Westport Island to seek $50K to study sea rise’s impact

SUSAN JOHNS
Wed, 07/05/2023 - 8:45am

Westport Island’s conservation commission got selectmen’s support July 3 to apply for funds commission member and treasurer Dennis Dunbar said would be used to review the impact of sea level rise and storm surge on critical infrastructure in the decades ahead. The grant would be through the Community Resilience Partnership (CRP), in connection with Gov. Janet Mill’s “Maine Won’t Wait” initiative, Dunbar said.

“So we’d have some funds to do some pre-design work at our most vulnerable tidal inlet crossings as well as look at our whole 36-mile coastline to see what properties, what parcels, what roads, private and public, might be subject to inundation,” he said in the meeting at the town office and over Zoom.

In a phone interview July 4, Dunbar said the grant round will be very competitive, with preference going to towns that have not yet received one of the grants. Westport Island has: Last fall, the town got a $43,000 one to look at groundwater and local wells’ ability to handle the changing environment, including potential saltwater intrusion from sea level rise, he said.

Property owners’ participation in the study has been “quite good, but we’d like more,” Dunbar said. Get the survey at westportisland.us or at the town office.

Having gotten that grant “puts us a little further down on the probability list” for this round, Dunbar said. He expected to apply July 7 and hear back by September. 

Via email and the phone interview, Dunbar explained the town is proposing to assess the impact of projected sea level rise and increased storm surge risk through 2100. “We will focus on pre-design of three known vulnerable tidal inlet crossings with the help of Wright-Pierce environmental engineering. These sites were identified by the Lincoln County Hazard Mitigation Plan and the town’s Comprehensive Plan. This will result in pre-design options” and a plan to seek more grants to do projects, he wrote.

For the look at the shoreline to identify vulnerable places, Dunbar said the town will use a geographic information system (GIS) model Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission is updating.

 
“We will also look at the potential for marsh restoration at the tidal inlets, fish passage improvements and marsh migration. Kennebec Estuary Land Trust will assist on this part of the study,” Dunbar wrote.
 
He said town meeting voters authorized selectmen to seek and accept the CRP grant.
 
“There’s no reason not to (apply),” Second Selectman Jeff Tarbox said in the July 3 board meeting. “Go for it,” First Selectman Donna Curry told Dunbar. “You’ve done a great job” and, if no grant is won, all the work put in will help for the next round, she said. 
 
Also July 3, selectmen named Curry chair and named Tarbox chair of the board of assessors; and the selectboard welcomed new third selectman Lisa Jonassen, accepted Gerald Bodmer’s resignation as plumbing inspector effective June 30, renamed the broadband committee the broadband and technology committee and dropped “ad hoc” from the front of the road committee’s name. Ad hoc made it sound temporary, Curry said. 

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