Maine isn’t prepared for a huge threat to its fishing industry

More than two months after her commercial fishing pier on Mount Desert Island took a serious beating in back-to-back storms, Sheryl Harper has only just begun planning a way forward.

High winds and storm surge swamped the pier twice in January, sending waves crashing into it, ripping doors away and heaving it up and down until the tides subsided.

The pounding left the deck unusable, weakening the connection between its planks and the posts underneath, and prying the shoreside edge roughly 18 inches higher than the driveway leading up to it. The latter damage has made it impossible to get a work vehicle onto the pier to help clear out the debris.

“It’s devastating to see,” Harper said, adding she doesn’t know whether she can afford to fix the structure. “And I have to rebuild for a stormy future. We have to go higher. To me, that’s an enormous cost.”

She is not alone. Dozens of commercial and public piers along Maine’s coast were damaged in the twin storms on Jan. 10 and 13, delivering a serious blow to a billion dollar fishing industry that depends on such access points for bringing hundreds of millions of pounds of seafood ashore each year.

Some pier owners are now scrambling to get repairs done before the approaching summer lobster season. Others aren’t sure they’ll be able to find the money to rebuild, or whether they should even bother.

“These storms have been a wakeup call for all of us,” said Hannah Pingree, a North Haven resident who, as director of the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future, is co-chair of the state’s Climate Council. “These storms are here. There’s a need to act quickly.”

Climate change has forced many working waterfronts to make similar decisions, balancing the urgent need to reopen — and play a vital economic role — against the longer term demand for structures that can withstand rising seas and intensifying storms.

State, federal and nonprofit programs are offering some help with the recovery. But as bigger storms become more common, this year has demonstrated that the present resources won’t be enough for struggling fishing operations. Insurance has not covered much of the destruction, and other help has been slow to arrive.

“These storms have been a wakeup call for all of us,” said Hannah Pingree, a North Haven resident who, as director of the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future, is co-chair of the state’s Climate Council. “These storms are here. There’s a need to act quickly.”

It’s an especially daunting challenge for private pier owners, who manage a large portion of Maine’s working waterfront, but don’t qualify for federal disaster payments.

There are also few programs available to help those owners proactively adapt to the climate challenges, according to Nick Battista, chief policy officer for the Rockland-based Island Institute and a member of the state’s climate council.

“It’s a major problem,” Battista said. “These storms shed a huge spotlight on it. We need to make a huge investment in both public and private working waterfront.”

More extreme weather

More storms undoubtedly will come.

The burning of fossil fuels and other human activities have pushed up the average global temperature, including in the Gulf of Maine, which has resulted in more volatile weather, according to climate experts. It’s also brought raging seas that are expected to push further up the shoreline.

Just this winter, in addition to January’s storms, Maine saw two other big ones: a wind and rainstorm that mostly caused inland flooding in December, and another coastal storm in March that inflicted additional damage, including the destruction of a lobster dock in Surry.

While it’s not clear that climate change is increasing their frequency, the storms that do happen appear to be getting stronger, according to scientists. And as sea levels rise in the Gulf of Maine, the damage potential is also growing when storms strike at high tide.

Sean Birkel, an assistant professor at University of Maine and the state’s climatologist, said this winter’s storms could result from several variables, including the re-emergence last year of El Niño over the equatorial Pacific Ocean and a current weakening of the wind circulation over the North Atlantic.

It’s unknown how soon a similar weather pattern might bring more damaging storms, but that uncertainty is now part of the equation, according to Birkel.

“There is significant year-to-year variability, but in a warming climate there is greater potential for extremes,” he said. “If a storm comes at high tide, it can cause an enormous amount of damage, and we should plan for that.”

“I never expected to see these storms,” said Ron Trundy. “Everybody is worried about it.”  

Those forecasts have forced some tough decisions on fishing communities weighing how to rebuild after this winter’s storms. While some are taking the time to redesign their structures, others have tried to reopen as quickly as possible.

In Stonington, repairs have been under way for weeks at the local lobster fishermen’s cooperative pier on Atlantic Avenue, which was severely damaged in January.

Ron Trundy, the co-op manager, said the pier needs to be fixed before the end of April, when many of the group’s 80 active members will get back on the water. He expects repairs to cost between $300,000 and $400,000.

But as the pier is rebuilt the way it was, Trundy has wondered how soon another powerful southeaster storm will hit the coast, and whether the new structure will be able to withstand it.

“I never expected to see these storms,” he said. “Everybody is worried about it.”  

Government response

So far, the coastal communities damaged in January’s storms have mostly had to put up their own money to get started on rebuilding. For commercial waterfronts, it’s unclear how much of that funding will eventually be reimbursed.

Multiple pier managers or owners said their projected cost for repairs are in the six-figure range.

Linda Vannah, who manages a fishing co-op in New Harbor, predicted that repairs to their pier will exceed $300,000.

