Working Waterfront

Despite legal restrictions, rockweed business thrives

Seaweed has been used as a soil amendment for as long as crops have been grown, with documented use dating to the Roman Empire. In Maine, it was used by indigenous people, and then during the colonial period, hauled in wagons from the shore. It remains in use today, and… SEE MORE

Leaving Frenchboro Harbor. FILE PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Working Waterfront

Listening led to harbor dredging funds

Last month, Sen. Susan Collins secured $500,000 in federal funding to dredge Frenchboro’s Lunt Harbor. The small island eight miles off Mount Desert Island relies on marine transportation and fishing for survival, so a safely navigable harbor is critical for the island’s everyday function. The harbor, the main point for… SEE MORE

Lubec's Main Street. FILE PHOTO: TOM GROENING

Working Waterfront

Climate change impacting property insurance

Coastal property owners may be in for a surprise when their home insurance is up for renewal. Damages to homes from this winter’s high winds, storm surges, and driving rain has meant higher premiums and canceled policies in some zip codes. Roger Quirk of Lubec learned that one company no… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Women of the waterfront

Facilities manager. Juggler. Mediator. First responder. Diplomat. Code enforcer. These are some of the roles harbormasters fill, as revealed during a panel discussion hosted by Midcoast Women on March 13 at Rockport Public Library. Kathy Given has been Belfast’s harbormaster for 30 years. She’s not sure whether she was Maine’s… SEE MORE

The Pemaquid Light fog signal bell shown on a postcard dating to about 1905. PHOTO: MAINE MARITIME MUSEUM

Working Waterfront

Centuries-old infrastructure laid bare

Coastal Maine continues to reel from the effects of back-to-back January storms that caused long-lasting damage to working waterfronts, homes, areas of leisure, as well as cultural heritage sites. By nature of their location, lighthouses and their supporting structures are especially vulnerable to the destruction caused by extreme winds, surf,… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The new shape of water

How does water shape communities? I think about this as I load onto the Sunbeam on my way to Frenchboro, an island community off the coast of Mount Desert Island. It is a beautiful blue-sky morning, deceivingly sunny for my weather app to be reading 20 degrees. Working and living… SEE MORE

One of Acadia National Park's bridges. PHOTO: COURTESY ACADIA NATIONAL PARK

Working Waterfront

Bridge work planned in Acadia

In partnership with the National Park Service, the Federal Highways Administration will begin the rehabilitation of Jordan Pond Road bridge in March. The historic bridge is in the village of Seal Harbor (town of Mount Desert) and carries Jordan Pond Road over Acadia National Park’s carriage road between Day Mountain… SEE MORE

Environment

Working Waterfront

Herring Gut Science Center names new director

Sarah D. Oktay, PhD has joined the Herring Gut Coastal Science Center as executive director. SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

When communes sprouted in Maine

Politically motivated violence. Defiance of the legal order. Rejection of long-held moral values. A widespread move toward a new social order. I’m not talking about the state of our nation today, but about the late 1960s and early 1970s, an era that impacted coastal Maine and in many ways still… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Fishing for trash

A recent radio program on Maine’s lobster industry reminded me of island cleanups, the efforts to clean the stacks and tangles of lobster fishing debris. In the radio program, answering a question about fishing trash, Patricia McCarron of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association noted that most cleanup effort was “under the… SEE MORE