to share views and info on the proposed East-West Corridor

Thursday, May 31^st

_{4pm, rally}

_{5pm, public mic}

_{6pm, proponent presentation}

Foxcroft Academy

975 W Main St. Dover-Foxcroft

~ Folks opposed encouraged to wear Hunter Orange ~

Vision: to create a respectful and peaceful space for a public voice

at 6pm The D-F Selectboard is hosting Peter Vigue and Doug Thomas to make the first public presentation of the East-West Corridor Project and take public questions, moderated by Paul Davis.

FMI: www.defendingwater.net/maine/

or Chris at 357-1443, chris@defendingwater.net

or Sid & Pete at 564-8687, stopthecorridor@gmail.com

Pre-presentation hosts:

Friends of the Piscataquis Valley, Stop the Corridor Working Group, Defending Water for Life in Maine, and many local people…

(you will need to click this link again in the next window for it to open)

if you need a Word file to print more and distribute these, contact Chris with your email address: chris(at)defendingwater(dot)net

By LANCE TAPLEY  |  May 2, 2012

http://portland.thephoenix.com/news/137988-whats-driving-the-east-west-highway/?page=3#TOPCONTENT

Eminent domain!

The government’s ability to seize land for a public purpose strikes terror into the hearts of many landowners. This has been a bigger fear since 2005 when the United States Supreme Court, in its Kelo decision, allowed land to be seized by the government to benefit a private developer.

This year, the Cianbro corporation’s CEO, Peter Vigue, has been making headway with his proposal for a corporate-developed and -owned, 220-mile, 2000-foot-wide East-West Highway and “communications and utility corridor” crossing Maine from Calais to Coburn Gore. A major selling point is how it supposedly won’t involve the taxpayers, except in the tolls that trucks, tourists, and Maine residents will pay to the owner to travel on it.

But Vigue may be looking to the public to help him in many ways — with cash, with its legal muscle, and by shrouding plans for the highway in secrecy.

Already Vigue has gotten taxpayers to chip in. He recently got the Legislature and Republican Governor Paul LePage to assign $300,000 of the Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT) current budget to an East-West Highway feasibility study, for the purpose of attracting investors. The department and LePage are unconcealed cheerleaders for the project.

Other taxpayer dollars clearly would be needed if the highway were to be constructed, including a big new federal border crossing at Coburn Gore in Maine’s western mountains. Canadian taxpayers would be asked to significantly upgrade the 60-mile road from the border to Sherbrooke, where the expressway to Montreal begins.

And now it turns out that Vigue is keeping open the possibility of state government aiding him in a crucial way — by confiscating land for the highway.

In an April 24 interview at a Canadian-American “Economic Integration in the Northeast” conference at the University of Maine, in Orono, Vigue told the Phoenix that, while eminent domain is “not a consideration now,” he “can’t forecast going forward” whether it would be used or not.

Similarly, the MDOT said, in the words of Ted Talbot, its spokesman, that while the department hopes it wouldn’t be necessary, eminent domain remains “a last choice.”

Eminent domain, however, is “an explosive reality” for the highway, said Peter Didisheim, a lobbyist for the Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM), the state’s most prominent environmental group and a highway opponent.

“How else,” asked Didisheim, “would you secure and guarantee that the corridor would be available for this massive purpose — unless the state seizes that vast stretch of property, potentially affecting hundreds of property owners?”

A nearly-half-mile-wide, 220-mile-long corridor through Maine would directly occupy 53,333 acres or about 83 square miles. The history of far smaller real-estate developments is rife with tales of people who refused to sell at any price. And the exercise of eminent domain can be thorny. Although property owners whose land is taken by the government are supposed to be paid fair compensation, determining what’s fair can trigger extensive court battles.

3PS: PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS

Eminent domain is referred to in a little-known law, Title 23, Section 4251, of the state statutes, that the Legislature approved in 2010. It establishes a template for a “public-private partnership” for transportation purposes. Designed for the kind of project Vigue is promoting, it passed without opposition, roll-call votes, or news-media coverage.

MDOT, Talbot confirmed, “absolutely” is using this public-private partnership law as a guide in furthering the East-West Highway. In the law, through an exemption to the state’s Freedom of Access Act, much of the planning for the highway will be done in secret.