Harper said she’s gotten an estimate of $200,000 just to fix half of her pier in Southwest Harbor, which doesn’t include replacing a two-story building or the other half that’s underneath it.

The Stonington co-op “eventually” will build on top of its replacement pier to make it more storm resistant, Trundy said. How much that might cost, given the ever-increasing expense of construction materials, he didn’t want to guess.

^{Predicted coastline storm surge during category 1, 2, 3, and 4 hurricanes in Stonington, New Harbor and Corea, Maine. Data courtesy of Maine Geological Survey. Credit: Leela Stockley / BDN}

“We’re in the process of borrowing money to do it right now,” Trundy said of the current repairs, adding that insurance isn’t paying for any of it. They not only are replacing wooden support posts, a retaining wall and decking, but also the piping and electrical wiring on the pier and the diesel fuel pump, he said.

Basic insurance policies generally don’t cover flood damage and so have widely denied claims from both public and private property owners.

President Joe Biden finally approved a disaster declaration for the coastal storms in late March, after doing so two months earlier for the parts of Maine damaged by the December storm. The latest declaration, which applies to all of Maine’s coastal counties, makes direct federal reimbursement available for repairing public infrastructure and private homes.

However, the declaration will be less helpful to private businesses, which can apply for low-cost federal loans under it, but generally aren’t eligible for direct reimbursement.

That has forced state officials to step in and fill some of the gaps, although their proposals have yet to make a big difference for the owners of damaged fishing infrastructure.

There is a state funding bill in the works that’s eventually expected to provide $25 million to private working waterfronts damaged in the January storms, likely aimed at heavily used properties that adopt more storm protections. The Legislature also recently approved a permitting change that makes it easier for a pier to be rebuilt higher, above rising sea levels, but only as long as its footprint remains unchanged.

Patrick Keliher, the commissioner or Maine Department of Marine Resources, said that when  state funds to help cover repairs to private piers become available, they will be awarded on a competitive basis to projects that have “significant community benefit.” He said projects will have to include improvements that make piers less vulnerable to storm damage in order to be eligible.

“It will be critically important to document that you are building back in a way that ensures your wharf is resilient against future weather events by making it higher, chaining it down, or building with materials other than pilings,” Keliher recently told private working waterfront owners.

‘Building back higher’

In Milbridge, where the Jan. 10 storm took out most of Chipman’s Wharf, the owners are taking the time to replace it with something more storm resistant. They expect to spend roughly $300,000 on a wider structure that sticks out less from shore.

“We’re definitely building back higher, too,” said Amity Chipman, whose husband and brother-in-law built the original pier that was destroyed. It serves roughly 20 fishermen in the area.

Their insurance company denied their claim, so they are waiting to see what state aid or federal loans they might get, Chipman said. In the meantime, they still are buying and selling lobsters, and their retail shop is open.

“We’re kind of at a standstill,” Amity Chipman said. “We’re doing what we can do right now. It’s almost like going through a grieving process.”

However, given the extent of the changes, they’re not using the state’s newer, expedited process for raising their pier. Rather, they’re going through the longer permitting process that’s traditionally been required of such projects.

“We’re kind of at a standstill,” Chipman said. “We’re doing what we can do right now. It’s almost like going through a grieving process.”

The delays in getting help to privately owned piers raise an important question: Is there a better way to plan for future storms, so that the state’s critical fishing industry isn’t regularly scrambling to recover from the last big flood, but can instead be preparing for the next one?

There is, according to the Island Institute’s Battista. He sits on the coastal and marine working group of the state’s Climate Council, which was first formed in 2019 and is now working on an update to its four-year-old plan for responding to climate change.

As part of that process, officials are trying to establish more proactive programs to minimize potential damage from storms, and they expect to give top billing to the vulnerability of working waterfront infrastructure, Battista said.

The group is considering recommending a multi-year program that would commit up to $100 million over four years for resilience projects at privately owned waterfronts that provide fishing and aquaculture access, Battista said. The state also would establish a support program to help waterfront businesses plan for climate change.

^{Total coastline risk in Stonington, New Harbor and Corea, Maine, during high-intensity storms. Data courtesy of Maine Geological Survey. Credit: Leela Stockley / BDN}

As pier owners continue to wait on government assistance, advocacy groups including the Island Institute have also worked to provide more immediate help. It has distributed $250,000 to more than 50 working waterfront businesses to fund smaller repairs.

The Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association has raised more than $100,000, in part to pay for cleanup efforts, but it also may use some funds to help pier owners get permits for more storm-resistant structures, according to Monique Coombs, who directs the group’s community programs.

One of the biggest fears of those groups is that the devastation from January’s storms could force some owners to question whether it’s even worth rebuilding.

Larger piers that serve more fishermen likely will be prioritized for any state assistance, Coombs said, leaving behind smaller decades-old docks that typically were used by only one or two fishermen before they were damaged.

“We’re going to see some loss of working waterfront,” she said.