The Working Waterfront, April 2021

News of Maine’s Coast and Islands

THE WORKING

volume 35, № 2

published by the island institute

n

april 2021 n free circulation: 50,000

n

workingwaterfront.com

Restoring Hindu Couple brings historic schooner to Thomaston for another life Story and photos by Kelli Park

W

hat could be better than a vessel that encapsulates the timelessness of a love story, the enchantment of a fairy tale, and the mystical allure of a legend? Well, how about one with the spirit of Maine in its every fiber.

Josh Rowan, 41, and Erin Desmond, 37, are restoring the schooner Hindu, designed by William Hand and built by Hodgdon Brothers in East Boothbay in 1925.

Hindu has found a temporary home in Thomaston, where, with the help of local shipwrights Mike Rogers and Simon Larsen, she will be ready to navigate distant horizons for another century.

One of five sister ships, which includes Bowdoin, which was designed for Arctic exploration with Admiral MacMillan, Hindu has sailed distant seas in the Indian spice trade, fired on U-Boats in World War II, harpooned tuna fish, and has been one of the longest running charter boats on the East Coast since 1946 in Provincetown, Mass., where generations have fallen in love with the vessel.

“Every single year, somebody will come up and say, ‘In 1972, I met my wife on this boat!’ The stories just never stop,” said Rowan. “This particular boat changed my

Josh Rowan and Erin Desmond are restoring Hindu in Thomaston.

path in a way I never expected. I’ve watched it change so many people’s paths and have such an incredible impact, more than anything else I’ve ever seen.”

Rowan’s relationship with the sea began aboard a 50-foot wooden sailboat built by his father on the family’s homestead in an Oregon rainforest, when his parents sought escape from suburbia by cruising

through Central and South America for eight years, during which time they lived off rice, beans, and fish, and immersed themselves in local communities. The family ended up in Key West, where, at age 15, Josh got his captain’s license and started a charter company with his family’s sailboat. continued on page 2

Acadia officials optimistic about 2021 visitation Island Explorer set to return, staffing remains challenge

By Laurie Schreiber Acadia National Park Superintendent Kevin Schneider is optimistic that visitation this year could be at or

near normal levels, as the vaccination rollout boosts traveler confidence.

Schneider spoke to the Acadia National Park Advisory Commission during its quarterly

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According to preliminary figures from meeting, held virtually in February.

Although visitor numbers dropped the National Park Service, Acadia visitaduring the first half of 2020 due to the tion declined 22 percent, from 3.4 million pandemic, enthusiasm for the park in 2019 to 2.6 million in 2020. Most of the reasserted itself through the rest of the decline was from May through June.

That resulted in a $1.4 year, he said. million loss of entrance “And we continue to fee revenue, in addition see the park quite busy Acadia visitation to loss of revenue from through the rest of the off-season,” he said. declined 22 percent, not operating the park’s campgrounds.

Once Acadia opened from 3.4 million in But there are several up mid-summer, after reasons for optimism, the state shutdown, 2019 to 2.6 million he said. In addition to traffic congestion in 2020. vaccinations, anecdotal at the park’s most trends during the second popular spots paralhalf of 2020, around leled visitation in previous years. The situation was exac- outdoor recreation areas in general, erbated by the lack of the free shuttle suggest people want to be outside.

“I think there’s strong demand,” he said. service, the Island Explorer, which That’s borne out by tourism survey didn’t run in 2020 due to the pandemic.

Commercial and concession buses also data, which show that national parks didn’t run. continued on page 6

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The Working Waterfront . April 2021

HINDU

shipbuilding.” She recently joined the town’s Green Task Force, while Rowan has been appointed to the Thomaston Harbor Committee.

In a race against time, a barn was built over Hindu He spent some childhood summers in northern Maine and would return years later to do a stint as to protect it from the impending Maine winter, which a rigger at Wayfarer Marine in Camden, after which will be put on a foundation next year and will be he studied alternative energy and engineering in large enough to house two of the three boats owned Massachusetts and New Zealand, and took a solo by Hindu Charters, including Bloodhound, an 1874 motorcycle trip through Central and South America. Model Fife racing sailboat.

Hindu’s rebuild is about It was during a visit to Key West that he a third complete, and the fell in love with Hindu. A friend had recently work is slated to be done purchased and rebuilt part of the schooner between December and and Rowan soon found himself working as June 2022. The wood captain, after which a legal battle between being used is rot resistant business partners ensued and left Hindu One of five sister purpleheart wood from repossessed by the bank and literally sinking ships, which includes Guyana, black locust into the sea. wood from Maine, which In 2011, Rowan became the steward and Bowdoin, Hindu has was historically planted has averaged 330 days underway each year sailed distant seas in by shipwrights and is now with daily cruises and nine trips between Key West and Provincetown. the Indian spice trade, considered an invasive species, and two dead- The couple built a barn over the schooner, which will “I met Josh and got sucked into this wild fired on U-Boats in standing northern rain- eventually be completed once the rebuild is done. adventure,” said Erin Desmond, Rowan’s forest trees from Rowan’s fiancé, first mate, and manager of the vessel’s World War II… family’s land in Oregon. charter operations.

Desmond acknowledges had and every frame is identical. Her properties are “There are not that many things left to the debate about histori- the same.” do in the world that are a combination of Rowan feels a sense of responsibility. cally accurate technique. hands-on physical labor, creative intellec“The boat has this magic about her. You just want “Is it the same boat if tual challenges, fun times, and life-or-death experiences all rolled into one,” she said. “This is the you totally rebuild it? Our shipwrights are replacing it to help it continue.”

For more information on how to contribute to richest little enclave of experience that I could have piece by piece, following the 1925 schematics exactly, so that the soul of the boat transfers over,” she said. the Promise to the Schooner Hindu campaign, see ever gotten into.”

The couple had planned to bring Hindu to Maine “In the way we’re doing it, every flaw that she’s ever sailschoonerhindu.com. for a rebuild after the 2020 summer season. But while the vessel was on its way from Key West to Provincetown, a 3:30 a.m. collision with a submerged vessel in Long Island Sound forced the couple to get the boat to Maine.

In August, they found property in Thomaston for their future home and to serve as a place to work A caption in the February/March issue needs clarification. The photo showed a new granite seawall on Hindu. being built in Bayside, the cottage community just south of Belfast. The community is actually operated “We really lucked out buying this little piece of propby the legislatively empowered Northport Village Corporation within the municipality of Northport. erty in Thomaston,” Desmond said. “We didn’t know at the time that Thomaston had such a rich history of

continued from page 1

For the record…

. April . April2020 www.workingwaterfront.com www.workingwaterfront.com 2021

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‘Sweet and salty’ scallop fishery in good shape

By Laurie Schreiber

M

aine’s scallop fishery has changed considerably over the years.

David Tarr, a Brooklin resident, has gone both dragging and diving for scallops since he was a kid in the early 1980s.

“Things were way different back then,” he said. “It was kind of a wild, wild fishery. It was boom or bust.”

When things were good, it was quite lucrative, he said. Not so much, though, when the scallops were overharvested.

“It was the mentality that, if I don’t get them, someone else would,” he said. “So we were all working hard to get our share.”

Maine controls the scallop fishery in state waters up to three miles from shore. The federal government controls the fishery beyond the three-mile line.

Whether from state or federal waters, the product is the same.

“From the consumer standpoint, all Gulf of Maine scallops taste marvelous,” said Melissa Smith, a scientist with the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

Tarr and Smith were panelists for a recent Lunch & Learn webinar, “The Sweet and Salty of Maine’s Sea Scallop Fishery,” hosted by the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries in Stonington.

Overall, the fishery is considered a modern-day success story as landings rebounded in recent years, with an estimated landed value of $4.5 million in 2019.

The state fishery runs from December through early spring. Most of the product is harvested by draggers; divers bring up the rest. Come April, scallop fishing begins in the federal portion of the northern Gulf of Maine waters.

Maine has a strong history of scalloping, but landings have fluctuated a fair bit since the 1950s. There was a huge peak around 1980, but that’s never been approached again. Landings started to decline in the early 1990s. Maine’s lowest landings ever were in 2005.

In the 2000s, Maine started to implement new management measures to help the resource recover from overfishing. That included harvest, size, and license limits; and certain time and area closures. The DMR formed a council of industry advisors to share the decisions. The coast was divided into three fishing zones so measures could be better refined to area conditions.

Gerald “Punkin” Lemoine

This past season, harvesters had a pretty good haul and strong prices, thanks to two decades worth of those measures.

“Landings have been moderate— nothing great, but nothing horrible,” said Smith.

The season opened with a strong price per pound of $12.75 and increased in January to as high as $13.50, she said.

“It’s remained fairly stable and fairly strong for the entire season,” she said.

Harvester reports indicate that legal-size scallops are being found, but they’re increasingly spread out, said Smith. Meat sizes and quality are good Clockwise from top left, Maine Department of Marine Resources scientists Amber Lisi but on the smaller side.

“I haven’t heard any reports this year and Melissa Smith, fisherman David Tarr, and scallop dealer Togue Brawn. of the unicorn U2s,” she said, referring to meats large enough that it takes only two to weigh a pound. Typical hauls are bringing up U10 to U15s, she said.

Although scallops in the gulf are the same species, there are taste differences depending on where they’re harvested, said Togue Brawn, a former DMR scientist who started a scallop dealership called Downeast Dayboat.

“I started the business because most Americans hadn’t tasted fresh Maine scallops,” she said.

Most consumers, Brawn said, have John tasted scallops coming from bigMartin, boats Bud Staples, and Elsie Gillespie chat around the woodstove at the annual town meeting. that fish in federal waters, steaming for days at a time and storing product in ice.

The scallops absorb the ice as it melts, which makes them “waterlogged” and The screenshot of the boat shows David Tarr’s sternman emptying scallops on deck reduces their quality, she said. after a short tow in lower Penobscot Bay. Maine’s state fishery comprises small vessels that bring scallops to shore “It’s more desirable to certain restauwithin hours of harvesting them. For rants and consumers,” he said. “I prefer decades, she said, state and federal to dive for scallops. I really enjoy it.” harvests were mixed together, making The advantage of diving is that scalit impossible to differentiate the higher lops can be individually selected from quality of Maine’s product. the seafloor.

Brawn started her business by “I don’t pick up what I don’t want,” introducing chefs to a selection of he said. “varietals”—scallops harvested in These days, said Tarr, it’s much less different areas along the coast that likely for the stock to get depleted. have different flavors. The concept Although fishermen aren’t always The product. was a hit. Now she meets fishermen at happy with closures, they acknowledge their boats and ships product the next the decisions are made out of caution And that’s essential for ensuring day directly to consumers. for the resource. younger generations get into the fishery.

“I don’t have a warehouse. I take “We don’t want to catch the last one,” Currently, the fishery is closed to new orders and then I go and get the scal- he said. entrants unless a license is relinquished; lops. That creates a completely different If anything, he said, more moni- those licenses go into a pot that’s drawn level of quality.” toring is key to ensure the health of the from through an annual lottery.

Tarr, a member of the Scallop resource.

“If a young fisherman gets a license, I Advisory Council, is an enthusiast for “Data is key,” he said. “In the future will take them under my wing, help them Levinoted Moulden that quality. He that scallops we’ll figure out a better way to have out, keep them safe and show them how harvested by divers are something of a that data available and keep the to go about doing this,” Tarr said. “I don’t niche product. fishery going.” want it to become a lost art.”

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The Working Waterfront . April 2021

Former slaves founded community in the Midcoast Peterborough, in Warren in Knox County, thrived for 150 years

By Stephanie Bouchard

A

bout a mile off Route 1 in the woods of Warren is an off-thebeaten track cemetery. It is the only physical remnant accessible to the public of Peterborough, a oncethriving inter-racial community that had a major impact on building the economy of coastal Maine. The community was the subject of a webinar held in January as part of the Maine Conservation Voters’ (MCV) Lunch and Learn series.

Besides Portland and Bangor, Peterborough—sometimes spelled Peterboro—was at one time the largest African American community in Maine—even larger than the more well-known community of Malaga Island—said Kate McMahon, MCV’s guest speaker.

McMahon, a Shapleigh native whose master’s thesis at the University of Southern Maine was on the African American community of Peterborough, is a museum specialist at the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for the Study of Global Slavery that’s part of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Peterborough was founded by a Revolutionary War veteran named Amos Peters and his wife, Sarah, a former slave who was kidnapped from her native Guinea and sold by a ship captain from Damariscotta to a family in Warren.