In the Orono interview, Vigue said he was “not familiar” with this law. But in March he promoted the highway at a public meeting in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, where MDOT commissioner David Bernhardt told the group, “We have public-private partnership legislation in place” for the highway, according to the Bangor Daily News.

And in a speech to the Orono conference Vigue referred to the East-West Highway as a “public-private partnership” or “3P.” (3P is a buzzword for government-corporate financing schemes, more often used in Canada and Europe than in the US.)

The sponsor of the bill that created Maine’s only 3P law, W. Bruce MacDonald, a Democratic representative from Boothbay, said the East-West Highway was not on his mind when he introduced it. He said he was interested in pushing the long-discussed possibility of a Route One bypass of Wiscasset.

But highway lobbyists and MDOT helped him write it, he said. And the long list of cosponsors reads like a Who’s Who of Democratic and Republican movers and shakers, including then-Speaker of the House Hannah Pingree, of North Haven, a Democrat, and Republican Representative Stacey Fitts, of Pittsfield, now chairman of the Energy, Utilities, and Technology Committee.

Cianbro, a construction company with national reach, is headquartered in Pittsfield. When the 3P law passed, Cianbro had already presented to MDOT, in 2008, its plan for the highway. (Other plans for an East-West Highway stretch back decades.)

Maine’s 3P law also provides guidelines for government-corporate financial sharing. In the interview Vigue insisted that highway financing will be entirely private. The cost is projected at $2 billion. He said he’s now interviewing prospective financers.

Before such a transportation project can go forward, the law requires that “the private entity must provide a traffic and revenue study.” Reversing itself, the Legislature has now authorized taxpayer funds to pay for it. The law also requires the Legislature to approve a project before it can be built.

In the law, the exception to the Freedom of Access Act reads: “All records, notes, summaries, working papers, plans, interoffice and intraoffice memoranda or other materials prepared, used, or submitted in connection with any proposal considered . . . are confidential and not subject to public review” until the proposal is accepted or rejected by MDOT.

The MDOT, however, gave the Phoenix the department’s “request for proposals” (RFP) for the feasibility study. Talbot said MDOT is currently evaluating bids from consultants to do the study, which is to be completed by the end of the year.

Chris Buchanan, who leads Defending Water for Life in Maine, a small environmental group focused on opposition to the highway, said the study is “primarily a handout to the private companies that would be invested in this road and corridor.” The developer, though, is required to pay back the state’s expense if the project moves forward.

The study won’t take into consideration the highway’s environmental impact, which the NRCM’s Didisheim said might end up being reviewed under the state’s Site Law; shoreland zoning, storm-water, and Land Use Regulation Commission laws; plus federal wetlands and endangered-species laws as well as the National Environmental Protection Act.

The study also won’t consider alternatives to beef up east-west traffic such as upgrading the rail line that crosses the state from Quebec through Jackman and Vanceboro to New Brunswick — an alternative some East-West Highway critics promote.

According to Chalmers “Chop” Hardenbergh, editor of Atlantic Northeast Rails & Ports, rail advocates have long pointed to the Vanceboro-Jackman line, operated by the American-owned Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway and Canadian-owned New Brunswick Southern Railway, as an alternative.

“Upgrading that line would cost far less than creating a 2000-foot-wide animal barrier across Maine,” he said, referring to the highway’s effect on the movements of wild animals. Moreover, “If we could load truck trailers onto railcars for a high-speed rail trip across Maine, we’d see much less diesel burned and much less air pollution than in that corridor.”

In rebuttal to the rail alternative, Vigue asked: “Where’s the critical mass of riders that will support a passenger rail service?” Passenger service ended on the line in 1994. But it has yet to be determined if car and truck traffic on the proposed highway will have a critical mass. The MDOT’s feasibility study will address this question.

SEEKING ALERT DRIVERS Cutting across all of Maine risks major wildlife impact.

A PROMOTIONAL UM CONFERENCE

“We’re quite proud of this foray into Maine boosterism,” said Stephen Hornsby, director of the Canadian-American Center, the economic-integration conference’s host in Orono, as he introduced Vigue.

The two-day university conference frankly promoted the highway. The subject was the broader topic of economic relations between the two countries, but much of the morning of April 24 was given over to the highway proposal. Vigue gave a speech and later participated in a panel with American and Canadian officials.

