Southern Maine communities unite to fight climate change

By Phil Hirschkorn

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    PORTLAND, Maine (WMTW) — Eleven coastal cities and towns in the greater Portland area are joining forces this year to plan for the effects of climate change.

The Greater Portland Council of Governments (GPCOG) is coordinating the regional plan with a combined $500,000 in supportive funding from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, said Sara Mills-Knapp, who is leading the effort.

The participating communities are Portland, South Portland, Cape Elizabeth, Scarborough, Falmouth, Yarmouth, Cumberland, Freeport, Brunswick, and the islands, Long Island and Chebeague, Mills-Knapp said.

Four of the municipalities — Portland, South Portland, Scarborough, and Falmouth — employ their own sustainability coordinators, who will work with GPCOG.

“The more we can work regionally and nationally and globally to combat this together, the more successful we’re going to be,” said Ashley Krulik, Falmouth’s sustainability coordinator. “That plan includes a greenhouse gas inventory, a vulnerability assessment, and just looking at the impacts that Falmouth is facing from climate change, and how we can mitigate and adapt to those impacts.”

During an interview at Falmouth Landing, looking out over Casco Bay, Krulik said sea level rise is already visible during extreme high tides, flooding the boat landing’s parking lot and the adjacent beach.

“A lot of these homes here are very fortunate, because they are up on these bluffs, so they’re at less risk, but the bluffs will certainly see more erosion, as we’re seeing increased sea levels and impacts of wave action,” Krulik said.

On Brunswick’s coastline, Peter Slovinsky, a marine geologist with the Maine Geological Survey, has been testing a nature-based solution to lessen the impact of sea-level rise.

His team constructed experimental 50-foot-long barriers in marsh areas of Maquoit Bay, which is connected to the Atlantic Ocean waters of Casco Bay.

“This is a marsh that actually protects the uplands from the impact of storms and climate change,” Slovinsky said during a walk along the area. “This marsh has migrated over time in response to sea-level rise. The bluffs that we see respond basically by eroding. They don’t grow back.”

To slow erosion, instead of a sea wall, Slovinsky’s team filled 500 biodegradable coconut fiber bags and synthetic mesh cages with oyster shells collected from local restaurants – a living shoreline.

“We wanted to make something that was transferable for homeowners, for instance, or for other municipalities,” Slovinsky said. “What living shoreline approaches do is they maintain more of that natural connectivity between the upland and the wetland, and they allow some erosion to occur. They just slow it down to a point where a structure isn’t potentially being threatened right away.”

But some biodegradable materials expected to last three to five years lasted only two.

“We’re a little, I would say, disappointed in the performance of these bags,” Slovibsky said.

At a second installation, Slovinsky bolstered his living shoreline with logs anchored into the ground with bolts and three-foot cables.

He said, “We floated in what we call tree runners – these are 10-to-12-foot logs; they’re 10-to-12 inches in diameter — what they’re meant to do is to break up the current and also to break up ice.”

His future challenge is making natural barriers bigger and more resilient.

Slovinsky said, “The best case, of course, is that this works and it’s a transferable technique that can be applied in some way to developed areas.”

Mills-Knapp said GPCOG’s regional planning process will officially kick off in March and continue for the next two years.

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