Sarah Peters gained her freedom in the mid-1780s after hearing through word of mouth of the successful lawsuits in Massachusetts that led to the banning of slavery in the state, including the District of Maine. She hired a lawyer who successfully argued for her freedom.

The founders of the community that would exist for about 150 years were “powerful figures” who were “revolutionary thinkers,” McMahon said in an interview with the The Working Waterfront for the newspaper’s bicentennial road trip series published last summer. “[Theirs is] a story of self-determination and community building,” she said.

Amos Peters, born around 1737 in Plymouth, Mass., of African and Wampanoag Indian ancestry, served two enlistments in the Revolutionary War. It was during that time that McMahon believes he encountered General Henry Knox, the chief artillery officer of the Continental Army and the first U.S. Secretary of War. Knox’s wife’s family lay claim to more than 500,000 acres of land in the District of Maine. For reasons unknown, said McMahon, Knox gave Amos Peters, who moved to the Warren area in the 1780s, 150 acres of land.

The land Knox gave Peters, near South Pond, wasn’t of poor quality. It was good, farmable land and it became the engine that powered the Peters’ growing family and the community that grew up around that family generation after generation, she said.

By 1820, the year the District of Maine became a state, more than 50 members of the extended Peters family lived in Peterborough. By 1823, the town of Warren allowed Peterborough to have its own school district and by the 1840s, the community had more than 100 people and its own schoolhouse.

In this period before the Civil War, even though Maine did not allow slavery, racism and segregation existed in many communities, including Warren, she said.

“Having this separate community gave them a lot of power, a lot of agency, and the ability to resist some of these more overt structures [of racism and segregation],” she said in the bicentennial road trip interview.

“It’s a great story of how despite the fact that their community has essentially been erased from the environment—the only structure that still exists is the cemetery—they have really had a major impact on the shape of coastal Maine, especially,” she said.

The extended Peters family and members of the larger Peterborough community contributed to construction of buildings in the area—Amos Peters and his sons helped to build the Knox family mansion, Montpelier, in Thomaston—worked on road crews

This photo was taken at the 1936 Warren Bicentennial Celebration. Among those pictured are: Frank Peters, Rosa Peters, William Peters, Olivia Peters, Sydney Peters, and Grace Carter Peters. PHOTO: COURTESY WARREN HISTORICAL SOCIETY

This photo shows the Peterborough School House, built in 1845. The town of Warren gave $75 to the Peterborough residents to assist them in erecting their schoolhouse.

The money was taken from the profits of the alewife fishery.

PHOTO: COURTESY WARREN HISTORICAL SOCIETY

that built road networks allowing for more efficient movement of goods and people, and were a large part of the maritime economy, working as sailors and shipbuilders or in trades that supported the maritime trade.

After losing a significant number of young men during the Civil War and as members of the community began migrating to new places when the maritime trades began to wane and factory work gained ground (they

were excluded from working in the local factory), Peterborough began declining. While there are many descendants still living in the area today, the last of Peterborough’s residents left in the 1950s.

Watch the video of the webinar here: https://www.maineconservation. org/lunchnlearn/land-and-libertythe-historic-african-americancommunity-of-peterborough

Letters to the Editor Seafood by the pound To the editor: I write as a reader of The Working Waterfront and a longtime supporter of the Island Institute. I read with interest Laurie Schreiber’s article in the February/March issue, “Seafood: great for health, environment, economy.”

I love to eat seafood and would eat much more if it were more reasonably priced. I live on a fixed income. My price limit for protein is around $3.99 per pound. The only

kind of fish I can get at that price lately is tilapia.

If a farmer can grow a chicken to market size and sell it retail for 89 cents per pound, I don’t see why local seafood has to cost $5.99 per pound and above. I appreciate that a fisherman has to pay for boat maintenance, fuel, and crew wages, if he or she has crew. Still, the chicken farmer has expenses, too. He has to feed his birds, for one thing, whereas most local seafood is wild caught, not farmed.

—Susan Alexander Friendship

A market-based fix To the editor, In a recent Bangor Daily News op-ed, “A litmus test for the climate,” James Boyce articulates the case for the most effective way to address the climate emergency: “Clamping a hard ceiling on the total fossil carbon we let into the nation’s economy and ratchet it down year by year.”

Boyce acknowledges that doing so will inevitably increase fossil fuel prices for consumers, but that increase can

be offset by placing a price on carbon that is returned to all households in the form of a monthly dividend check.

Such an approach has long been met with criticism in conservative circles and by powerful business lobbies like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

That is until two weeks ago, when the Chamber shifted its position, telling the Washington Examiner it “supports a market-based approach to accelerate greenhouse gas emissions reductions across the U.S. economy.” continued on page 10

www.workingwaterfront.com . April 2021

5

Poetry embedded in a fisherman’s diary

Brief notations from 19th century teased into three-dimensional story We picked berries untill half past three and then went home / We got a bushel of cranberries and black berries” Ludders’s footnote: “I love these berrying excursions. I can’t help but read them as a Wabanaki cultural practice that’s been carried over, like so many others, into the culture of the state of Maine. Seasonal foraging for storable food.”

I think Ludders is probably right about this, though of course I had no idea in 1961 that I was participating in an ancient traditional practice.

It is unbelievable how full and deep Dal Raynes’s seemingly scant lines go, and how Ludders teases from them “the vast familial spiderweb of 19th century Penobscot Bay.” A sort of 21st century renaissance man of itinerant occupation, Ludders worked recently as a sternman for Bob Quinn of Eagle Island (northeast of North Haven). Quinn’s stories Didn’t Do Much but a Little of Everything: of island lore prompted Ludders to read Paul The Eagle Island Diary of Dalton Raynes Molyneaux’s The Doryman’s Reflection, an Ian Ludders, ed.; Lulu.com autobiographical look at the fishing life and its changes.

Molyneaux fished with Bernard Raynes, the grandson of Dalton Raynes, and Ludders Review by Dana Wilde noticed in Molyneaux’s book a mention of a t’s about 1961, a sunny day somewhere in diary kept by Dal at the age of 19. Curious, he Scarborough. Spread over what seems, to my contacted Molyneaux, who sent him photo8-year-old eyes, like acres and acres of dry field, copies of the diary’s pages. Finding them full of are sardine seines. Trapped underneath the seines cryptically fascinating names, he set about to are millions of grasshoppers hopping and clicking connect as many dots as he could.

The result is a detailed peripatetic guide and trying to jump free. Fishermen are sitting on low supports, possibly lobster traps, and pulling the nets to the lives and families of Maine’s Midcoast onto their laps. They are slowly, garrulously mending around the turn of the 20th century. By mining public records, newspapers, books, and people the nets.

In 1897, fisherman Dalton “Dal” Raynes, age 19, (Raynes’s descendants provided photos), described this very activity in his diary. While he’s Ludders identifies every family, friend, and spending the winter in Augusta, his second entry says: neighbor named by Dal, from Eagle Island to Camden to Augusta to Etna, every odd word (Dal sometimes calls lobsters “clawfish”), tracks Sat. Jan. 2 Wea. Fine Dal’s refitting of the sloop Rara Avis, provides Went skating & found it quite soft. the fisherman’s expense ledgers, digresses into Knit about a foot on the seine the history of canneries, and illuminates the I can knit across it in fifteen minutes already brewing worries about Canada’s lack of It is one inch mesh & fourteen feet long lobster-fishing restrictions that might mean the Ian Ludders, the compiler, editor, and publisher of “extermination” of the clawfish.

Ludders’ ruminative footnotes far outnumber, Didn’t Do Much but a Little of Everything: The Eagle in words, the diary.

Island Diary of Dalton Raynes, His original accomadds in one of his fascinating plishment, though, is footnotes to the diary’s scant recognizing the poetry lines: “Dal has been tasked that—probably uninten[by his uncle Edgar Crosby tionally—suffuses every Quinn of Eagle Island] with line Dal wrote. the winter work of knitting a Dal winters in Augusta new seine (a huge net) for the We were living and and sails from island weir [at Wood Landing]. ... to island in the spring, Cotton twine is spooled onto breathing the same tidal life summer, and fall to a ‘needle’ (it looks something as Dal Raynes, and Bernard, fish, transact business, like a weaver’s shuttle) and is work, and visit. Life’s then looped around a wooden and the Wabanakis… elements are timeless, mesh board (like a short, thick and get held dormant, ruler) and tied off artfully until through some in knot after knot to form unforeseen prompt, like meshes, every one kept caresketches in a diary or fully true to the measure.” lines of unintentional Those needles and twine live poetry, memories spout clearly in memory. I wanted to to the surface from learn to work them myself.

I also remember blueberrying in Pownal on brisk underneath, where unbeknownst to you it has late-summer days with a fisherman’s family. Dal been permeating everything. recalls it for me: Fri. Aug. 13 Wea. W. wind I set out 12 traps Sept. 15, 1897, Isle au Haut: “Wea. Fine day / We I only got 5 lobsters picked berries all day”; Sept. 16: “Wea. Fine day /

I

When I was 11, a fisherman’s kid and I set our one legal lobster trap off the ledgy shore of Mackerel Cove at Bailey Island. We caught one lobster all summer, and many, many rock crabs. We never called the lobster “clawfish.”

But we were living and breathing the same tidal life as Dal Raynes, and Bernard, and Paul, Bob, and Ian, and the Wabanakis in berrying time, and never knew it. Or knew it by the weather, which was everything every day.

Didn’t Do Much but a Little of Everything is a unique evocation of how deep everyday life on the coast is lived.

The book is available at cost through lulu.com or by emailing Ian Ludders at iludders@riseup.net, or by mail at HC2 Box 11 Eagle Island, Sunset, ME 04683.

Dana Wilde, a former editor and college professor, lives in Troy and writes the Backyard Naturalist and Off Radar columns for the centralmaine.com newspapers. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.

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6

The Working Waterfront . April 2021

ACADIA

continued from page 1 are near the top of travelers’ list of destinations, he said. Acadia reflected that data: The month of December saw a steep increase of 65 percent, from 12,865 in 2019 to 21,260 in 2020.

THIS YEAR

Plans are still underway for 2021 operations, with some unknown factors to be worked out.

A “known” is that the Explorer will run, but at reduced capacity. The park would like to open its campgrounds this summer but is still sorting out how that might work. If Acadia can hire enough staff, it can operate the campgrounds at reduced capacity.

“The key is hiring, and the key to hiring is housing,” Schneider said.

Park housing was already inadequate before the pandemic, and more now due to physical distancing guidelines. Acadia is awaiting guidance from the National Park Service, he noted.

If Acadia can’t open its campgrounds, the surrounding area’s private campgrounds could be enough to absorb the market, as it did in 2020.

If there can be a silver lining to the pandemic, it’s the development of virtual educational programming, which reached almost 4,400 children from September through January and is worth continuing even when the pandemic is over, he said.

Aside from the existential logistics of operating in an uncertain year, Acadia has major projects that continue despite the pandemic.

“The big news last year, and continues to be, is the reservation system,” said Acadia’s management assistant, John Kelly.

Kelly was referring to a vehicle reservation system designed to alleviate congestion at Acadia hotspots.

It rolled out as a two-week pilot program last October, at two popular spots—the entrance station to a stretch of road leading to Sand Beach and the Cadillac Mountain summit road.

A park ranger uses a mobile device to verify a visitor’s reservation at the entrance to the Cadillac Summit Road during an 18-day pilot in October. PHOTO: NATIONAL PARK SERVICE/JOHN KELLY

The system worked well for Cadillac. Sell rates were high, especially for sunrise reservations, said Kelly.

It was a different story at Sand Beach. Spotty cellphone service made it difficult for visitors to pull up their reservations. Some didn’t know they needed reservations and were turned back on an ancillary road that goes through a residential neighborhood, creating congestion there. Others simply parked outside of the reservation zone—with hundreds of cars lining the road—and walked to Sand Beach.

The park will expand the program at Cadillac this year and save Sand Beach and other spots for the future, said Kelly.

Tangentially, the program highlighted the Explorer’s importance: Vehicle traffic at Sand Beach increased 20 percent without the Explorer in 2020.

Auto

Another major development is the imminent start of Phase 2 construction of the Acadia Gateway Center on Route 3 in Trenton, a location designed to intercept traffic traveling to Acadia.

Phase 1, completed in 2012, was a bus maintenance facility, park-and-ride lot, propane fueling station, access road, and administrative offices for Downeast Transportation, the nonprofit operator of the Explorer and countywide transit systems.

Phase 2’s $23 million construction, led by the Maine Department of Transportation, includes a visitor center, pedestrian plaza, bus berths and circulation areas for the Explorer and commercial tour buses, and Level 2 electric charging infrastructure for future charging stations. The tentative opening is 2024, said Kelly.