Vigue presented the highway as a project of international significance that would connect Maine and the Canadian Maritimes, especially growing Canadian ports, directly to the continent’s industrial heartland. And as Canada develops hydroelectric resources, he sees the corridor becoming a major conduit to the west and south.

Describing the project, too, as a powerful economic change agent for Maine, with the state becoming “the Northeast trade gateway,” he spoke of road or rail connections with the limited-access highway at or near Old Town, Milo, Dover-Foxcroft, The Forks, and Eustis.

Vigue said he didn’t want to reveal a precise route because landowners might be “intimidated or harassed” by opponents. He maintained, however, that, unlike previous East-West Highway proposals, the route he would propose generally would avoid developed areas. He thought the highway could be open for business by 2019.

In answer to a question from the sympathetic audience of about 40 government officials, businesspeople, and academics from both countries, Vigue admitted that bridging the Penobscot and Kennebec rivers presents “a very significant challenge.” He touted another sort of bridge, for wildlife to go over the highway, as a “creative” approach to solving environmental problems.

In panel discussions following his speech, there was extensive talk about the barriers presented to Canadian-American trade by increased border security after 9/11. While Vigue sees his highway bringing more Canadian tourists to Maine — he said Canadians already provide $230 million in tourism income to the state — the US consul in Quebec City, Peter O’Donohue, said Canadians feel “intimidated” by US border controls.

Patrick Binns, the Canadian consul in Boston, said in an interview that the Canadian government hadn’t taken a position on the East-West Highway idea, and it wasn’t much discussed in his country. But he said “as a matter of general principle,” Canada would like to see the “infrastructure” between the two nations enhanced.

The business-oriented conference participants were “in a bubble,” commented Chris Buchanan, the anti-highway activist. Despite the issue’s contentious nature, no one was invited to oppose Vigue. Buchanan paid $50 to attend.

Her group has stressed the development of local economic activity as an alternative to the massive highway project, which opponents see as destructive to Maine’s rural character, forests, mountains, wildlife, water resources, and tourist appeal. They see it mainly benefiting Canadian and American corporations while providing few jobs to Mainers.

In addition to the university, a large Canadian corporation, TD Bank, was a conference sponsor, along with the Maine International Trade Center and the Canadian government.

Other E-W Highway forums

A small group of picketers greeted participants outside UM’s Wells Conference Center on the morning Vigue spoke, carrying signs such as “Vigue’s Dream Is Our Nightmare.”

Besides the St. Stephen forum, Vigue gave a presentation in Augusta on April 12. Protesters were at both (see “Politicos Like the East-West Highway; How about the Public?” by Lance Tapley, April 20, 2012).

Two meetings on the proposal have been scheduled in Dover-Foxcroft, with expected presentations by Cianbro representatives. Both are open to the public. The first, a presentation to the Piscataquis County commissioners, is at 9 am, May 15, in the county courthouse, East Main Street; the second, at 6 pm, May 31, in the Foxcroft Academy auditorium, Route 15. And Vigue is speaking to the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce annual dinner, 5 pm, May 11, Knights of Columbus Hall; tickets are $35.

Lance Tapley can be reached at  lance.tapley@gmail.com.

Go to link for video:

http://bangordailynews.com/2012/04/24/news/bangor/protesters-oppose-east-west-highway-at-conference-about-maine-canada-commerce/

ORONO, Maine — While business and government officials from Maine and Canada gathered Tuesday morning at the University of Maine to discuss how to spur economic growth in the Atlantic region, a small cadre of central Maine residents outside the conference decried one of the proposals aimed at reaching that goal — an east-west highway through Maine’s interior.

Tuesday was the second day of the Cross-Border Economic Integration in the Northeast Conference, which featured a presentation from Cianbro Chairman and CEO Peter Vigue about plans for a privately funded 220-mile Maine toll highway connecting New Brunswick to Quebec.

Vigue said Tuesday afternoon that the highway idea is “very attractive” to the provinces of eastern Canada and would bring jobs and increased potential for tourism to Maine communities. The project also would open up new lanes for exportation of Maine goods to the provinces and the Midwest, Vigue said.

“This is a project we’ve worked at now for many years, and in recent years the economy has started to improve and turn around, and we began to really understand the demand for this corridor and this highway,” he said.

