Micmacs acquire 600 acres of trust land on former air
force base
By Gale Courey Toensing
Story Published: Jul 8, 2009
Photo courtesy Aroostook Band of Micmac Indians
Tribal members gathered around Micmac appointed Chief
Victoria Higgins as she signed documents accepting 600 acres of trust land
from the Interior Department in May. The property is on the former Loring
Air Force Base in Limestone, Maine, which closed in1995 under the Base
Realignment and Closure Act.
PRESQUE ISLE, Maine – The Interior Department has taken more than 600 acres
of land into trust for the Aroostook Band of Micmac Indians.
The property at the former Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, Maine will be
used for economic development, a tribal spokesman said.
The property includes a “tank farm” of five fuel storage tanks with a total
capacity of 13 million gallons, a coal-handling station, including a
conveyor system and underground storage bunker which was formerly used to
provide energy to a coal-fired energy plant off tribal land, several large
buildings, and woodlands containing a mixture of soft and hardwood trees on
619 acres.
The acquisition was completed at the beginning of May, although efforts to
acquire the land have been ongoing for almost 15 years, said Micmac Housing
Director Richard Dyer.
“In what is seen by tribal members as a historical event. … the Department
of the Interior received land into trust on behalf the Aroostook Band of
Micmacs,” Dyer wrote in an e-mail May 7.
“This small Northern Maine tribe of approximately 1,100 members has been
fighting an uphill battle since 1995 when the former Loring Air Force Base
closed under a Base Realignment and Closure Act. The tribe has gone through
five or six BIA directors and run through almost every office in Washington,
D.C. to try to convince the powers that be to speed up the land into trust
process, which was seen by the tribe as an easy enough
government-to-government transfer from the Department of Defense to the
Department of the Interior, but it was stretched out to 14 years, and many
thousands of scarce tribal dollars were spent to pay for legal fees, travel
and accommodations.
“The place was considered a Superfund site, but to everyone’s satisfaction
the cleanup has been completed and given a thumbs up. I also tend to believe
that there were interests behind the scenes that were allied against the
tribe in its efforts to become more economically self-sufficient, but I
can’t prove that.”
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the 9,000-acre Loring
Air Force Base operated as an active military installation under the
Strategic Air Command during the Cold War from 1952 on. Loring’s Nuclear
Weapons Storage Area was the first U.S. site specifically constructed for
the storage, assembly and testing of atomic weapons.
The base was a Superfund cleanup site during the first half of the 1990s and
continues to require five-year reviews “because the implemented remedies
have resulted in hazardous substances remaining onsite at concentrations
that do not allow for unlimited use and unrestricted exposure and the
remedial actions at some sites will require more than five years to
complete,” according to the 2005 five- year review. While certain areas on
the site continued to contain higher than desired levels of contaminants,
“remedies at all sites were found to be functioning as intended by the
decision documents.” Remedial work at the site continues, and the next five
year review will happen in 2010.
Loring appears to have generated strong emotional ties in some people who
worked there and has created Web sites dedicated to preserving its memories,
including www.all-hazards.com/loring and www.loringairforcebase.com, the
site of the Loring Air Force Base Association.
The new land presents a wide range of economic development opportunities for
the Micmacs, whose members live within Aroostook County in northeastern
Maine – a remote and poor area.
Dyer said the tribe will pursue environmentally friendly projects.
“They (the tanks) were primarily used to store Jet-A fuel, but they may be
fitted for virtually any product from biodiesel to wood pellets,” Dyer said.
“The tribe is considering reusing the tanks for alternative ‘green’ fuels,
using coal for a purpose that I can’t disclose yet, and some of the former
buildings as either manufacturing plants for solar components, or wind
turbine blades, a fish farm raising salmon and/or trout.”
The tank farm and coal yard comprise only about 100 acres of the property.
The remaining 519 acres are comprised of the mixed soft and hardwood trees,
a stream and some wetlands, Dyer said. Much of the land is flat and a
portion lies near the Aroostook National Wildlife Refuge.
“The tribe has also been reintroducing approximately 7,000 ash trees on the
wooded portion, which the tribal basket makers use to produce their fine
basketry,” Dyer said. The tribe hopes to attract business partners or
investors.
“Because of the unique trust status there are certain tax benefits to be
realized, especially if a product is being produced on tribal trust land.
There has been discussion of the creation of a free trade zone or free
enterprise zone, as well as a Section 17 status which exempts the tribe in
areas of taxes, tariffs and duties. Similar to an LLC but for Indian
tribes,” Dyer said.
He extended the tribe’s “sincere gratitude” to Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine,
and her regional representative Sharon Campbell; Sen. Susan Collins,
R-Maine, Rep. Mike Michaud and congressional staff member Barbara Hayslett.
“We believe that their continued prodding and support helped speed this
process along when we had just about given up hope.”
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