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www.workingwaterfront.com . April 2021

7

cRanBeRRy RepoRt

State signals support of offshore wind ting,Balancing painting lines,with eating development fishing industry will be challenge , and throwing rocks

E

arlier this year, Gov. Janet Mills announced by 45 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, and 80 As part of siting wind turbines, the federal Bureau her terms for the back-in-motion effort to site percent below 1990 levels by 2050. of Ocean Energy Management created a task force to “Twenty years ago, we were using 35 percent coal and oversee the process and is committed to including wind turbines in the Gulf of Maine. She is asking the legislature to back a ten-year moratorium oil for our electricity,” Burgess said. Now, it’s less than other users of the ocean. sford. on bright redprojects with a black stripe) and, like piece purple rope toand, the depending end of the on weather, it often is lower.

1 percent wind in the waters managed byofthe Cunningham presented a timeline that showed a pizzas, state—those every other lobster in Maine buoy line but all attachments As the state turns to wind as a renewable, non- research array of 12 or fewer turbines over 16 square withinfisherman three miles of shore—and sheor toggle, busier affirmed must be madepolluting with a splice or aBurgess tuck. said, the Gulf of Maine was miles being established by about 2025. The connecthis winter, read about, about, of source, herhesupport fortalked development floating re the wind I know stretch to compare fol- Because of depths, floating tion to the grid is likely to be through either Wyman and experimented purple paint. as a resource. turbines in thewith offshore waters managed by theit’s ainvestigated eason. federal whale made rope sense. requireThe latest whale regulations require lowing Maineturbines Undersea cables government.

Station in Yarmouth or Maine Yankee portu- allEmbedded with a link pleintheairelectricity workshop, but grid.

Maine lobster fishermen to use new ments to the in the dual announcement was Mills’ in Wiscasset. riends pledge markings thethe ropes they attach to engaged a personincould “Offshore return home from winds areeitypically stronto on keep fishing industry Applications for the project are antic“Offshore winds ipated to be submitted to the federal rip to decision lobster traps.

Depending on how and say gest that during they’d the been paintday, which is good for making, promising toclose open ther “channels g was and their spare Bruceour were to shore they fish, they will have to add whentime. we’reIfusing energy,” he said, opportunities for meaningful input ing frominfishgovernment later this year, she said. are typically ere so ermen an essay he spent his when more 2-4 purple marks industries on each buoy line.thewriting and on it ishow higher in winter, and marine in siting proposed “We understand that while there are strongest during ou did research winter vacation, painting would be a On warps that are 100-feet or less there electricity is used. The resource also array.” some who see a lot of opportunity from ques- must of it. Another part be thecenters, and it onerelease 12-inch purple mark with- part is close to would population The be press explained the governor’s thinking the day, which is offshore wind, others are concerned. ber at on himembraced tell his brother in the a few fathoms of the trap and a 36- description I heard is being in places beyond issue.

And our fishing industry obviously is good for when e sub- inch about walking purple markseek within 2 fathoms of Mark Maine. to get doughnuts, “These actions to protect fishing and recrean incredibly important economic and meet- ational the buoy.

If the warpwithin is longer 100 ourUnited son Robin, and has a target we’re using our “The Kingdom opportunities thethat three milesinofFebruary, coastal with cultural contributor to our state,” she said. floor!) waters our heavily grandchildren Henry I come from feet, the requirement for which a 12-inch to have all and theirCora. energy managed by the is state, are more The ten-year moratorium on wind energy.” ce and fished purplethan mark near the trap, The a second 12-alsowas away friends in Portland, and” Burgess said. wind by 2030, federal waters. actions allow forwithoffshore turbines in state waters came from the h our additional Stephanie away Europe with friends in we’re seeing inch purple mark halfway thethe buoy, to Asia, substantive inputto from fishing industry was“From governor’s concerns about impacts to —DAN BURGESS Maine. as and a 36-inch mark near the buoy.

Florida.

Father and son were in charge.

Maine continues to pursue the nation’s first floating rapid development.” Seven turbines the fishing industry, Cunningham said. oal of offshore “Yeah, gotnow doughnuts Brucewind figures he willarray be putting operatingatoffThe the Northeast— research in the1,500 Gulf of Maine andwe are In the governor’s announcement, onsid- its Cookie Jar and then walkedIsland, to the to associated 1,800 markings on hisand ropeenergy in all; two seven off Rhode two off Virginia. economic benefits. ” Department of Marine Resources n, but toAn beach for a picnic and to throw rocks.” three weeks of work if offshore he does wind Turbines that would produce some 30,000 megawatts Commission Patrick Keliher was quoted saying the overview of extra the revived initiavirus- tive Eating donuts and planned. it without hiring help.of A number of fish-on Feb. in the Northeast are being was the subject presentation 12 by homemade moratorium “will give us an opportunity to have a time the ermen are Conservation applying paintVoters to theirgroup. ropesDan throwing at the beach—if that March, Mills directed an inquiry into how the more focused conversation around the proposed Maine Burgess,rocksLast t to it. director isn’tCelina a mirrorport image of manymight child-be used to assemble floating research array. We will continue to work to see that by resting them in 3-foot Energy long gutters of Searsport of the Governor’s Office and I can Cunningham, made from lengthwise-halved PVC pipe. hood summers on Islesford, I don’t turbines. deputy director, presented the timeall stakeholders are afforded the opportunity to have know what is.

Bruce’s first attempt was with spray paint q Since conflicts over use are inevitable, the energy a voice in the decision-making process.” line that led to current efforts. paint, but soon moved on toclimate the more effi- delivered its office is working with ocean stakeholders, especially In he December, the state council Among the questions expected to be answered are “time action cient brush latexcalls paint.

Barbara Fernald on Islesford thelives fishing industry,(Little whose 2019 landing were valued whether fishing activity is possible near or between plan,and which for Maine achieving carbon e and neutrality Some fishermen will add a 3-footgasCranberry with her husband Bruce. at $674 million. by 2045, cutting greenhouse emissionsIsland) the turbines, Cunningham said.

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The Working Waterfront . April 2021

Rock Bound

A trio of history nuggets

The past still has plenty of unopened doors

By Tom Groening AS I’VE CONFESSED before, history intrigues me, and more so with each passing year. Maybe it’s a function of age, since there’s more to look back on than ahead to as I slide through my 60s.

One form this interest takes is classic movies. And actually, I’ve been hooked since seeing Citizen Kane as a 13-year-old. I also took several film classes in college, studying some 1930s and ‘40s classics.

I love Turner Classic Movies, and lately, I look forward to the Saturday night feature, Noir Alley, which screens obscure film noir titles, movies that don’t quite make the best-of lists— quirky, done on a cheap budget, or just plain twisted.

The host, Eddie Muller, introduces the film with some context and trivia, and then at the end, adds more. Several weeks ago, the selection was The Killer That Stalked New York (1950), about a near-pandemic of smallpox.

The femme fatale is patient zero, smuggling diamonds from Cuba to the city. She becomes sicker and sicker as detectives close in on her. At the same time, health officials begin to see cases of smallpox, and are frantically trying to find the source. Finally, the cops and the docs cross paths and realize they’re

searching for the same person.

Midway in the film, we see health officials explaining the problem to the mayor, who then meets with vaccine manufacturers and pressures them to up their production. Then it’s a montage of people lined up around the city to get their “scratch-scratch,” as it’s called. The mayor is photographed by newspaper reporters getting his vaccine.

But we also hear people refusing it, calling the vaccine poison. A guy in a barbershop dismisses the mayor’s vaccination as a publicity stunt. Sound familiar?

At the end of the film, the host returned to note it was based on an incident from March 1947 when Eugene LaBar, a rug importer returning from Mexico to Maine by bus, stopped off in Manhattan with this wife to see the sights, and got very sick and died. It took a few days, but it was determined that he and 11 others in the city had smallpox.

In the following three weeks, six million people were inoculated, the largest mass vaccination in New York history.

I’ve done some web sleuthing but can’t find anything about where LaBar lived. Contact me if you know.

My second history nugget concerns the time before I moved to Maine in

1983. We know Angus King served as Maine’s independent governor from 1995-2003. But in the decade before I moved to Maine, the state also asserted its independent streak, electing insurance executive Jim Longley as governor.

I didn’t know much about him, other than that he served one term—19751979—and that his son James Jr. served one term in the U.S. House, elected during the 1994 Newt Gingrich ascendancy. I also got to know his daughter, Susan, who was a Democratic state senator from Waldo County, where I live.

A friend and colleague, Bangor Daily News editorial cartoonist George Danby, loaned me a short book published by Penobscot Bay Press, The Year of the Longley, and around Christmas, I read it. In fact, I couldn’t put it down.

Written by Willis Johnson, a former AP reporter and speech writer for Gov. Ken Curtis (who preceded Longley), it’s a witty, sometimes snarky account of Longley’s tenure. To hear Johnson tell it, Longley was temperamentally unsuited for the job—thin-skinned and given to bullying—and unwilling to retreat from business conflicts of interest.

Sound familiar?

Actually, Longley comes off as a more temperate version of Paul

LePage, with none of Donald Trump’s populist charisma. I now know why Angus King took pains to differentiate himself from Longley.

My last nugget came as a gift from David Platt, former editor of The Working Waterfront. He kindly dropped off a large, framed lithograph of Horace Greeley, he of the famous “Go West, young man” exhortation.

The image, signed and dated June 30, 1872 by the subject himself, had belonged to the late Mike Brown, a journalist from my neck of the woods who often wrote about lobstering and other fishy topics for Island Journal.

Greeley was a journalist and founder of the New York Tribune, as well as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Greeley also ran for president on the Liberal Republican Party ticket and lost to Ulysses Grant.

David said a working journalist should own the portrait, and when I retire, that I should bequeath it to a fellow scribbler still in the biz. I will.

Tom Groening is editor of The Working Waterfront. He can be contacted at tgroening@islandinstitute.org.

Reflections

The island wave is part of self-governing Working with town government leads to valuing community Reflections is written by Island Fellows, recent college grads who do community service work on Maine islands and in coastal communities through the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront.

By Matt Jablonski AS I DROVE DOWN Main Street on Vinalhaven for the first time, admiring the dozens of lobster boats moored in Carver’s Harbor, I was struck by a weird phenomenon: several people whom I passed waved at me. Coming from living in more densely populated suburbs, I had never experienced this before, and it felt strange to have others acknowledge my existence. I was too distracted by my surroundings, taking in what was to be my home and workplace as an Island Fellow for the next two years, to wave back.

The next time I left my home, more passersby waved, and I realized these were not extraordinary experiences. Instead, it is just the way life is on Vinalhaven.

Within a few days, I obliged and began waving, almost compulsively, at all those I passed. I soon grew

accustomed to unthinkingly raising fingers from my side or the car steering wheel as I crossed paths with anyone on island. It has become such a habit that I will often forget it is not the custom whenever I return to the mainland and absentmindedly wave to others who are likely just as confused as I was when I first got off the ferry on Vinalhaven.

This informal custom of all greeting all has been a salve during the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many other Maine islands, the community is tightknit and friendly, especially during the off-season months of October through May. The pandemic has disrupted life on the island much as it has in the rest of the country and made moving here in its midst a strange experience.

Joining the community in September of 2020 meant far fewer opportunities to get properly introduced into the social fabric of the island. The inability to socialize safely has slowed the process of putting a name to the approximately 1,200 faces currently residing on the island.

And yet, the mere fact that others continually validate my existence by waving whenever I pass them has made me feel welcome. I appreciate the

welcoming atmosphere cultivated by the unending waving and it has led me to the realization that residents of Vinalhaven look out for one another with an increasingly rare neighborliness and warmth.

My work on Vinalhaven has afforded me a more intimate look into the strong sense of community residents here have.

My fellowship brought me to Vinalhaven to work within its town office to assist in implementing some of its longer-term strategic goals, such as revamping departmental reporting and assisting volunteer citizen committees with their missions.

Through my first six months here I have witnessed firsthand the effort it takes for an island community to effectively administer its municipal government—and it truly is the whole community, not just town office employees, helping administer it.

Beyond the several town employees who work daily to help maintain the island’s transfer station, public infrastructure, and more, dozens of volunteers serve to staff a variety of committees that provide essential services like crafting zoning policy and, in the case of the select board, serving as the executive decision-making body for the town.

Ultimately, the whole community is responsible for ensuring the government continues to serve their needs.

Each year, in late spring, Vinalhaven’s town meeting convenes and the community comes together to vote on the proposed budget for the coming year. Without the involvement of residents and their vocal feedback—not just during the meeting but throughout the year at various select board and committee meetings—the municipal government would fail to reflect the will of the community.

