While Stan Richmond has been shingling roofs at the Birdsacre Stanwood Wildlife Sanctuary in Ellsworth, he’s had a bird’s-eye view of the symptoms of development around the sanctuary.

Every morning, Richmond can spy a two-way traffic jam in front of the 200-acre bird-rehabilitation center. Traffic bottlenecks on Route 3 daily as a result of the stoplights for Ellsworth’s two big-box stores.

“They’re all plugged up,” said Richmond, Birdsacre’s president and self-described janitor.

When Richmond’s parents opened Birdsacre more than 50 years ago, it was surrounded by undeveloped land. Now, the wetland sanctuary sits in the middle of Ellsworth’s prime commercial district, nearly surrounded by a housing development, an appliance store, a car wash and a restaurant.

“Everything around us is trying to adapt to unnatural situations,” he said.

Recently, Richmond learned Birdsacre will have a new neighbor. In September, Ellsworth’s planning board approved an application for the home improvement chain Lowe’s to build a 138,000 square foot superstore on 17 acres abutting the sanctuary.

The new store will easily be the largest structure in town, right next to the most pristine wetlands in city limits.

Friendly Big-Box Neighbors?

Birdsacre is the permanent home to some 30 injured birds, and a rehabilitation center to a handful more that will eventually be released. At the sanctuary’s bird center, owls peep out of darkened cages, ravens cock their heads at curious visitors, and geese challenge anyone that comes too close.

The sanctuary also has hiking trails through its forest and wetlands that are easily the quietest and cleanest place on High Street, the commercial heart of Ellsworth.

Richmond knew the area around him wouldn’t stay pristine forever. Over the years, he expanded the sanctuary from 40 to 200 hundred acres to provide a buffer from potential neighbors.

In some ways, he said, development has been good for the sanctuary. In order to mitigate any wetland destruction a development might bring, big-box stores have sought to help Birdsacre survive. Home Depot paid off the mortgage on a piece of the sanctuary’s land, and Wal-Mart officials offered Richmond a money-generating telephone tower from the land of their proposed Super-Wal-Mart.

But no offers have yet come from Lowe’s officials. Their current wetland mitigation plan, according to Richmond, is to convert a piece of undeveloped property in Ellsworth Falls to wetland.

“They’re going to spend a couple of hundred thousand dollars to dig up a piece of land and turn it into a pond,” Richmond said.

Environmental Impact

Richmond worries that the bright lights of a Lowe’s parking lot might drastically alter the behavior of the animals at Birdsacre.

“The world of nature exists from sunrise to sunset, barring nocturnal animals” he said. “We live in a world of artificial light.”

While few studies have been done on birds in urban settings, Richmond has found throughout 25 years of experience that he can’t leave a heating lightbulb on in an enclosure, or an injured bird will never sleep.

Already, he said, light pollution cuts through the forest canopy to shine a third of the way into the sanctuary’s 200 acres. Lowe’s developers received a waver to have more lighting in the store’s parking lots than the city’s ordinances allow.

Another major concern is the possible pollution from water runoff generated by an impermeable Lowe’s parking lot. Such runoff would have an impact on 60 acres of Birdsacre wetland, Richmond said.

While there are city ordinances in place to help direct runoff problems, Richmond said such ordinances aren’t sufficient in heavy rain.

He also believes that such a large-scale development can’t help but stress the sanctuary’s ecosystem.

“It just puts pressure on everything it abuts,” he said.

Dr. Malcom Hunter, a University of Maine wildlife ecologist, agrees. Hunter said such pressure is geometric. The more developed area surrounding a sanctuary like Birdsacre, Hunter said, the more chances there are for human degradation to destabilize the sanctuary’s ecosystem. And, he said, a small sanctuary has a greater chance of an ecological “crash” than would a larger one.

“When you have a small reserve, you worry about edge effects,” Hunter said. “Personally, I’d worry a lot about cats.”

Central Park

Richmond thinks the city hasn’t done enough to protect Birdsacre. “Our worst enemy is the city of Ellsworth,” he said.

He believes the city illegally zoned Birdsacre and the surrounding area for commercial big-box development. Such zoning means Lowe’s can consider Birdsacre environmentally as it would any other commercial neighbor.

For years, Richmond has argued that the sanctuary should have its own zone with tougher development restrictions.

Michelle Gagnon, Ellsworth’s city planner, said such a zoning change soon might become reality.

“There’s definitely an interest in providing them their own zone,” Gagnon said.

A zoning change could increase the setback zone for abutters, Gagnon said, and provide tougher rules for environmental mitigation.

But Richmond thinks if the zoning change were to come after the Lowe’s is constructed, it would be too late. Almost all the land around Birdsacre has already been developed under current city ordinances.

“We won’t be able to utilize any protection we might have,” Richmond said.

Lowe’s still faces a few hurdles before ground can be broken. The biggest challenge to the project, Richmond said, might come from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which must approve the proposed wetland mitigation.

But even though Richmond feels the Lowe’s arrival is nearly inevitable, he sees no reason why Birdsacre will fail because of it.

“We live on nothing, so there’s not too much they can do to us,” he said. “We will adapt.”

If anything, Richmond said, in the coming years, Birdsacre might become more precious to Ellsworth as continuing development takes away the last wild places in city limits.

“Down the road, we’ll be like Central Park,” Richmond said.