📰BIDDEFORD | Opinion | Does Biddeford Actually Care About Environmental Compliance?
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
By Loren McCready, Contributing Writer
April 9, 2026, The City of Biddeford is asking the Maine Supreme Judicial Court to take up a case centered on environmental protection along the Saco River, emphasizing in its public messaging the importance of environmental standards and the need for those standards to be reviewed on their merits.
That position comes after the City recently spent two years before the Superior Court actively working to ensure that violations of environmental laws related to another project—the West Brook Subdivision in Clifford Park—were never reviewed on the merits, supporting a process that allowed the developer to continue avoiding environmental accountability.
State agencies are now taking note of the City’s failure to adequately review and enforce environmental standards.
So, does Biddeford actually care about environmental compliance?
Historically, the answer has been no. That could change, but the clear contradiction between the City’s current legal posture and its actions in the West Brook case presents a more complicated picture.
The West Brook Subdivision, proposed by developer Mike Eon, lies within the Biddeford–Kennebunkport Coastal Forest, which the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has identified as a Statewide Focus Area of Ecological Significance for nearly two decades, with recent IF&W data ranking it the sixth most ecologically valuable area in the state. The lack of adequate natural resource protections in this area has been central to the State’s repeated rejection of Biddeford’s 2023 Comprehensive Plan. Now, the City is directing criticism toward an environmental review body for alleged procedural errors in a different case—a position that is difficult to reconcile given its own record of failing to apply environmental standards appropriately and the procedural shortcomings evident in its planning review process.
With West Brook, the City defended a project with extensive, well-documented environmental issues and relied on a legal strategy that kept those concerns out of the Superior Court’s review. The case was argued on procedural grounds, and the City presented the public record in a way that did not reflect what actually occurred during the Planning Board process, asserting that environmental issues had not been raised and were therefore waived. That assertion does not align with the record, yet it was central to the outcome and prevented the project from receiving environmental review in court.
Many residents, including myself, submitted detailed comments over the months leading up to subdivision approval addressing stream buffer requirements, habitat fragmentation, Site Law standards, and broader procedural concerns. These issues were also documented in an extensive environmental report prepared by the Biodiversity Research Institute. The comments were discussed during the review process but ultimately disregarded by the Planning Board, and even a planner contracted by the City early in the process advised against the project based on the limitations of the site. These concerns were raised clearly, repeatedly, and with supporting evidence, yet in court they were treated as though they had not been raised, largely as a result of the City Attorney’s arguments.
That context makes the City’s current litigation difficult to take seriously. The case now being advanced to the Maine Supreme Court involves a project that has already undergone appropriate environmental review at the state and federal levels. Even so, the City is committing public resources to continue litigating that matter while framing the effort around environmental protection and accountability. At the same time, a project within the City’s own jurisdiction—one with several unresolved environmental concerns—continues to move forward without any effort to revisit those issues, allowing the developer to continue avoiding state or federal oversight.
The same City Attorney who argued to exclude environmental concerns from review in one case is now insisting those concerns warrant full judicial consideration in another. That shift raises a fundamental question about how environmental standards are applied in practice in Biddeford, particularly when the City holds delegated authority over environmental review for subdivisions and has not exercised that authority appropriately in the case of West Brook.
For those who participated in the West Brook Subdivision process in good faith, the implications are clear. Environmental concerns can be raised, supported by evidence, and still excluded from meaningful review depending on how the City chooses to act.
A reasonable step would be to pause further activity for West Brook and evaluate whether the concerns already documented in the record have been addressed. Until then, the City’s current approach makes it difficult to view environmental compliance as a consistently applied requirement, and, in light of its prior actions in court, its litigation posture appears more performative than substantive.
This brings the issue back to a central question:
Does Biddeford actually care about environmental compliance?
With recent turnover in leadership and city staff, that question remains open. Based on recent experience, however, the answer is still no.
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