More importantly, this collective effort would not be possible without the cohesion fostered by small, kind gestures, such as waving to anyone and everyone on the island.

Matt Jablonski is working with Vinalhaven’s town government to integrate its strategic plan and develop its organizational infrastructure. He is a graduate of Haverford College with a degree in English.

www.workingwaterfront.com . April 2021

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‘COTTAGE’ LIFE— Photos from Bass Harbor, including this one, have recently been added to the Penobscot Marine Museum’s extensive collections.

The building is identified on the image as “Mariner’s Cottage, Bass Harbor, Maine.” Our thanks to the museum for use of the photo.

Op-Ed

Fight climate change, but not with CMP corridor Project will produce only profits and ‘greenwashed’ power THE DECEMBER/JANUARY ISSUE featured a guest column by Orlando Delogu (“Maine must see bigger picture on utility project”) in which he questioned my motives on why I am against the New England Clean Energy Connect Corridor. I want to explain why I am against it.

First, let me make clear that I believe climate change is real. Personally, I have changed my lifestyle to do what I can do to stop or slow this potentially catastrophic change to Maine.

Additionally, while serving in the legislature, I helped write the first climate change bill which was passed in 2011. I was the main sponsor and supporter of multiple solar power bills that were presented in the legislature during my terms of service (ironically, they were all opposed by Central Maine Power).

I am not ignoring the consequences of climate change or global warming, as suggested by the author.

I am fighting the corridor because it is a bad deal for Maine, and it will have no positive impact on climate change and global warming. In fact, even CMP’s spokesman has made this very clear.

John Carroll, representing the project, stated: “So, the question about whether this [NECEC] will make a difference in climate change—CMP has no, no doubt that it will. We can’t guarantee it. That’s not our job, that’s not our business.”

Island Institute Board of Trustees

Emily B. Lane, Chair Tom Tinsley Vice Chair Charles Owen Verrill, Jr. Secretary Douglas Henderson, Treasurer, Finance Chair Donna Wiegle, Programs Chair Kristin Howard, Philanthropy Chair Bryan Lewis, Governance Chair Michael P. Boyd, Clerk Sebastian Belle Shey Conover David Cousens Megan McGinnis Dayton Michael Felton Nathan Johnson Michael Sant Barbara Kinney Sweet Katherine Vogt Carol White John Bird (honorary)

During the Department of Environmental Protection permitting effort, CMP’s lawyer made it very clear this project was not about climate change at least six times. Here’s one example of what he wrote: “In fact, nowhere has CMP stated the project’s purpose and need includes GHG (greenhouse gas) reduction.”

This project is not about climate change, it is about obscene profits for Hydro-Quebec, owned solely by the province of Quebec, and CMP, which is owned

by Iberdrola, a Spanish company. Maine’s only role in this project is that of an extension cord to bring greenwashed power from Canada to Massachusetts.

Mr. Delogu singles NextEra as this “nasty” company that wants to protect their fuel oil profits. Let me tell you about NextEra. Last year, NextEra received three awards for its renewable energy efforts—one from Forbes, one from the S&P Global Platts, and one from Treehugger.com.

Have you seen the recognition of Avangrid for renewable energy projects? No, there are none.

Mr. Delogu did not mention that Avangrid’s energy production in other states is based on gas and oil. He also did not mention that CMP, which is owned by Avangrid, is ranked dead last as a utility. Even California’s Pacific Gas & Electric, whose grid was responsible for igniting wildfires,

is ranked higher. This is the third year in a row CMP received this ranking.

And just recently, New York regulators adopted a settlement under which New York State Electric & Gas Corp. (a subsidiary of Avangrid) will pay a $1.5 million penalty over its response to tropical storm Isaias in August 2020.

Consider that CMP’s own report says the renewable industry will lose $400 million dollars after the corridor is built. What kind of renewable business will we have left? None! No wonder NextEra is involved.

I will agree with Mr. Delogu’s statement that various permits have been obtained. Maybe if he had time to read the two federal permits, he would realize they are a sham. They were written by CMP without public comment. Maybe that is why the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals has issued an injunction to stop construction in the first 53 miles of the corridor.

Simply put, this corridor is not about climate change. It is about profit for two foreign businesses.

CMP would make $5 million per month, HydroQuebec would make $41 million, and we Mainers would get a few bucks.

Tom Saviello is a former Republican state senator from Wilton.

THE WORKING WATERFRONT

Published by the Island Institute, a non-profit organization that works to sustain Maine's island and coastal communities, and exchanges ideas and experiences to further the sustainability of communities here and elsewhere.

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The Working Waterfront . April 2021

Why paper was king, and why it was deposed Energy, environment, and competition changed a way of life

private hydroelectric system. All computer controlled by the 1970s, it had kept the mills humming at a predictable cost. To Great Northern engineers and their corporate bosses seeing a need for more electricity in a growing paper market, the solution was simple: build another dam.

Shredding Paper But the world had changed by the 1980s. Great Northern was no longer the only The Rise and Fall of Maine’s user of the river. The end of log-driving had opened up its waters, newly clean Mighty Paper Industry thanks to the Clean Water Act, to fishermen and whitewater rafters, to whom the idea of yet another dam and impoundment—even at what everyone agreed was a

By Michael G. Hillard great site for the purpose—was a very bad idea. Opponents pointed out, correctly, that Great Northern had done too little to make its mills more energy-efficient.

After threatening major job cuts and using its political connections, Great Northern got most of the permits it needed, but the cost had become too big and the project was eventually abandoned. In the end the company sold its mills to Reviewed by David D. Platt one or more buyers, its dams to another. By 2014 both mills had closed.

But back to Hillard’s book. nderstanding Maine’s once-gigantic paper industry and what happened The same thing, minus the Big A part of the story, happened to mills and mill to it is a matter of perspective. Michael Hillard, author of Shredding Paper, a well-researched look at the mills that once employed thousands towns all over Maine. Some mills failed because their owners hadn’t modernin communities all over Maine, looks at paper manufacturing from an economic ized; many suffered from foreign competition. China, to cite one example, poured and social point of view—why it made sense to build mills here in the first place, billions into its paper and printing industries while underselling competitors in and how many of these companies stayed in business by engaging in a form of the West, including Maine.

Environmental factors including spruce budworm (brought on to some extent by social engineering.

Papermaking didn’t make sense in Maine in its early days, when a mill’s feed- forest practices) required huge investments by landowners and the state to control stock consisted of waste rags and the best place for a mill was near some big-city it. Forest fires in older, even-aged stands of timber were another costly problem.

Finally, the companies’ investments in timberland (Great Northern owned source—hence the early development of paper mills near Philadelphia in the 18th two million acres at one time), not to mention the 10,000 miles century. Everything changed, Hillard points out, with the developof roads companies were obliged to build to replace the rivers to ment of mechanical (groundwood) and chemical (sulfite) processes transport logs, got harder to explain to profit-hungry managers and to produce wood pulp from trees. These technologies were develThey had shareholders. oped in the mid-19th century, and by 1900 new paper mills were An era—a way of life created by a single Maine industry over a sprouting all over heavily-forested Maine. relied on cheap century—came to an end.

Turning logs into paper is an operation that—a few generations With or without its biggest hydro project, however, Great Northern ago at least—had a lot of moving parts. There was harvesting labor, electricity … and was among a number of companies practicing a form of capitalism meaning an army of woodcutters working under frozen conditions expanded over that seems out of fashion these days: building housing and whole to cut thousands of trees. There was the need to get all of the resulting the years into towns for their workers, paying wages high by comparison with logs to mills, meaning (before trucks and roads) floating them down what by 1980 other Maine jobs, giving or leasing camp lots to its workers on the rivers. There was the need for electricity sufficient to run grinders, lakes created behind their dams, building schools, keeping commudigesters, and paper machines in the mills, requiring hydroelectric had become nities stable over the generations. power generation systems on a massive scale. And there’s the need the world’s As Hillard points out, much of this benevolence faded as compefor a labor force in the mills to run things. tition and Wall Street’s demands for profits forced the sale of once Hillard focuses mostly on labor’s part of this system, and does largest private family-owned companies to outsiders. so more than competently. Perspective, however, requires me to hydroelectric Today, Maine’s paper industry is a shadow of its former self for all focus somewhat differently, and to note that the story he tells isn’t as of the reasons Hillard (and I) suggest, plus dramatic and obvious complete as it might be. system. changes in markets. The once-seemingly insatiable demand for In the 1980s, as the environmental reporter for the Bangor Daily newsprint has diminished; vast amounts of paper once used in News, I spent several years covering Great Northern Paper’s effort to offices has been replaced as systems have gone online. We may not license its proposed Big A dam on the West Branch of the Penobscot River. Papermaking in Maine was often a tradition-bound business, as Hillard have yet reached the paperless point, but it’s not far away. Most of the magazines makes clear, and for Great Northern, building yet another dam on the Penobscot that once stacked up on my coffee table have gone digital.

These days, when I want to start a fire in the woodstove, I have to search for was part of the tradition. But at Big Ambejackmockamus Falls—Big A—it didn’t something that will ignite. In Maine, a state where papermaking was once a way happen. The story’s not in Hillard’s book so I’ll tell it here.

Since the Millinocket and East Millinocket mills went on line around 1900, they of life, that’s remarkable. had relied on cheap electricity generated by a network of dams and generators and expanded over the years into what by 1980 had become the world’s largest David D. Platt is former editor of The Working Waterfront.

U

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

continued from page 4

An official with the Chamber stated that carbon pricing is precisely such a market-based approach.

This is the formula proposed in the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act that is garnering bipartisan support in the House of Representatives. According to a 2020 study, 61 percent of U.S. households and 68 percent of individuals will receive more in dividends than they pay in higher costs. This data is based on an entry year fee of $15 per metric ton of carbon, but that amount will increase annually to spur industries to innovate and move away from fossil fuels. (General Motors, for example, announced that its entire fleet will be

electric by 2035 and it will be carbon neutral by 2040).

The same study data for Maine’s Second Congressional District reveals that between 80 and 97 percent of households in three lowest income quintiles will see a net gain (dividends exceeding increasing costs), and that in the wealthier two quintiles the net loss will average only about 0.2 percent of income.

In other words, the vast majority of Maine citizens will financially benefit from the effort to vastly reduce carbon emissions. Save money while saving the planet! You can estimate your household’s dividend at: energyinnovationact.org/carbon-dividend-calculator/.

For more on the proposal see www. carboncashback4me.org.

—Bernie Baker Belfast

LOADING—

Sharon Daley, left, a registered nurse with the Maine Seacoast Mission, works with fellow RN Maureen Giffin, preparing to administer a COVID vaccine. The Mission’s Sunbeam has been visiting islands to administer the vaccine.

PHOTO: COURTESY MAINE SEACOAST MISSION

www.workingwaterfront.com . April 2021

11

Is ropeless fishing ready for prime time?

Researchers already use this technology

By Craig Idlebrook

A

s the North Atlantic right whale population declines rapidly, regulators have proposed or enacted a series of closures of significant areas of lobster fishing grounds off the coast of New England and Atlantic Canada to protect the endangered whales from entanglement from traditional lobster trap lines. NOAA officials estimate that there are several million vertical lines in the whale’s path in the region.

The closure plans often offer exceptions, however, for so-called “ropeless” lobster fishing, which eliminates the standing vertical lines traditionally needed for retrieving traps from the sea floor. This exception has created heightened interest in ropeless trap technology, but raises questions about its viability.

A prevailing assessment is that ropeless traps are cost prohibitive for wide-scale adoption, at least for now. But many are optimistic about the rate of improvement of the technology and believe it could rapidly become a way of fishing during periodic closures.

Ropeless technology is not new, nor often even ropeless, explains Sean Brilliant, a senior conservation biologist for the marine programs for the Canadian Wildlife Federation. Ropeless technology involves weighing down a trap and then having a mechanism or latch that can provide access to the trap when needed. While one design currently being tested involves the release of a gas to fill up a flotation device, other designs use a spring or gear that can release a vertical line for retrieval.

The devices require some form of acoustic or wireless communication between trap and surface. Such technology has been used for oceanography and marine biology studies for some time, Brilliant said.

“We need to keep in mind that this technology exists,” he said. “It is proven, it works, Ropeless technology and really what we’re talking about now is its suitability for this commercial fishery.” is not new, nor often Tobey Stephenson has used ropeless techeven ropeless, explains nology often for retrieving scientific instruments from the ocean floor in the last decade Sean Brilliant… as the captain of RV Osprey, a research vessel for the College of the Atlantic. In the past, each device he used required a sacrificial mooring to keep the device anchored to the floor, and there was also a higher instance of lost gear. Newer technology has cut down the risk and cost, he said.

