Word: penobscot
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Maine's Environmental Improvement Commission, an agency charged with approving all big developments in the state, last week turned down a proposal for a $150 million oil refinery in Searsport, a small town at the head of Penobscot Bay. After five months of deliberations, the commission concluded that: the refinery would lack the financial and technical ability to meet state air-and water-pollution control standards, the advent of supertankers would mean potential oil spillage, and the new refinery would not "fit harmoniously into the natural environment" of the ruggedly beautiful bay area...
Protagonist of the hearings was a little-known development company called Maine Clean Fuels, Inc., which is armed with precious federal permission to import foreign crude and residual oil. Clean Fuels wants to build-but not operate -a $150 million oil-desulfurization plant at the head of glorious Penobscot Bay. The proposed site: the little town of Searsport (pop. 1,800), a drab, faded conglomeration of weather-beaten brick buildings, a railroad depot, an oil tank farm and a Purina Dog Chow silo. Though Clean Fuels had previously been turned down by both Riverhead, N.Y., and South Portland...
Most area residents remain unimpressed. At last week's hearings in the Searsport high school gym, many charged that the highly automated refinery would not create many new jobs. But the biggest problem of all -one that has already caused 13 townships around Penobscot Bay to oppose the project-is the danger to the local fishing and tourist industries. Scientists testified that oil was "an environmental poison" with long aftereffects. Ossie Beal, president of the Maine Lobstermen's Association, contends that tankers and barges would sweep away most of the 186,000 lobster pots...