Maine DEP Issues Warning Over Lost Wetlands Protections
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection recently issued a letter of warning designed to recoup wetlands protections lost in a regulatory oversight more than 20 years ago.
The lapse by state adn federal regulators allowed a wetlands mitigation site in Belfast to be marketed for commercial progress earlier this year.
The mitigation deal emerged from the development of credit card giant MBNA‘s sprawling campus in Belfast. In exchange for impacts to about seven acres of wetlands,the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers agreed to let MBNA restore wetlands on a nearby 24-acre site, just west of the Renys Plaza, and protect it in perpetuity for conservation and public access.
Bank of America acquired the wetlands parcel when it bought MBNA in 2006. It sold the 24 acres at auction this January, but the deed was unencumbered by a conservation easement, as it had never been filed. The new owner is now offering it for sale for commercial development. (Listing agent Charlie Hippler did not reply to requests for comment.)
The warning letter issued by the DEP last month was addressed to the nonprofit Penobscot Community Health Care, which now owns the property where regulators allowed MBNA to alter wetlands in exchange for setting aside the 24-acre parcel.
“It has come to the Department’s attention that the deed restriction was never placed on the mitigation parcel as intended and required by both the Department order and Corps permit,” DEP’s Robert Wood wrote in the November 10 letter. “The Department is also aware that the current owner of the mitigation parcel, which is not PCHC, recently listed the property for sale for commercial development.”
The warning letter continues, “The license requires PCHC to preserve wetland functions and values on the mitigation parcel. Because the parcel has not been protected in perpetuity by deed restriction and is now at risk of being developed for commercial purposes, PCHC has not preserved the wetland functions and values on the mitigation parcel.”
Wood said if PCHC does not comply with the terms of the license, DEP might take enforcement action.
But the health care agency says it does not feel obligated to fix the mitigation snafu. The nonprofit bought the land for its Seaport Community Health Center from Bank of America in 2017, and was unaware of the missing conservation easement.