“We’ve seen the progression over ten years, where we’ve lost equipment, to now everything comes back, for the most part,” he said.

Stephenson equates the rapid evolution of ropeless technology to the pace at which cell phone tech has improved in the last decade. Gear has gotten smaller, the acoustic technology has gotten better, and the actions of the trap are more repeatable than in the past. Still, he doesn’t believe the technology is inexpensive enough for wide-scale use by a commercial fishery.

“That’s an investment scale that could change probably pretty quickly, especially if there was government support and funding,” he said.

Another issue, Brilliant said, is that there will be a need to develop a way for regulators and other fishers to know what traps are below the surface without giving away the anonymity of those who own them.

“You need a system that can assimilate [ropeless trap] data and then share that data in a way that’s probably anonymous but allows me to see where all the traps are in an area,” he said.

NOAA involvement with the ropeless fishing gear industry is relatively new. The agency first released a plan to work with the industry in 2018 and was given $1 million by Congress to accelerate development for commercial fishing. Currently, the agency is working with ten industry partners, three of which claim to have commercially viable products, and one of which estimates it could make 200,000 traps in the next two years. In addition, there are limited test fishing projects with ropeless gear underway off the coasts of Maritime Canada, Cape Cod, California, and Australia.

While there is resistance to ropeless technology among some fisheries, mandated closures of vertical line traps to protect right whales may create more openness among fisheries to experiment with limited use of ropeless traps. The traps are not perfect, but they are better than staying on shore, Brilliant said.

“I keep saying these closures are the solution to reducing entanglements.

Ropeless gear is the solution to the closures,” Brilliant said.

PHOTOS COURTESY BLUE PLANET STRATEGIES

Archipelago presents

Artists & Makers WEEK

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The Working Waterfront . April 2021

www.workingwaterfront.com . April 2021

Winter in a tourist town Old Orchard Beach takes on a ghost-town look in the off-season PHOTO ESSAY BY MICHELE STAPLETON

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The Working Waterfront . April 2021

Our Island Communities Putting down retail roots on Islesboro

Sky and Marianne Purdy take over as owners of Island Market

By Tom Groening

S

ky and Marianne Purdy met while hiking the Appalachian Trail in 2007, and for six seasons, both worked at a lodge in Denali National Park in Alaska at the end of the park’s single road, nestled in a six-million-acre wilderness.

So the couple knows something about the long haul. And the long haul is what it took for the two to take ownership of the Island Market, one of Islesboro’s two small grocery stores.

It wasn’t just the opportunity to run a store that drew them—both are 35 years old—to the island.

They believe it’s the ideal community to raise their two children—Eleanor, who is two-and-half, and Arlo, who is six-months old.

“This is where we wanted our kids to grow up,” said Marianne.

Sky grew up on the island. His mother is Maggy Willcox, who owns and operates the Islesboro Island News. After high school, he left and didn’t look back.

The couple closed on the purchase on Feb. 1, but it took more than a year to conclude the process.

The Purdys bought the store from Dan and Linda Mahan—known on-island as “Shake” and “Loony”— who had owned and operated the Island Market for 25 years. They, too, liked raising their family on the island, but they were ready to retire.

The Purdys moved to the island in the winter of 2019 to begin the process of buying the store, which is across the street from the post office and a church.

The other store, Durkee’s General Store, is in the northerly part of the island.

Not only was the town supportive of retaining the store as a going concern, but its Islesboro Economic Sustainability Corporation (IESC), a quasi-municipal nonprofit (see sidebar) stepped in to help bring the purchase to fruition. The building was owned by a third party, Phil Berry, and purchasing it along with the business was out of reach for the couple. Efforts to negotiate a long-term lease for the store failed to find resolution, and financing for the business was contingent on a secure lease.

IESC bought the building and offered the couple the long-term lease.

“The entire deal involved many parties,” notes Tom Tudor, vice-chairman of the IESC board, “and also the satisfactory resolution of an environmental evaluation study prompted by the presence of a retail gasoline pump.”

Roger Heinen, chairman of the IESC board, further explained that it believed “preserving the two groceries on the island was a critical essential service and business. This is all good for the island.”

Town officials have been working to establish the area where the Island Market is located as a village center of sorts.

“The property is a keystone property in our town center,” Heinen said.

And the Purdys certainly understood the social value of the business they were buying.

The family in front of the Island Market. PHOTO OURTESY MARIANNE PURDY

“It’s such a community cornerstone,” said Sky, essential to the island as the only place for consumers to buy fuel. “It’s a social place—you’re guaranteed to run into your neighbor.”

Stopping by the store to check the community bulletin board for activities and catch up with neighbors was part of his island experience. A long tradition has several men gathering for coffee at 6 a.m. “to solve the world’s problems,” he jokes.

Now that they finally are in charge of the 2,000-square-foot store, the couple have ideas but want to retain what is beloved about it.

“We’re not in any big rush to change things,” says Marianne. But offering quality meats and produce, including as much locally sourced foods as possible, is in the works.

“Waldo County is one of the best places to be, in terms of fresh produce,” says Sky, who is a chef and wants to expand the prepared food menu with more sandwich, pizza, and salad options.

Small stores are well-suited to work with small producers, he says.

“We’re excited about cultivating relationships with local growers.”

Local seafood also will be featured more prominently.

The Mahans spent six months working alongside the Purdys to teach them the ropes, then in October, Shake sailed south in his boat while Loony wrapped up the final details.

“We always wanted to move back to the island,” Marianne said, and the store was the opportunity to do so.

Islesboro Economic Sustainability Corporation

In 2019, Islesboro voters established a quasi-municipal, nonprofit corporation to serve “as a catalyst for developing essential services and businesses needed to attract families, jobs, and a vibrant summer community,” according to town literature.

The Islesboro Economic Sustainability Corporation, run by a nine-member, select board-appointed committee, works to: • promote, finance, and develop essential-to-Islesboro sustainability services and businesses • define, with select board and community, the essential-to-Islesboro sustainability priorities • help finance private investments to expand businesses, mixed-income housing, etc.

• purchase, sell, lease, finance and/or develop real estate projects, commercial space, or community infrastructure • leverage and lobby for town, state and federal economic development benefits • operate without reliance on tax-payer general funds—property-tax neutral • raise $1.5-$2 million in working capital through donations and grants

www.workingwaterfront.com . April 2021

15

Peaks Island soliciting developers for senior facility Recent survey showed strong interest in assisted living

By Tom Groening

W

hen asked, most say that aging at home or aging in an assisted living facility near home are the preferred options.

But what if home is on an island, with limited health services, let alone an assisted living facility?

A group of Peaks islanders is working to change that status. Chris and Barbara Hoppin, both 78, islanders who are doing leg work for the idea, say a survey they and about 20 others created showed interest in a facility.

“There’s a need,” Chris Hoppin said.

Chris is retired from a communications and PR career in the computer industry, and Barbara was a teacher and principal for Portland’s island schools.

Both year-round and seasonal residents were surveyed, and the results were encouraging enough for the group to begin working to get a developer interested in building and operating an assisted living facility.

According to the U.S. Census, all 75 million baby boomers will be 65 or older by 2030. This aging segment of the population is thinking about those final years, and so are their children.

The island, which is part of the city of Portland, has about 950 year-round residents and as many as 4,000 parttime or vacation visitors in summer, Hoppin notes.

Though the island hosts the Fay Garman House, a senior residence with 11 one-bedroom apartments, built almost 20 years ago, residents at that facility must have low or moderate income, and must be able to live independently, which has led to people moving to the mainland for assisted living housing options.

The Garman House facility is run

by Volunteers of America, a nonprofit

which provides housing to low-income people throughout the U.S. “They’re good people,” Hoppin said of the organization, but more units are needed, and income should not be a limiting factor in a new facility.

“We do want to make it available to everyone,” he said.

In 2018, the island committee researching the assisted living facility enlisted the help of Nell Houde, the Island Fellow working on Peaks (through the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront). Houde worked with the committee to host focus groups and then developed a thorough survey to measure the need for assisted living on Peaks.

Of the 461 responding to the webbased and in-person survey, which was sent to all year-round and seasonal islanders, 161 expressed interest in an assisted living facility on the island.

Other details gleaned from the analysis of the survey results are: • 37 percent of respondents were between the age of 65 and 84 • Half of respondents were retired • 71 percent live on-island the majority of the year • 16 percent live on the island in summer • 13 percent are on the island less than two months a year The survey showed 69 percent indicated they were concerned about the ability to stay on-island as they age, with concerns about the time and effort it takes to get to Portland for medical appointments.

A key question addressed how respondents would choose to age on the island, with multiple answers allowed:

A spring scene on the Peaks Island shore and a couple roll their suitcase off the ferry and onto Peaks Island. FILE PHOTO: TOM GROENING

• 69 percent said in their homes with in-home assistance • 34 percent said in an assisted living facility • 33 percent said a senior-friendly apartment complex • 13 percent said off-island The group has not developed estimates on what the costs might be for residents of such a facility, Hoppin said. The profiles of potential users, he believes, ranges from life-long islanders, to parents of islanders who live out of state. It’s possible, too, that those with no ties to the island may be interested.

“The city of Portland is behind this,” Hoppin said, “because they try to treat

Peaks like other neighborhoods in the city, and they try establish amenities in each.”

One conclusion the committee arrived at is that if a facility is built, “you’ve got to be able to expand it,” Hoppin said.

The committee worked in 2019 and 2020 to identify a developer and operator for a facility, though the pandemic slowed the effort.

“We do remain confident that we can find an enterprise to build and operate a Peaks Island assisted living facility,” Hoppin said. The group is urging anyone with contacts to have them reach out to the committee at choppin@aol.com.

16

The Working Waterfront . April 2021

Guest Column

Federal flood insurance evolved, but not for the best Congress has taken a piecemeal approach to a worsening problem

By Steve Whitney IN THE FEBRUARY/MARCH ISSUE of The Working Waterfront, Peter Neill of the World Ocean Observatory suggested using flood insurance premiums to reduce risk instead of repeatedly rebuilding damaged structures (“Rethinking insurance as investment, not pay-out”).

The concept of diverting insurance premiums to reduce loss instead of replacing loss has merit. Reducing flood hazard risks has been a goal and responsibility of federal, state, and local governments for several decades. The concept needs to be evaluated by looking at the detailed history and lessons of flood insurance.

For more than 50 years flood insurance has been provided through a federal program known as the National Flood Insurance Program, created by the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968. This law was adopted following increased losses from hurricane damage in Gulf states and the decision by private insurance companies to abandon the flood insurance market, leaving only a few private insurers willing to cover increasing risks.

The law was meant to provide federally subsidized flood insurance for structures and personal property in communities that adopt federally approved minimal flood hazard regulations and reduce flood damage by constricting development through state and local government regulation of floodplains.

The program has been amended several times since then. The Flood Hazard Protection Act of 1973 made purchase of flood insurance mandatory in certain special flood areas. In 1982 the program was amended by the Coastal Barrier Resources Act identifying areas on barrier islands to be ineligible for flood insurance.

The National Flood Insurance Reform Act of 1994 created mitigation insurance and a Flood

Mitigation Assistance Program for states and communities. The next round of that program’s funding announced in the fall of 2020 has made available $200 million for mitigation.

In 2004 the Flood Insurance Reform Act was adopted to reduce repetitive flood insurance payments. The act noted that about 48,000 homes had experienced two or more losses within a 10-year period. The act preamble noted that 10,000 homes had experienced losses greater than their assessed value.

The Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 amended the program to raise insurance premiums to reflect the true risk of living in flood areas. As of 2014 the costs exceed premiums by $20 billion. This program debt is the ultimate responsibility of Congress and thus the U.S. taxpayer, not the insurance pool.

Following hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, Congress passed the Homeowners Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2013 which amended some of the previous premium adjustments by reducing premiums for some properties.

Other federal government programs have been involved with floodplain and coastal hazard mitigation for decades. Congress continues to appropriate funds at the recommendation of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build levees along many of the major rivers in the U.S. and has to date spent $7.9 trillion on beach nourishments (most notably $1.7 trillion on 262 miles of beaches in Florida since 1935 and $1.4 trillion on 95 miles of beaches in New Jersey since 1936).

From 1998 to 2014 the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) spent $48.6 billion appropriated by Congress to replace/repair public buildings, public utilities, roads, bridges, and flood control structures. Probably the best-known

flood control system is the one designed to protect New Orleans.

