A new project funded through a $50,000 grant from the Coastal Community Grant/Shore and Harbor Planning Grant program will focus on increasing coastal resilience in Bunkers Harbor, Prospect Harbor, and South Gouldsboro harbor. The project will bring together Gouldsboro residents and others who depend on the harbors in working sessions with engineers and climate scientists to:
- Create an inventory of the public and private working waterfront infrastructure in each harbor.
- Assess the waterfront infrastructure’s vulnerability to climate-related damage.
- Evaluate existing waterfront infrastructure resilience plans and develop design recommendations to make vital infrastructure climate resilient.
- Use what we learn to recommend changes to municipal ordinances.
This project is a part of Gouldsboro’s response to what it learned in its Climate Vulnerability Assessment and Action Plan and to storm damage in these harbors this past January.
About the Harbors
Bunkers Harbor is home to 15 commercial fishing vessels and 19 vessels altogether. It is a busy commercial harbor centered around a lobster buyer with a private wharf with floats and a hoist. This operation sells bait and fuel. The harbor includes eight other wharves or piers and a small, currently unused lobster pound. The Bunkers Harbor municipal boat ramp is also used by Prospect Harbor fishermen for launching and hauling. Parking is limited and principally on private property. This year’s January storms caused significant damage in this narrow, southeast-facing harbor, including erosion damage that continues to endanger much of the infrastructure.
Prospect Harbor is home to 20 commercial fishing vessels and 29 vessels altogether. All the fishermen use the municipal pier, which has a hoist and float. Some public parking is available near the pier and in a nearby lot. Notably, given the amount of activity in this harbor, there is no launch ramp. Three lobster-buying operations operate here and offer bait and fuel. One of Prospect Harbor’s vulnerabilities is that it is open to storms from the southeast. The consequences of that vulnerability were evident this January, as illustrated in the picture at the top of this post. Over the past sixty years, Gouldsboro has had periodic conversations with the Army Corps of Engineers about constructing a breakwater to protect the harbor. This project may provide information that could help reopen those conversations.
South Gouldsboro is home to more than 12 commercial fishing vessels and more than 20 vessels altogether, including a fishing fleet that includes lobster, menhaden, halibut, seaweed, and urchin fishing, seaweed and oyster aquaculture operations, and recreational boats. The municipal boat ramp is a unique point of public access to Frenchman Bay, providing water access during all tidal cycles, unlike many of the other boat ramps in the highly intertidal bay. The Town also owns a breakwater that protects some of the private waterfront infrastructure, including two private wharves that provide working waterfront dock services for lobster boats, including bait, fuel, trash, boat service, and access. There is also a former lobster pound that is used for aquaculture. Public parking is limited to 1-3 spots.
The Project Team
Gouldsboro’s Coastal Resilience Committee and Planning Board collaborated to design and create the project. FB Environmental Associates and Streamworks PLLC will provide the required technical expertise. FB Environmental prepared Gouldsboro’s Climate Vulnerability Assessment and Action Plan. Streamworks is an engineering firm specializing in stream, shoreline, wetland, and stormwater projects.
The project team also includes Josh McIntyre (Town Manager), Mike Pinkham (Harbor Master), and Mike Connors (Code Enforcement Officer and Road Commissioner). Bill Zoellick (chairman of the Coastal Resilience Committee) serves as the volunteer project manager. Planning Board and Coastal Resilience Committee members round out the team.
Project Plan
This summer, the project team will gather data about existing infrastructure, focusing on public facilities but also considering other working waterfront infrastructure. The Coastal Resilience Committee will use the Town drone to collect the images needed to build 3D models of buildings and other infrastructure around the harbor. FB Environmental and Streamworks will use sea-level rise projections and wave run-up models to identify at-risk infrastructure and begin specifying design requirements for proposed improvements.
After collecting initial data over the summer, we will convene residents, stakeholders, engineers, and hydrologists in a meeting this fall to consider the condition, current use, and planned future uses of public and private waterfront infrastructure while considering the Maine Climate Council’s recommendations in Maine Won’t Wait.
Then, the project team will analyze the ideas and suggestions from the fall meeting to develop a draft list of recommendations and actions. Virtual focus group meetings over the winter will provide opportunities to explore questions that arise during the analysis and get feedback on the draft recommendations and actions.
Next spring, residents, stakeholders, and the project team will convene in a second meeting to share what the team learned over the winter, explore the team’s recommendations, and prioritize near-term actions. Following that meeting, the project team will prepare a summary report and other deliverables, including:
- An infrastructure inventory that will be a baseline for ongoing work.
- Vulnerability assessments for public and essential private infrastructure.
- A description of current uses as well as concerns and desired future uses.
- Analysis of the results from the survey was conducted during the initial meeting.
- Recommended climate-change response actions for each harbor.
- Harbor-specific design recommendations when applicable.
In parallel, the Planning board will use what we learn from the inventory, plans, and design work to draft changes to municipal land use and shoreland zoning ordinances that address current and future coastal hazards and present them to voters.
Staying Informed
We are now in the first week of a project that will run through most of 2025. This Gouldsboro Shore website and the associated Facebook page are the best ways to keep up with the project as it unfolds. Sign up here to receive a brief email when we add new posts to the site. If you have questions or suggestions, send us an email.
