State environmental regulators have approved new rules for shoreline restoration projects in Maine that streamline how they will be handled and encourage more use of natural solutions, after agencies were swamped with project applications following 2024’s devastating winter storms.
But those regulators have also loosened the newly approved rules after engineers and construction firms spoke out against an earlier version of the proposal, which would have put stricter limits on the use of riprap, a material consisting of large rocks that’s often used in shoreline restoration.
The Maine Board of Environmental Protection voted Thursday morning to approve the new rules that will allow more shoreline stabilization projects to be approved through a streamlined process known as permit by rule. They will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2026.
The major storms that hit Maine in the winter of 2024 damaged large sections of the coast, eroding bluffs, banks and beaches while also harming docks, piers and other waterfront infrastructure.
The resulting effort to rebuild has inundated the state’s environmental regulators, fueling a roughly 50 percent increase in the number of applications they’ve had to process. The bulk of that uptick has been from landowners wanting to stabilize their sections of coastal shoreline.
The new rule changes will allow nature-based solutions to stabilize shorelines under permit by rule — which is a faster approval process than when projects are normally permitted under the Natural Resources Protection Act.
Nature-based solutions refer to restoration work that often uses biodegradable materials — such as logs made of coconut fiber bolted to the ground — combined with the planting of native flora that will grow and prevent erosion once the material has decayed after several years.
The new rules will also require applicants not using permit by rule to prove that such natural solutions would not work for a project using riprap.
The changes were controversial, though, with several engineers speaking out against them throughout various public hearings. Craig Coolidge, a geotechnical consultant and principal of Summit Geoengineering Services, said at a February public hearing that the rule changes would further restrict what engineers could do to stabilize shorelines for complicated projects.
Mark Adams, president of Sebago Technics, said in that hearing that if the engineers must use nature-based solutions and they fail, clients would place the blame on the engineers.
To address some of those concerns, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection made some amendments to the rules that were approved by the board. That included a new exemption from the riprap restrictions for projects on a shoreline that the Maine Geological Survey has determined to be unstable or highly unstable, according to a draft of the new rules.
Susan Lessard, who chairs the Board of Environmental Protection, praised Maine DEP officials for taking the feedback they’d received into consideration.
“The work and the inclusion of all of the comments, it was clear to me that you really paid attention to what a wide variety of commenters did. And while it was a lot to read, seeing the end product shows how much it took, so good work,” Lessard said.