The federal mitigation programs are spread across many agencies each responsible to Congress under separate laws. Most mitigation projects—whether a beach fill, a levee, or a sea wall—have a short design life of a few years to a few decades. They have to be maintained, repetitively repaired, or replaced.

The design trend has been for bigger, stronger, and more costly solutions to keep up with greater flooding and rising sea levels.

Congress has tried to address development in floodplains by balancing the competing interests of people who want to live in flood hazard areas and the shared public costs to accommodate them. The piecemeal federal solutions have created numerous large independent agencies addressing specific symptoms without defining and addressing the true common purpose and public costs.

More people now live in flood hazard areas than before federal flood insurance. Public costs of accommodation have increased with more development. Public solutions involve numerous special interest groups, including residents and business owners who want to stay in the short term in these hazardous areas, along with coastal engineers, geologists, environmental and taxpayer groups who understand that erosion, flooding, and the sea will eventually win.

The public debate about flood insurance, hazard mitigation, continued loss of property, increasing flood risks, and rising accommodation costs is complex and difficult.

We are far from solving this “investment” dilemma.

Steve Whitney is a retired geologist who lives on Little Deer Isle.

A Maine power company: possible and practical Put electricity back into the hands of ratepayers

By Sam May AS MAINE grapples with decarbonizing its economy to meet ambitious climate mitigation goals, I urge us to think big and consider what a statewide, ratepayerowned electric utility could do to aid us in our quest.

Electric utilities are natural monopolies. More than 100 years ago we had competing companies and a jumble of lines running down public rights of way. It was too chaotic and wasteful, so we, the state, granted monopolies in exchange for a set of service provisions.

The state of Maine grants a monopoly to Central Maine Power and Versant in exchange for reliability, affordability, and availability. Maine has the constitutional right to place those assets in different hands. It is our decision, and ours alone.

We are legally required to ensure that regulated, natural monopolies be strong financially, so we link their profits to what they have to pay for “capital.” The rates we pay are largely determined by this “cost of capital.”

Cost of capital has two components—the cost of equity and the cost of debt. Equity is provided by shareholders in exchange for ownership and payment of dividends. Debt is what the company borrows from banks and then repays as principal and interest over a defined period of time. An investor-owned utility (IOU) has a cost of capital of 8 percent to 10 percent.

A ratepayer, or consumer-owned utility (COU) has debt, but no equity, and its debt comes at a much

lower cost than an IOU, mostly because it is exempt from federal income taxes and because repayment is based on the reliable revenues of people paying their electricity bills.

These features mean that a new, ratepayer-owned Maine power company can access funds at less than half the cost for CMP and Versant. Let me say that again.

A Maine COU can finance the purchase of both CMP and Versant, conduct normal operations, and, most importantly, build out its network, all at a cost less than half what we pay for an IOU. This is a huge savings of billions of dollars and one that cannot be overlooked.

Our two primary electric transmission and distribution companies, CMP and Versant, are IOUs. CMP is owned by Avangrid, which is owned by Iberdrola, a Spanish global conglomerate. Two of Iberdrola’s largest shareholders are the sovereign wealth funds of Qatar and Norway.

We pay Qatar and Norway U.S. dollars for oil and they buy assets here in Maine that pay guaranteed rates of return. It is a great financial recycling operation!

The other monopoly provider in Maine, Versant, is also foreign owned by ENMAX from Calgary, Canada. ENMAX is the privatized former city of Calgary electric company. It is 100 percent owned by the city of Calgary and pays a yearly dividend of approximately $40 million to Calgary.

CMP and Versant produce large profits. Our ratepayers’ hard-earned dollars generate wealth for

Iberdrola’s shareholders and the citizens of Calgary.

It need not be so. Maine has the constitutional right to place those assets in different hands. Of course, the law has to be followed and fair compensation paid to CMP and Versant shareholders.

This is the backdrop as Maine addresses climate change. Recently, Dr. Richard Silkman published “Pathway to a Zero-Carbon Economy by 2050,” a report that shows a complete de-carbonization of Maine’s economy will require a significant increase in electrons moving along the state’s power poles.

We have gotten to the important consideration. We will need a major upgrade to our electric distribution network and that will cost a fair penny. CMP and Versant will do that if required and they will charge an arm and a leg. Their cost of capital will make sure we pay a lot, and their shareholders will be thrilled.

A ratepayer-owned utility, exempt from federal income taxes with no shareholders to return profits to, only ratepayers to represent, will keep money in Maine, address climate change, build out our network, and treat customers responsibly.

Now, is that not a big step in the right direction?

Sam May is a former Wall Street analyst with experience in both Silicon Valley and Hong Kong. He lives in Portland and is co-founder of Maine Harvest Federal Credit Union.

www.workingwaterfront.com . April 2021

17

World Ocean Observatory Designing the Places where you want to be.

The ocean as natural capital

A different economic analysis is in order now For your legacy home

By Peter Neill STANDING ONSHORE, we perceive the ocean as locality, the curve of the beach, the limit of the harbor, and as universality, the infinite inclusion beyond a distant horizon. We can look at the calculation of value in a similar way. We can understand capital as a monetized measure of value, in currency or bitcoin or corporate shares, established through an equation of research and production cost, price, and profit.

It is a calculation of the value of goods, and sometimes services, which is the lifeblood of our global economy—raw material things, built things, traded things—in a cycle of speculation and return. But this is a localized calculation, fundamentally circumscribed by what it leaves in, and, most importantly, by what it leaves out, factors that do exist, but beyond the horizon.

There is such a thing as “natural capital” and there is a growing movement to understand key missing elements in order to understand the true cost of things in the context of both financial and social outcomes; thus, the true price we pay over time is suddenly inclusive of the cost of obsolescence, waste, irreplaceable raw materials, workforce health, and community impact on measures of human well-being.

These things, with real financial valuation, become serious considerations in terms of investment prospectus, development cost, private and public decision-making, and estimated return.

Natural capital is formally defined as “the stock of renewable and non-renewable natural resources— energy, plants, animals, air, wind, water, soils, and minerals”—that must also be included in any benefit analysis of production, its actual cost, and its real consequence for human benefit worldwide, all now mostly over1looked and left out of the equation.

There is a growing movement, a natural capital approach, that is a means for identifying and quantifying natural resources and associated ecosystem goods and services, as well as a system of ecosystem accounting that is a statistical, numerical means to track the extent and condition of ecosystems affected by conventional investment.

Suddenly, we have the capacity to see beyond the horizon and understand the full integration of traditional capital and natural capital, just as we now understand an integrated economy, across the sea that connects all things.

Let me describe two hypothetical examples, suggested from local experience. The first involves two major aquaculture plants for salmon production proposed for two towns some 25 miles apart along the Maine coast.

One is a closed-circuit system, processing salt water from the adjacent harbor, filtering and extracting by-products for off-site disposal, proposed on the site of a derelict paper mill, bankrupted and abandoned as a result of market competition with the loss of some 300 jobs and serious decrease in property tax revenue.

The second uses similar technology, but extracts water from the local aquifer, proposed for an inland, undeveloped site with comparable production

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Both are subject to strict and timeconsuming municipal and state review for environmental permits. The first gets permitted and welcomed; the second is delayed and opposed by town residents fearful of the impact on ground water, aquifer supply, and effluent.

The difference can be reduced to value of social impact, the positive financial outcomes measured against the potential threat to a key natural resource. The second calculation under ecosystem accounting would have included the value of the potential loss, the devasting impact on the community of an over-stressed water supply, and the financials would inevitably be different even though the projects appear similar on the surface.

The second example involves the harvest of seaweed, where I live rapidly becoming a smallscale ocean-dependent business opportunity for new workers or for additional revenue for fishers during their closed seasons. Again, two approaches: one operated by a foreign company, providing a boat and tools to day workers, paid for maximum volume generated by cutting or scraping the weed near or at its base, limiting its rejuvenation and future growth; the other operated by individual fishers with their own equipment, again paid by volume but limited to cuttings no deeper that 16 inches above weed base, allowing for quick renewal and sustainable future harvest.

Ecosystem accounting would incorporate the potential of continuing harvest in its analysis that would inform policy makers and regulators to prohibit one approach and encourage the other.

Water and weeds, enterprise and profit: locality sustained, universality expressed as policy and natural value as a new entry on the capital balance sheet.

Peter Neill is director of the World Ocean Observatory, which produces weekly radio essays heard on WERU-FM, 89.9, on podcast at apple.com/us/podcast/world-oceanradio/id425361249, and at http://www. worldoceanobservatory.org/world-oceanradio. He lives in Sedgwick.

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The Working Waterfront . April 2021

Saltwater Cure

Food is an anchor of normalcy

What will historians make of our culinary challenges?

By Courtney Naliboff IT’S VERY CLOSE to the one-year anniversary of “quarantimes” as I write this column.

On March 13, 2020, our students had their last day of in-person school for the year, although we didn’t know it at the time. We shut everything down— for two weeks, then for a month, then for the rest of the school year.

We hoped for a normal summer, and instead we got takeout pizza and outdoor cocktail parties. We made it through the summer without any cases, only to have an outbreak in November.

The mask mandate extended to outdoor visits.

School went remote again, then resumed. I missed Thanksgiving with my parents and siblings for the first time ever. Bill, Penrose, and I spent Chanukah and Christmas as a tight family unit, without the usual latke feast or trip to California.

This winter, I started doing a little exhibit card writing for the North

Haven Historical Society. Lydia Brown, the executive director, reached out to several island writers to see if we’d be interested, and I set aside some time over February break to do the work, poring through documents to come up with a few succinct paragraphs about music, food preservation, and cooking on the island.

I read diaries and interviews from the 1890s through the mid-20th century. I devoured fellow columnist Sandy Oliver’s gorgeous book Saltwater Foodways. I marveled at the minutiae of life captured next to the major events: brown bread and stewed beef for dinner in one entry, the death of a young sibling in the next.

Food—prices, quantities, and whole menus—was rigorously documented.

Was there any sense of posterity in those journals? That in 50 years, or 100, someone would be creating museum installations to reflect the gooseberry preserves, pickled greens, and smoked mackerel carefully stored for the winter in cellars and smokehouses?

I thought about that as I scrolled through Instagram, from an aesthetically pleasing chili crisp-topped bowl of noodles, to a crackly sourdough boule, to a tray of scones, to an enticing box of citrus.

Food, prepared at home, became an emotional touchstone during the pandemic. It couldn’t replace meals with friends, or nights out at favorite restaurants, but it could give us a measure of control and excitement. And, like our island predecessors, we rigorously documented meals, what was out of stock at the grocery store (the panic we felt when the shelves were empty of flour!), and our gardens, which many of us planted for the first time.

As we look back on the pantries, cellars, larders, and tables of the previous two centuries, I wonder how future islanders will look back on our culinary forays. As I noted the shortage of sugar during World War I, documented in Winnie Ames’ diary, will others note the flour shortage and draw their own conclusions? What will

historians make of our obsession with sourdough? Although our homecooked food often has a global influence, will they be able to identify a 21st century North Haven foodway? What about the presence of our farms, and the crops and livestock they choose to grow?

How will their offerings be analyzed?

We don’t always recognize the significance of the time we’re living in, or living through, but the last year has been obviously significant in so many ways. Although we might give ourselves an ironic wink when we carefully light and photograph our meals, check food blogs for the latest news, or make that Tik Tok feta pasta, future historians may very well posthumously offer thanks for the record we’re keeping of this unique and challenging time.

Courtney Naliboff teaches music, theater, and writing on North Haven.

Journal of an Island Kitchen

The whole story on scallops

Emerging growers look to market for entire shellfish

By Sandy Oliver MUSSELS USED TO grow nearby on rocks at the water’s edge, and now there aren’t many at all. And it was getting harder about 25 years ago, but we used to dig clams out of a tidal flat just down the road, enough for a meal of steamers. No more.

It’s a good thing this household doesn’t depend on foraged food to survive. Our taste, though, for mussels, clams, and oysters hasn’t diminished.

My niece stripped the last wild gathered mussels we had—fat, sweet, and pearl-free—off mooring lines when she worked for one of the boatyards.

Those presaged the mussel aquaculture operation the same boatyard’s establishment created a short while ago in West Penobscot Bay. We can buy Josh and Shey Conover’s wonderful mussels from them directly or at an island market; a little easier than wading around, slipping on rockweed, but not as much fun in summer.

Meanwhile, close to Warren’s Island, Gene Cartright grows magnificent oysters, beloved raw by many, but not me.