But it’s a need that protesters displaying signs Tuesday outside Wells Conference Center, where the event was held, don’t see.

Peter Brenc of Dover-Foxcroft, David Bessler of Atkinson and Peter Eldredge of Guilford argued that Cianbro has yet to prove towns surrounding the route of the highway would see increased prosperity because of its existence.

Brenc argued that Interstate 95 has been routing traffic through Howland and Millinocket for decades and that the highway hasn’t helped those “ghost towns” through economic hardship.

Bessler said Vigue has been vague about how the highway will draw business to Maine and that the temporary construction jobs it will create will go away after a few years. He said he believes the project would do more to change the identity and “soul” of the area than to improve the economy.

The men displayed signs carrying messages such as: “Vigue’s dream is our nightmare,” “Don’t ruin our townships” and “Don’t break the heart of Maine.”

While the highway undoubtedly would serve as a shortcut for Canadian commerce, the protesters said, they would rather see Maine’s interior kept as is.

“We’re all in the path of it,” Brenc said, adding that he didn’t want central Maine communities to be divided in half by a “swath of road.”

The state will conduct an independent study to explore the feasibility of the new road. Vigue said he is confident the state will like what it finds.

“The state of Maine should evaluate for itself — not for me or for anyone else — but evaluate for itself that this is the right thing for the state of Maine and that it will benefit the state of Maine,” Vigue said.

Vigue said the number of residents in favor of the project far exceeds “the number of adversarial people that don’t want to see Maine grow.”

“The facts are that the economy is going in the wrong direction and that there are people who … want to live in these rural areas that are deserving of an opportunity to earn a strong income,” Vigue said. “We have zero intentions of going through a community with a highway or a corridor and destroying it.”

“If people who are opposed to this project have a better idea at improving the quality of life in these areas, have a better idea at re-employing people that are unemployed or underemployed, have a better idea on how to take people off of social programs and put them back to work, then I’m more than willing to listen,” Vigue said.

In view of the fact that Mr. Peter Vigue is scheduled to appear at a Commissioners public meeting on May 15, to present his “vision” of an “East-West Utility Corridor” (proposed to run along the Piscataquis River Valley and elsewhere);  I wanted  to make sure that you were aware of several “Maine Revised Statutes” passed by the Legislature in 2010 and that apply to the Maine DOT regarding “Public-Private Partnerships.”

Read more: http://thephoenix.com/boston/news/137148-politicos-like-the-east-west-highway-how-about-th/#ixzz1sVEUuFbj

Peter Vigue, CEO of Maine’s big construction company Cianbro, has recently been successful in promoting to the state’s politicians his plan for a 220-mile, limited-access, privately owned toll highway bisecting Maine from New Brunswick to Quebec. It’s the latest incarnation of an idea usually referred to as the East-West Highway.

As the issue heats up, though, he may have a more difficult time with the public. Protesters are starting to plague him. And he doesn’t exactly have a gentle touch with the press: He had me ejected from a meeting to which I had been invited when I simply tried to cover a speech he was giving.

In early April the Legislature and Republican Governor Paul LePage approved a Department of Transportation “traffic and revenue” study of the highway. The study is estimated to cost taxpayers $300,000, although the new law doesn’t specify an upper dollar limit. The developer is supposed to pay back the state upon the highway’s “final authorization.”

The study’s approval stimulated opposition to the highway. On the evening of April 12 Vigue was scheduled to speak at the Senator Inn in Augusta to a group called Women’s Transportation Seminar. An hour before he arrived, about 20 people began picketing outside the hotel. They carried signs declaring “Industrial Corridors Kill Towns and Ecosystems” and “Don’t Cut ME in Two.”

Protesters see the highway as hugely environmentally destructive and as benefitting only large Canadian and American corporations. They say it would provide few permanent jobs for Mainers, encourage corporate export of water and wood chips, and decrease Maine’s appeal to tourists.

Many of the protesters were associated either with Occupy Augusta or an organization, Defending Water for Life in Maine, that has made opposition to the highway its chief cause.

