🔒Eastport awarded $19.7M to fund breakwater, fish pier upgrades

Eastport Port Authority is on track to rehabilitate and upgrade the city’s deteriorated fish pier and complete a 97-foot breakwater extension, thanks to $19.7 million in federal funding.

The funding comes in the form of a grant awarded through the federal Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development, or BUILD, program.

Eastport's 45-year-old fish pier has deteriorated to a critical condition and is at risk of structural failure. The planned breakwater extension would improve wave attenuation, protect the inner harbor and help ensure safe and reliable operations for all users, according to the application.

“It’s a complex project,” Chris Gardner, the port authority’s director, told Mainebiz.

Economic hub

The award covers the project’s total cost, apart from money invested to date by the port authority in engineering studies to support the grant application. The authority is a self-governing quasi-municipal entity that is self-funded through operations and investments.

The $19.7 million cost breaks down to $7.5 million for the fish pier and $12.2 million for the breakwater.

The Port of Eastport, half a mile from the Canadian border, is the easternmost port in the U.S. and the deepest seaport in the continental U.S.

Located steps from the downtown area, the breakwater and fish pier serve as a safe harbor and a hub for the maritime and tourism economies in this small city, which numbers 1,300 year-round residents and 5,000 seasonal residents.

Users include commercial fishing, aquaculture operations, cruise ships, transient and recreational tourism, state and federal agencies and international shipping.

Cruise ship visits grew from 3,000 passengers in 2017 to over 33,000 in 2025, with over 60,000 scheduled in 2027. In 2025, each passenger spent an average of $69 on each shore visit for shopping, recreation, entertainment, transportation, food and beverages and excursions.

Cooke Aquaculture berths two lice-treating vessels required for salmon farm operations and operates salmon farms in local waters, harvesting 21.7 million pounds valued at $81 million in 2024.

In 2025, the facility homeported 70 year-round lobster vessels; 31 commercial scallop fishing vessels took seasonal refuge there. Federal and state users include a U.S. Coast Guard Search and Rescue unit, U.S. Border Patrol, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Maine State Marine Patrol.

Intangible benefits, although not quantified, include community events centered on the breakwater throughout the year, particularly from May through September when each festival attracts over 10,000 visitors.

Weather protection

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the breakwater, a 100-foot by 400-foot concrete pier, in 1962 to protect commercial fishing vessels, cargo ships, cruise ships, Navy and Coast Guard vessels, yachts and small craft from weather events.

The fish pier was built in 1981 as part of the project to offer additional weather protection.

In December 2014, the breakwater collapsed due to age and deterioration. A rebuild and expansion were completed in 2017. But construction of a “wing wall,” designed to provide further weather protection and planned before the collapse, was put off due to the unexpected rebuilding costs.

Cracks and voids

The improvement project includes construction of the previously planned breakwater “wing wall” and extension and repair of the fish pier.

A 2015 inspection of the pier found the structure could become unstable within a decade. Although Eastport made $200,000 in repairs to the pier in 2015 to keep the structure usable, corrosion and minor section losses since then have led to a decrease in structural capacity and the concrete deck has cracks and voids throughout.

Construction includes building an encapsulating structure around the existing pier, with concrete reinforcement, tie-rods and timber fenders. A new access pier would be built to provide pedestrian and vehicular access to the fish pier. The design would consider future sea level impacts.

The breakwater extension would be designed to withstand extreme wind and waves while increasing structural capacity and providing safe pedestrian access.

Next steps

The Port Authority and Bellingham, Mass.-based Childs Engineering Corp. completed the conceptual design phase. Next steps include federal, state and local environmental approvals, additional design and review and development of a contractor bid package.

It’s anticipated that construction could start by June 2028 and finish in December 2029.