So far, the canny know where to find clams, but of course, green crabs figured that out, too, and clams, over the past few decades, became pricey fare. A few years ago I counted the fried clams in a pint, divided the number into the price

Most of us aren’t used to the idea of of the serving and calculated I spent a whole scallop and need guidance, so $1.29 each. I think it was worth it.

Then there are scallops. In East Marnie Crowell picked up the chalPenobscot Bay, near Stonington, lenge and, working with professional Marsden Brewer with his son, Bob, have chef Barton Seaver, assembled a how-to manual for cooking with them. Recipe established PenBay Farmed Scallops.

Lots of us love those plump, round, Ideas for Farm Sea Scallops, The Whole white adductor muscles that most of Story (chuckle, chuckle) is full of beautiful pictures and narraus think of as scallops. tive recipes—that is, A kind of winter luxury, instructions in sentence typically harvested from Lots of us love and paragraph form with December to April, and embedded, instead of shucked at sea; only the those plump, listed ingredient amounts. muscle is sold to cooks. round, white Accomplished cooks and We read about diverscallops, and the damage adductor muscles professionals will appreciate the handbook; newer that scallop draggers that most of cooks might be challenged cause to the ocean floors, us think of as by the format. and scallops, along with Marnie included an awful lot of fish and scallops. suggestions for how to shellfish, are regulated cook various sized scallops to avoid overfishing. from the tiny so-called So farm-raised scallops certainly look like a good alternative, princess, to the medium queens, and or as Marsden diplomatically points larger kings. Drawing on Mediterranean out, a helpful and non-competitive and Asian traditions with scallops, addition to the scallop fishery. Besides, pairing them up with various cheeses, scallop farming offers some interesting using pasta, or modifying other shellfish recipes to use scallops, Marnie’s recipe culinary opportunities to boot.

Farm-raised scallops can be eaten ideas were helpful as I worked my way whole, once you pinch out the little through a generous assemblage of scalblack digestive gland close to the lops Marsden kindly supplied me with.

I made stuffed scallops out of some of adductor. Steamed, the mantle and gills curl into a frill around the muscle the largest, saving the adductor muscle for a favorite orzo, feta, and scallop and add flavor.

dish. I chopped the steamed mantles with breadcrumbs and herbs and spices, then baked them. Gosh, they were good. Some of the whole smaller scallops made with a kind of Alfredo sauce on pasta turned out beautifully.

How to acquire Marnie’s manual?

Order it on the PenBay Farmed Scallops website.

So far, the best way to acquire PenBay scallops is to pre-order them.

Marsden writs: “Whole scallops are all pre-ordered and available at Glidden Point Oyster in Edgecomb and Gulf of Maine Sashimi in Portland. Both places can ship. People in Eastern Maine can pre-order from the growers by calling 367-5100 for pickup in Stonington.”

Until the pandemic struck, PenBay hoped for scallop sales to restaurants, but it became clear they needed as customers home cooks, too.

My bet? You’ll eat your first scallop when you dine out after COVID. You’ll like it a whole lot and will want to cook them at home. PenBay Farmed Scallops, and other emerging scallop farmers will gradually ramp up production and they won’t be a rarity anymore.

Sandy Oliver gardens, cooks, and writes on Islesboro.

www.workingwaterfront.com . April 2021

19

On the record with...

Tom Meyers of the Waterfront Alliance

By Frances Mize

T

om Meyers has spent his professional life as an active member of working waterfronts. After serving in the U.S. Coast Guard for 28 years and as the head of the Portland base, Meyers then spent 13 years as a transportation and waterfront coordinator for the city of South Portland.

While a senior officer in the Coast Guard, he was an ad hoc member of the Waterfront Alliance, a nonprofit devoted to protecting the Port of Portland and advocating for the working waterfronts of South Portland and Portland. Now, he’s the chair of the executive committee. Following decades of work in diverse capacities along the waterfront, Tom Meyers is spending his time in the community facilitating conversations. And he isn’t afraid of the tough ones.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Working Waterfront: So why have you stuck around with the Waterfront Alliance for so long, through so many changes?

Tom Meyers: Frankly it’s a great way to stay connected with a lot of people I worked with and came to respect in the industry. A lot of the folks that continue to participate are very active in the working waterfront in some form, so you’re constantly seeing the same faces in different venues.

In the Waterfront Alliance, we’ve got a wide range of people together, asking “What is a topical interest for all the kinds of stakeholders on the working waterfront?” That has become the strength of the organization. We aren’t shy about contentious issues or things that are hard to talk about, and we approach them in a collegial way.

I have no dog in any hunt now. I’m not an advocate for anything in particular other than bringing people together to talk.

WW: One of the tenets of the Waterfront Alliance is to “promote inclusive conversations on waterfront and harbor issues.” What does inclusivity in this case mean?

TM: Maine is all about connections and people, and not “who you know” so much as the fact that you recognize someone, who they are and what they represent. I do this because I think it keeps the right

PHOTO: COURTESY TOM MEYERS

people connected. You know who’s who in the zoo.

I don’t know everybody, but I know someone who knows everybody.

If you’ve got a finger that’s going to touch salt water either in South Portland or Portland, you’re included.

If you don’t have a finger that’s going to touch salt water, you’re still included. What we’ve realized is how much of what happens on the working waterfront impacts the rest of the community and the state.

WW: What’s going on with dredging along the Casco Bay piers?

TM: For lots of different reasons, those finger piers outside of the federal channel have become increasingly inaccessible at certain ranges of tide.

So the Alliance involved the Casco Bay Estuary Partnership and some others to help us identify some

options for dredging. Most of the dredging was going to have some sort of contaminant in it, so we knew we would have to find a cost-effective, environmentally friendly way to dispose of these dredge spoils.

Also, access to the water on the working waterfront is precious, by whatever type of vessel needs it to do the work for which they are intended: trawlers, lobster boats, cruise ships, pleasure craft, ferry. That’s why these non-federal dredging efforts alongside piers and wharves in Portland are so important.

Our goal is to bring the right people together to talk about it, and then let them figure out the next steps. So really, management of the dredge project got handed off to the board of the harbor commission.

WW: How is aquaculture being integrated into Portland?

TM: This is where this interview is kind of goofy. I just know someone who knows someone in aquaculture.

I don’t know jack about aquaculture!

We’ve had meetings about the state of the aquaculture industry and the state of regulations surrounding aquaculture. Patrick Arnold from the New England Ocean Cluster was our speaker recently. We just asked, “What do you need to make this happen? Is it a space issue? Is it a policy issue? What is it that you need?”

When I read that there’s great conflict, say between property owners and aquaculturists, or fishermen and aquaculturists, I would say that if they talked it out in a reasonable way, they would realize they probably have some shared interests. There’s some stickiness there. But my sense is that the way to approach the issue is asking, “What are you trying to do and is there a way we can do it together?”

WW: What to you does an ideal, healthy working waterfront look like?

TM: Compatibility between the ideals of the community and the ideals of the commerce. The success of a working waterfront is its diversity, and its flexibility to be able to pivot so that it can do the things that keep it sustainable.

20

The Working Waterfront . April 2021

Field Notes

Coast and islands will continue to lead The work that succeeds starts with relationships

By Rob Snyder EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO, I sat for the first time on the rugged granite backside of Frenchboro, marveling at the power of the tides and the open water extending to the horizon. I appreciated then, as I do now, that I was there because of the relationships that preceded me and that will last beyond me.

I learned early on that the opportunity to serve the islands and the coast was a privilege made possible through island and coastal leaders’ shared commitment to work together and with the Island Institute. We share a passion for looking to the horizon and figuring out what it will mean to prepare for change.

The pandemic that is devastating island and coastal communities is the latest of many challenges that will impact the coast. Climate change, mitigating the threat of right whale extinction, offshore wind development, and an increasing lack of affordability are just a few of the many more issues that will challenge the coast.

Time and again, community leaders educate legislators, access our funding have shown their courage, creativity, base, translate the data, share information, and provide techand willingness to adapt nical assistance and seed and innovate in the face of funding. This is how we seemingly terrible odds. help build community The Island Institute has This is how from the sea up. and will continue to focus In May, I begin a new on working with those we help build career as the first culture who seek to innovate in community from and sustainability officer the face of these chalon ACME Smoked Fish’s lenges. And as a result, the sea up. executive team. ACME the coast will thrive.

SF is a fast-growing Coastal communities global seafood company are providing a roadmap based in Brooklyn, for high-speed broadband for the state. Energy efficiency N.Y. At ACME SF, I will be working and micro-grid solutions for highly with stakeholders from across the remote communities are being devel- U.S., Chile, and Denmark to address oped in Maine and exported to remote climate change, ocean conservation, communities across the U.S. Our coast and community goals in each place in showed the nation the importance of which the company has a presence.

It is a big, complicated new chalpreserving working waterfronts. The lenge, as exciting to me as the goal I examples are endless and inspiring.

The Island Institute has been an essen- set long ago of creating a world-class tial partner in bringing these solutions to community development organization life. When these issues are complex and to serve the coast and islands of Maine.

The Maine coast and islands benefit impact multiple communities, we build the networks, host the conversations, from deep, meaningful and trusting

relationships. These relationships extend across communities; they are generations deep and supported by a global network of families who experience the Maine coast as home. I am excited to see how the islands and coast continue to emerge as a symbol for making the world a better place for all to live, work, and raise children.

Please accept my sincere gratitude for the opportunity to serve as the president of the Island Institute. Thank you for the time and commitment you made to help me learn all that was required to contribute to your vision for a vibrant coast.

The Island Institute board of trustees is conducting a national search to determine the next president. Rob Beams, the organization’s COO, will act as the interim president until the search concludes.

Fathoming

A science-based reality check

Gulf of Maine faces dire consequences—responses must come now

By Susie Arnold THE PAST YEAR has been tumultuous to say the least. Typically, as I begin to write this month’s column, I am at the Maine Fishermen’s Forum in a large conference room sitting shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of others who care about Maine’s fisheries and their future. That can’t happen this year, and there is more to discuss than ever.

Climate change, caused by excess emissions, is the root cause of so many of the issues facing the fishing industry— right whale rules, offshore wind, more frequent and intense storms, coastal flooding, ocean acidification, invasive species, and warming-induced changes in species distribution, abundance, and behavior.

Since the Maine Climate Council was created in June 2019, hundreds of citizens have served on working groups to develop a plan to mitigate and adapt to climate change. I am on the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee (STS) as well as the Coastal and Marine Working Group and have been working with dozens of other scientists to share the state of the science on ocean climate change in the Gulf of Maine and recommend priority actions. Some of these recommendations are before the legislature this session.

Under all emissions scenarios, the The science and technical group documented impacts to date and looked warming trend will continue at least ahead to what the Gulf of Maine might through 2050. Worst case scenarios for be like in 2050—now less than 30 years 2050 put us at 4.3 degree F above the away. I think in terms of what my son 1976-2005 baseline, which would put us will experience when he is just 33. Even on average nearly a degree above the 2012 if he doesn’t make his living on or from heatwave. A warm year in this climate would produce condithe ocean, changes tions along the coast on the coastline will akin to Rhode Island be obvious. and New Jersey.

Under the interThe committee These conditions mediate scenario of sea level rise (not recommended the state have major implications for species. even accounting for manage for 1.5 feet Herring, cod, and increased frequency of sea level rise, but Calanus finmarof storms), flooding prepare for 3 feet. chicus (the copepod will increase ten-fold at the base of the from what we expefood web and the rience today. The major food source committee recommended the state commit to manage for endangered North Atlantic right for 1.5 feet of sea level rise by 2050, whales) would continue to decline. but prepare for 3 feet. Without action, Lobster landings projections out to under the 1.5 foot scenario, we can 2050 suggest a decline from the record expect $17.5 billion in coastal damage landings of the last several years; if with 21,000 coastal jobs lost. Twenty-six temperatures Downeast exceed those miles of public roads would be flooded. of southern New England, we need Those who hope to be making a living only to look south of Cape Cod to forefrom the Gulf of Maine in 2050 will be cast the future of our lobster fishery.

Globally, the world’s surface ocean faced with a changed ecosystem unless we take urgent action. Ocean tempera- pH has decreased from 8.2 to 8.1, a 30 ture has been the warmest on record percent increase in acidity, most of which over the last decade, with 2012 and has occurred in the last 70 years. Further 2016 standing out as marine heatwaves. reductions in ocean pH are expected,

ranging from 0.05-0.33 pH units by 2100, depending upon emissions scenarios.