The major environmental groups, too, are starting to pay attention. The Natural Resources Council of Maine is opposed to it, though NRCM representatives tell me they hadn’t been able to focus on the study bill in the recent legislative session. Ted Koffman, executive director of the Maine Audubon Society, says his group has yet to take an official position but is concerned about the highway’s potential to fragment wildlife habitat.

The evening before Vigue’s speech, I had emailed the event’s organizer, Robyn Saunders, a request to cover it. In the morning she replied: “We look forward to seeing you there tonight. Please be sure to grab your printed name tag on the way in. Thanks!”

When I arrived at the Senator and first interviewed protesters, I couldn’t help noticing the plainclothes security men spread out in the parking lot, as if a presidential candidate were inside. The mostly older picketers seemed orderly.

Inside, a big surprise awaited me. After picking up my badge, as I chatted with some of the 30 or so people waiting for Vigue to speak, a man who introduced himself as the hotel manager told me I had to leave.

After my arguments didn’t move him, and I couldn’t get a satisfactory explanation of what was happening from Saunders, I went to Vigue, whom I had never met. I asked him to please explain to the manager that it was okay that I, a reporter, be allowed to stay. I just wanted to hear his arguments for the highway. “I’m not in charge here,” Vigue responded. The hotel manager escorted me out.

Nevertheless, I found out something of what he had to say. Chris Buchanan, who heads up Defending Water for Life in Maine, had bought a ticket to the speech. She reports Vigue is looking at funding from a single investor. He envisions fencing off the entire highway, she says, but plans to work with Maine Audubon and the Nature Conservancy to place “wildlife bridges” over it. (Koffman of Maine Audubon says no deal has been made.)

Another person present, who asked to remain unidentified, says Vigue believes it’ll take two or three years to design and permit the highway, then three years to build it. My informant finds “very strange” what he estimates were a half-dozen security people carefully watching the small crowd.

I found information, too, about the highway onwww.eastwestme.com. It will cost $2 billion, run from Calais to Coburn Gore, and also be a “communications and utility corridor.” Canadians will be “significant beneficiaries,” especially Canadian trucks, but benefits are predicted for Maine industries and tourists.

But why did I get kicked out? The next day I reached Vigue on the phone. He indeed was responsible. He said that he travels with a bodyguard because of threats he has received, that his bodyguard had told him “there’s a gentleman here that’s not invited,” and that he deferred to the advice of the bodyguard to have me ejected.

Our phone conversation hadn’t been put off the record. But when I told Vigue I was going to write about being kicked out of the meeting, including his explanation, he told me: “If you go there, it’s not going to be good.” Then he hung up.

http://www.mainebiz.biz/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120416/CURRENTEDITION/304139997/1088

PHOTO/TIM GREENWAY

Peter Vigue, chairman and CEO of Cianbro Corp., is calling on private investment to lead the way in creating an east-west highway

Enlarge image

PHOTO/TIM GREENWAY

Barbara Cherry, a biologist with Maine Audubon who assesses the impact of roads on wildlife, says a new major highway could threaten habitat and the free movement of wildlife

Enlarge image

Source: Peter Vigue, Cianbro Corp.

East-west highway study

The Maine Department of Transportation will soon solicit bids for private firms interested in conducting an investment-grade feasibility study of an east-west highway. The $300,000 study is being funded through tax dollars, but would be reimbursed should the project move forward.

DOT spokesman Ted Talbot said the study will explore a variety of public-private partnerships and whether any of those are attractive to private investors. Among the areas to be studied:

• Potential traffic volumes
• Toll schedules
• Routes
• Potential relationships between the private and public sectors, in terms of design­­ing, building, financing and operating

“There are so many combinations of possibilities that this feasibility study needs to be broad,” he says.

Talbot says other issues, such as environmental impacts and potential seizures under eminent domain, would be studied if the highway proves feasible and an exact route is chosen.

Also, any upgrades that may be needed to the Coburn Gore border crossing will not be included in the feasibility study, he says.

http://video.mpbn.net/video/2219784260/

Description from MPBN: The legislature has just approved funding to study the feasibility of a four lane private highway from Calais to Coburn Gore. Supporters say it would transform the economy of Northern and Eastern Maine. Others are concerned about environmental impacts. Cianbro CEO Peter Vigue, who has been a champion of the idea, and Barbara Charry of Maine Audubon will discuss the idea with us.

• Visit the East-West Highway in Maine webpage