Courtesy / U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Seen here is an aerial of the breakwater.
May 12, 2021
Century-old Bar Harbor breakwater gets OK for federal overhaul
Photo / Laurie Schreiber
Plans are in the works to review and maintain Bar Harbor’s century-old breakwater, with special consideration for sea level rise. The harbor wasn’t at peak activity last weekend, but visitors enjoyed the sights.
A breakwater responsible for protecting the heavily trafficked waters off Bar Harbor has received an OK for federally funded maintenance after a century of neglect.
The project could lead to substantial improvements for the harbor’s many users, which include commercial fishermen, cruise ships and their tenders, passenger vessels and recreational boats.
The breakthrough for the breakwater began last month when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers agreed to undertake a review of the project.
That will include making the breakwater taller to account for sea level rise, Eben Salvatore, chairman of the town’s Cruise Ship Committee, told the Town Council at its virtual meeting last week.
“So it looks like the breakwater will be repaired and that will be an improvement to the harbor,” Salvatore said.
The council’s vice chair, Matthew Hochman, responded, “I think it’s pretty amazing."
Still, the pace of the project is up in the air.
“My hopes aren’t great this will be done anytime in the next decade,” Hochman added. “It will move at the speed of the federal government.”
Sloppy waves
The Cruise Ship Committee approached the Army Corps of Engineers in 2017 after it found operational challenges for using the harbor's primary anchorage in certain weather conditions.
One of the identified challenges was how bad the waves can get if winds or seas are out of the south, according to an April 27 memo from the committee to the council.
“These conditions would usually have a negative effect on our harbor as well, including the mooring field and town floats,” the memo said. “It was reported to us by committee member Capt. Skip Strong that during a high seas event the waves would routinely wash over the breakwater and continue into the anchorage, which would increase the tendering difficulty.”
Strong and the town’s harbormaster, Charlie Phippen, began discussions with the corps, which oversees maritime infrastructure nationally.
The corps said that if the scope of the project was “beyond repair to prior built dimensions,” then the project would be classified as improvement work and the town would be responsible for a significant portion of the cost.
But if the corps classified the work as wholly within the original design, then the repairs would be classified as a federal maintenance project and the town would have little if any costs.
In the summer of 2019, the corps conducted a survey of the breakwater using a remote sensing method called LIDAR, for “light detection and ranging.” The purpose of the survey was to document the state of the structure and its footprint dimensions.
In April, Strong reported to the cruise ship committee on a meeting he attended with the corps and the Maine Department of Transportation.
Sea level rise
“At the meeting, Mark Habel and Craig Martin of the Army Corps affirmed that work on the breakwater would be a maintenance project, rather than an improvement project, which is good news because an improvement project would require the town to provide a significant portion of the funding,” the cruise ships committee minutes said.
The maintenance would include building the breakwater back to what it was, plus additional elevation to account for sea level rise, “though there’s debate within the corps what that sea level rise is going to be in the next 25-50 years,” the minutes said.
Structural improvements might have to be made.
“Actually finishing the breakwater, since it was never finished to begin with, would be a benefit for the community,” the minutes said.
The project, starting with figuring out what has to be done and through to completion, could take 10 years, the minutes said.
The structure contains 382,000 tons of stone. It extends 2,315 feet and is located about 1 mile southeast of the main waterfront.
Construction of the breakwater stopped in 1917, according to the corps. A portion of the breakwater was not constructed to its full height. But at the time, the structure was deemed complete as an effective protection for the wharves and natural anchorage at Bar Harbor.
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Anonymous
May 12, 2021
Is there any certifiable proof that the "sea is rising" or is this just more conjecture based of forecasts and projections?
Anonymous
May 12, 2021
Foolishly the Corps will continue to put in hardscape and suffer the consequences of all of its other projects. Saco Bay being one that is close to home and hardscape is a solution with additional consequences....looks at softscapes for the winds from the south!
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