It’s not yet clear how conditions in the Gulf of Maine will deviate from these global estimates. What is clear is that the combination of global and local drivers of acidification in the Northeast make Maine’s shellfisheries among the most vulnerable to ocean acidification in the U.S. Unfortunately, I could go on with grim news about invasive species, marine diseases, harmful algal blooms, and reduced primary production. My intent is not to bring you to despair, but to encourage you to act to preserve Maine’s ocean and coast.

Climate change is the top threat to our coastal economy. Please join me in voicing support for the prioritization of science-based decision making to reduce the severity of these climate impacts on Maine’s marine ecosystems so we can ensure fisheries are a robust part of that economy going forward.

Susie Arnold is a marine scientist with the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront. She holds a masters degree in marine policy and a doctoral degree in marine biology from the University of Maine.

www.workingwaterfront.com . April 2021

21

Cranberry Report

Island life through eyes of COVID refugees Virus has brought new winter neighbors to Islesford

By Barbara Fernald WHEN ANDREI POGANY, his wife Deborah Gorman, and their two young daughters, Klara and Amalia came from Los Angeles to stay on Islesford last September, they planned to be here for about three months. The island internet was fast enough to work from home and Klara could start her L.A. kindergarten via “Zoom school.”

A friend suggested they see if Klara could go to the Ashley Bryan School with the seven other children from the island. It was easy. There are only two students in the older grades and the other five are concentrated in kindergarten and second grade. Klara would fit right in. Andrei described to me how great it was to get to see their daughter running and skipping down the road to school every day, a happy child during a pandemic.

Andrei’s business is Pogany Architecture. He has been busy working from home as clients look to redesign areas to accommodate home offices and grandparent spaces. Deborah is the chef and co-founder of SorBabes, a gourmet sorbet company. Other than a few trips to check on “factory stuff,” Deborah has been able to do her work from the island as well. When little

Amalia learned to walk they knew they The mundanity of March can be revitalneeded to find part-time child care. ized by something as simple as a fresh When COVID prevented my niece perspective. I am intrigued to learn that and her boyfriend from safely taking a in L.A., people rarely think about the cross-country road trip, they stayed on weather. Andrei is surprised by how for the winter at her father’s Islesford much more connected they feel to the house. She easily took on the job of environment here where wind direction and temperature caring for Amalia. can determine where As the virus numbers they take a family walk climbed in other parts on a breezy day. of the country, Andrei Andrei and Deborah One of the things and Deborah decided decided it would be that fascinates Andrei it would be wise to stay is something I never on the island all winter wise to stay on the even think about: if they could work it island all winter…

“There are walls of out. The only problem lobster traps everywas that the family where!” It’s true. Many house had already been of the island lobster rented for January, February, and March of this year. They fishermen take their traps out of found a winter rental and “moved into the water for the winter, stacking town” to stay until April. Another new 800 traps in rows in their yards. I‘ve neglected to notice how different the island living experience.

When I walk by their house I look for landscape is because it’s so familiar.

Andrei and Deborah at work, through Deborah likes the feeling of self-suffitheir window. “Hi!” I wave. When I ciency that comes with island living. see them there I remember renting At the same time, she appreciates that the house across the street from them, people here will help you find a soluwith my brother, during my very first tion when you need it. When Deborah winter on the island. Their home office wanted to experiment with some new used to be the island post office until it recipes, she put a message out on the was moved to the store owned by Alice Cranberry Isles Information Page Lake in 1977. I smile at the memory. on Facebook. Did anyone have an

ice cream maker she could borrow?

We did. There would be a new sorbet product to try in exchange.

When they needed a baby gate, Lindsay had one to borrow. When the students needed a break from Zoom art classes, Andrei stepped in to teach art classes on Mondays.

It’s been wonderful having a new family on the island for the winter. Even with the limitations of COVID, they have become a part of the island social scene. Last week as Bruce and I were walking up the road from the dock, Andrei was headed down the road, earbuds in and phone in hand. He said, “Sunset board meeting. They’re still at work in L.A.” His whole demeanor said to me, “Can you believe I get to have a client meeting while walking to capture the best light of the day on Islesford?”

Yes, I can, but thanks for reminding me. I forget sometimes just how special it is to spend the winter on Islesford.

Barbara Fernald lives on Islesford (Little Cranberry Island).

Observer

Walking back the memories

Island foot tour conjures another way of life

By Phil Crossman I SUPPOSE THIS is a little island. I mean, look at Greenland. On the other hand, Vinalhaven is the same size as Manhattan and it is the largest island in Penobscot Bay. Still, in the scheme of things or if one lives here for eons and is in the habit of walking a couple of miles each afternoon, it’s a small island.

Today’s walk took me down Clam Shell Alley where, at one end, right in the busy downtown area, I lived as a toddler. Although my Mom’s family came here in the 1700s, she had the bad form to go all the way to Massachusetts—let’s keep it to ourselves—to find and marry a suitable man, then bring him and me as a fouryear-old back here to the island.

Today, as I passed by the Sand Bar, our only real pub, I gazed up at the second floor where we first lived and where, from the bedroom I shared with my two-year-old brother, I gazed out fondly at Barbara White who, even at three, I recognized as strikingly beautiful.

It was a memorable place to live for anyone opened the door or invited him several reasons. There was a lion under in. He came right through the living my bed, for example, one that only put room and into the kitchen, opened the in an appearance after I’d been put to ice box door, took out what remained bed, stories told, and lights turned out. of the old block, put it in the sink, Then, as I lay waiting for the inevitable, replaced it with the new one, and left. and only after my younger brother had Sometimes my Mom or my brother or gone to sleep, it shifted under my bed, me or all of us were there at the table having breakfast in made some stretching which case he was very and yawning noises and friendly and engaged crawled out, looking up with us all. Other times and over its shoulder at he simply did his busime as it did so, as if in He came right ness and left. acknowledgement. through the living Once, every few days, Eventually, although my brother and I were I did wonder what it room and into the given a bath in a big ate, I grew accustomed kitchen, opened the clawfoot tub. A wash to it and each morning line from the bathroom ice box door…

I told my Mom—and window stretched to Dad if I got up before a nearby tree, over in he went to work—that Barbara’s yard. A little the lion had again come pulley allowed the out to snoop around the line to be advanced or bedroom.

Every few days the iceman came. He returned as one after another piece of carried a big block of ice up the stairs wash was hung or retrieved.

I walked up over the hill and on for with a huge pair of cast-iron tongs, knocked and then entered before another mile or so passing a small

house where we’d moved when I was six. In this much more rural environment, we had a neighborhood, and playmates. And we had an outhouse, such an extraordinary novelty, at the edge of the backyard where, at night, we could only visit accompanied.

We also had another brother, an infant and he occupied the top drawer of a substantial dresser in my folk’s room. Once, when he was being very annoying, I tried to close the drawer, but my folks had blocked the drawer from being moved in either direction as if anticipating…

Mom hung her wash on a line at the back door, also with a pulley and also attached to a tree. Standing next to her on the back doorstep, I once— only once—bit her, quite badly, on the bottom.

Phil Crossman lives on Vinalhaven.

22

The Working Waterfront . April 2021

Downeast ‘oasis’ marketed for urban dwellers High-end project eyed for Robbinston in Washington County

By Lora Whelan

Robbinston. Weather that isn’t too harsh, pris- but most likely from the northeast and possibly from tine lakefront, land for agriculture, and access to California and Florida. He sees a market for “people high-end housing development is being thriving nearby communities such as Eastport and like me who aren’t going to go homesteading but like that lifestyle, particularly in summer.” planned for a 1,000-acre peninsula on St. Andrews were all draws.

Despite the website’s language about the remote Merriwood will sell 44 lots that are configured Howard Lake in Robbinston. Merriwood Sustainable Community is described on its website to protect the shoreline and the quality of the lake’s and secure nature of the location, Solomon stresses as “just beyond the edge of the paved world—a water, he explains. About 80 percent of the land will that Merriwood would in no way be a community vibrant and comfortable oasis nestled within the be in a conservation easement. Along with the 44 for “preppers” or people who want a survivalist way splendor of the Maine wilderness. Completely off houses will be a lodge, farmer manager’s house, and of life. A marketing firm is handling outreach to a guest house for homeowners who prospective buyers. the beaten path and remote enough Chad Allen of the town planning board notes that have overflow, along with a barn and to be secure, Merriwood is within outbuildings. Solomon says only the property tax revenue “would be phenomenal,” as easy reach of all of the benefits of much as $600,000. Public meetings will be schedlodge will be visible from the lake. civilization.”

Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors Magazine The development should create uled when a formal plan has been submitted.

The founder and partner behind In addition to town review, the Department of some short- and long-term employMerriwood is Randall Solomon, a He sees a market ment, says Solomon, during Environmental Protection will have to issue permits. specialist in sustainability who has for “people like me Solomon also hopes to hold a public open house construction, and ongoing with worked with local governments over of sorts maintenance, repair, pay groundskeea 20-year career.

Living in New Jersey, very carefully, checking especially for spelling, grammatical, and factual errors. Please close attention to for local residents to learn about the who aren’t going to project.

He hopes to start residential construcping, farming, woods management, he was in the midst of Hurricane and to all the details in physical, e-mail, go andhomesteading web site addresses. note that any colors shown are merely but Please tion this summer, with the Bangor based Maine road plowing, and house cleaning.

Sandy when it hit where he lived d on paper.

We Drinking make every effort be 100% However, we Ifcannot be held responsible for errors once Group the partner builder.

Construction likeerror thatfree. lifestyle…” the development is approved, in 2012. water and to other “It depends on how quickly the reservations come supplies this wereprintout. deliveredPlease by trucks. ave approved check the appropriate box below,homeownership sign, and returnatto: Merriwood would run from $1.6 million to in and the permitting process,” he adds.

Food was scarce, and he could not Boats, help Homes & Harbors, Inc., 218 South Main St., Ste. 300,over P.O.$2Box 566,atRockland, ME 04841 Information about the development is available million the start, with but wonder what would happen at www.merriwoodcommunity.com. $1 million of the cost described as if the trucks were207-594-8622 to stop.

• Fax: 207-593-0026 a “buy in” to the community, which “I was concerned about the future, for me and my family,” he says, so he started would include a homeowners association. There looking for a resilient community with local food would be three different house models to choose sources, energy, drinking water, and more and that from, with sizes from 1,000 to 3,000 square feet, This story first appeared in The Quoddy Tides and though prices and models have not been finalized. could weather the impacts of climate change. is reprinted here with permission.

Solomon anticipates the community will primarily Solomon looked all over New England and Canada and finally landed at Howard Lake in be for summer residents from any geographic area

A

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www.workingwaterfront.com . April 2021

23

Delegation hopeful York River gets scenic designation Reintroduced bill would bring federal funds, protection

M

aine’s Congressional delegation has reintroduced the “York River Wild and Scenic River Act,” legislation to initiate the final step in the process to add the river to the National Park System’s Wild and Scenic Rivers Program. If the bill is passed by Congress and signed by the president, the York River will receive federal protection and funding.

“The York River is an incredibly important resource for Southern Maine,” the delegation wrote.

“After legislation to study it and years of outreach with the towns of York, Eliot, Kittery, and South Berwick and residents of the communities, it is clear how meaningful the river is to the character of the region.”

Seeking the designation has been a decades-long process.

The watershed—a shared York, Eliot, Kittery, and South Berwick resource—buffers the region from development pressure, noted Judy Spiller, a town councilor for Kittery and chairwoman of the York River Study Committee.

“The pristine forested areas supply clean drinking water. And in the future, if protected, the watershed will provide resilience in the face of rising sea levels,” she said. “And perhaps most importantly, the York River and its tributaries are an inspiration to all those who encounter it. Designation will preserve that for us and our children and our children’s children.”

The river possesses scenic beauty, a well-preserved history, and diverse natural ecology, noted Jennifer Hunt, the study coordinator.

A view of the York River.

“The river’s healthy salt marshes capture and store carbon, provide important habitat for many species, and help mitigate coastal flooding. These community benefits provided by the river are increasingly important with climate change impacts.”

Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden originally introduced legislation to add the river to the “wild and scenic” list in February 2019; Sens. Angus King and Susan Collins introduced companion legislation in the Senate in December 2020. These bills followed a three-year study funded by legislation Pingree and King introduced in 2011 and Congress passed

in 2014—conducted by local stakeholders which recommended the designation.

In 2018, voters in York and Eliot overwhelmingly passed referendums to move forward with the designation, as did the town councils of Kittery and South Berwick.

The wild and scenic river designation would direct more federal funding and technical assistance to the area, while lifting the York River’s profile as a national destination. It also would provide a local forum for the four watershed communities to collaboratively address long-term river stewardship needs.

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The Working Waterfront . April 2021

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