As Maine settles into another winter, some fishing pier owners have not fully rebuilt from the heavy storm damage they suffered during a pair of storms last January — and they’re concerned about what the coming months might bring.
The heavy surf and storm surge that slammed into Maine on Jan. 10 and 13 pulled apart dozens of docks from Eastport to Kittery. Commercial fishing piers, private docks, marinas and waterfront restaurants all suffered from the destructive power of the waves.
Owners of larger fishing piers had to scramble to get ready for spring, when most Maine lobstermen returned to the water to begin setting and hauling their gear for the year.
Pier managers in Milbridge, Gouldsboro and Bristol said this week that they were able to make enough repairs to operate at their regular capacity this year, but that more improvements are needed to return to ‘normal’ operations or to better prepare for whenever the waves rise again.
“We’re not fully done yet,” Linda Vannah, manager of the New Harbor Co-op, said Wednesday. “It would be disastrous if we get another storm like those this winter. You never know what Mother Nature might do.”
The co-op rebuilt its main dock two feet higher, but still has a temporary setup for fueling boats, she said. It rebuilt its office above its bait cooler, rather than in its previous location on the pier deck, but has not made any repairs to another dock it owns a few properties over.
“We weren’t usable until almost June,” Vannah said, adding that fishermen were allowed to use the waterfront restaurant next door, Shaw’s Wharf, while the co-op was rebuilding its main pier.
The co-op in New Harbor, which is part of the town of Bristol, and other fishing cooperatives in Georgetown, Gouldsboro and Stonington were among nearly 70 pier owners who received assistance from the state to rebuild — with the requirement that they make upgrades to improve their resistance to storm damage.
The state’s Infrastructure Rebuilding and Resilience Commission, which was created in the wake of last winter’s storm damage, awarded more than $21 million to commercial pier owners, prioritizing those that cater to multiple fishermen and boats.
But most of that money has yet to be distributed. Patrick Keliher, head of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, told the commission on Thursday that only 15 percent of the grants, or about $3 million, has been drawn down by recipients so far.
There are a few reasons for this, he said. The grants provide a 50-percent matching reimbursement, which means that awardees have to spend the money up front in order to be reimbursed for half their costs after projects are completed.
Some recipients have faced challenges in raising money to get projects started, and others have delayed completing their full wish list because of the fundraising hurdles, according to Keliher. In other cases where the fishing piers are owned by municipalities, the towns had to get voter approval to accept the grants, which meant waiting until town meetings at specific times.
In other cases, contractors have been so backed up that the pier owners had to wait weeks or even months to get their projects done, he said.
“They’ll be doing more significant work in the coming months,” Keliher told the commission, which discussed how the state might get better access to federal disaster funds when more severe weather hits Maine. “Many others are only partially completed or not yet done.”
Amity Chipman, who manages Chipman’s Wharf in Milbridge, said the family business only partially rebuilt their pier, which was completely destroyed on Jan. 10. They reconstructed the pier higher than it was before, but have not yet fully built it out away from shore, which means access has been limited by the tide.
Fishing boats can land at the pier at half tide and high tide, but when it is low they’ve had to direct vessels to the town wharf down the road, and have delivered bait or offloaded lobster there, she said.
The Chipmans rebuilt their own pier and received a $270,000 grant from the state resilience program. Chipman said the program has been “a huge help” in getting the business back to a point where it could function, even if it still has more to do.
“We did what we could do given the time restraints,” Chipman said. “We will complete it in the spring.”
At the Corea Lobster Co-op in Gouldsboro, manager Darryl Stanley said the dock was rebuilt in time to be functional for its 50 or so members to use this past summer. But there still is more work they want to complete, hopefully before the end of the year.
The co-op, which was awarded $330,000 from the state, still intends to install a new generator and is having a concrete retaining wall installed on the side of the pier that faces the mouth of the harbor, he said. The wall will be 18 inches higher than the pier deck, which will protect the deck and pilings underneath from direct pounding by waves the next time a similar storm comes along.
“They’re almost ready to pour now,” Stanley said of the concrete contractors. “We’ll be better off than last winter, for sure.”
Stanley said he’d rather not have the pier’s improvements tested by the elements anytime soon, but seemed resigned that such a test will come.
“It’s a storm,” he said. “What are you going to do?”
