Sears Island
Sears Island, also known by its Penobscot name Wahsumkik, is located off the coast of Searsport in the northern portion of West Penobscot Bay. The island is 940 acres and is the largest undeveloped, uninhabited, causeway-accessible island on the eastern coast of the United States. It is a place of significant ecological, recreational, and cultural significance to this region.
The shallow shoal off the west side of the island supports meadows of eelgrass and other nursery habitats that play an important role in the fish and shellfish populations of Penobscot Bay. The island is also home to a number of bird, mammal, and amphibians species. With trails through the island and beaches around the perimeter, local residents and visitors use Sears Island as a place of recreation and reprieve into nature. The Wabanaki people indigenous to the area have used the island to hunt and fish for centuries. It remains of cultural importance to this day for native people in their connection to land and sea.
The possible industrial development of Sears Island has been a point of contention for decades and since the 1980s, there have been proposals for various cargo and freight ports, a liquid natural gas terminal, and a nuclear power plant. A causeway was built in the 1980s upon what had been a tidal bar, permanently connecting the island to the mainland. Note that there are current inquiries into permit violations related to the construction of this causeway, which may have been built without the required culverts to allow for exchange of water between Stockton Harbor and Penobscot Bay to the west of Sears Island.
A three-year-long consensus-driven effort by Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT) and its Sears Island Joint Use Planning Committee culminated on January 22, 2009, resulting in a division of the island. A conservation easement was granted to Maine Coast Heritage Trust for 600 acres of the island, while leaving the remaining 340 acres of the island in control of the State and open to port development. The conservation easement is managed by The Friends of Sears Island.
The latest threat to Sears Island comes in the form of an offshore wind port. In February 2023, Governor Mills announced that her administration selected Sears Island in Searsport as the preferred site for development of an offshore wind port that would support assembling and manufacturing of offshore wind turbines. These turbines will ultimately be deployed in the Gulf of Maine and assist Maine in the state’s transition away from fossil fuels and work towards their stated climate goals.
