News from Maine’s Island and Coastal Communities volume 36, № 7
published by the island institute
n
n
september 2022 n free circulation: 50,000
workingwaterfront.com
Shelter from the storm
Jetty would ease beach erosion at Camp Ellis By Clarke Canfield
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inancial assistance may soon be on the way for construction of a new jetty off a breakwater at Camp Ellis in Saco in hopes of mitigating severe beach erosion the seaside community has contended with for generations. The U.S. Senate appears poised to pass a bill that would authorize $45 million in funding for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to construct a 750-foot spur jetty off an existing seawall to alter the pattern of waves that have been eroding the Camp Ellis beachfront for decades. The funding would also pay for 365,000 cubic yards of sand—more than 14,000 standard dump truck loads—to replenish the beachfront that has washed away. The funding is included in the Water Resources Development Act of 2022, which has been passed by the U.S. House of Representatives but has yet to be voted on by the Senate. The bill passed the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works by a 20-0 vote in May. A new spur jetty, to run parallel to the shoreline, would deflect a portion of sand-gobbling waves before they reach the Camp Ellis beach. It would
The jetty that runs perpendicular to the shore at Camp Ellis has been blamed for erosion of the beach. ADOBESTOCK/ENRICO DELLA PIETRA
also provide protection from nor’easters and other violent storms that have destroyed more than three dozen Camp Ellis homes through the decades, while also wiping out roadways, seawalls, utility poles and wires, and sewer and water lines.
Nowhere else in Maine has prolonged beach erosion wreaked the havoc it has at Camp Ellis, a small community at the mouth of the Saco River on the southern end of Saco Bay. Studies show that the continued on page 2
New, bigger State of Maine being built Maine Maritime Academy’s training vessel due in 2024 By Stephen Rappaport
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arring the vagaries of pandemics, the economy, and politics, Maine Maritime Academy in Castine will have a new training ship
before the end of 2024. Its impacts on both the academy and the town will be hard to miss even before its arrival. To be christened as the next T/S State of Maine, the new ship is the third of five “national security multi-mission vessels” authorized for construction by
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Congress. The ships will be owned by history,” MMA President Jerry Paul the federal Maritime Administration said a few days before heading to a (MARAD), part of the Department Philadelphia shipyard in mid-July to of Transportation, and watch the first steel cut stationed at each of the for the new training ship. nation’s state maritime It’s likely to be exciting for The huge academies to serve both as Castine as well. deckhouse training ships and as emerThe current training ship gency response platforms stretches just a few inches reflects the to be deployed in the event less than 500 feet from new ship’s of natural or other disasters. curved bow to slab-like The new ship will replace stern. The new ship, scheddual mission: the academy’s current uled to arrive in October training future 2024, will measure 525 feet training ship, launched by the Navy more than 30 in length. But that extra 25 mariners and years ago as the oceanofeet just hints at how much delivering graphic research vessel larger the new ship will be. USNS Tanner. MARAD With a beam—or width— emergency began her conversion to the relief services… of 88 feet, 7 inches, the new training ship State of Maine ship will be nearly 17 feet in 1996 and delivered the wider than the old one. The ship to MMA just in time increased beam will be most for the school’s 1997 summer cruise. apparent from the Castine town dock, “This is probably the most exciting the waterfront deck at Dennett’s Wharf time in Maine Maritime Academy’s continued on page 3