island in Searsport. That was before the causeway was built, so we would drive my old Toyota Tercel across the gravel bar between the island and the mainland at low tide in case we managed to bag a deer - driving my BIL's new pick-up through the saltwater puddles was not an option. The island had a network of grass-grown lanes left over from the farms that once thrived there.

Even then the island's future was controversial. Over the years proposals for its development included everything from an amusement park to a nuclear power plant. As the largest undeveloped island on the East Coast, though, many people wanted it protected and left wild. Plans to build a cargo port there got serious about twenty-five years ago, and Mainers have been arguing about it ever since. So maybe it's false optimism to welcome the news that the Sears Island Joint Use Committee has finally reached an agreement. The pact sets aside 600 of the island's 941 acres for conservation, while the rest is designated for future port development.

Now fifteen members of the committee have to agree on the boundary between the two sections. They held their first meeting earlier this week and almost immediately differed over which areas were environmentally sensitive and the accuracy of environmental assessments from the 1980s and 1990s. No one is predicting an easy or early agreement.

We never did get a deer over there. Looks like I'll have plenty of time to keep trying.

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