Committee set to recommend plan to replicate Machias dike

A slate of recommendations ready to be released to the public by the Upper Machias Bay Master Plan (UMBMP) Leadership Committee includes a proposal that the failing Machias dike be replaced with a replica of the current span, an alternative that would prevent fish or saltwater passage.

The recommendations were hashed out by UMBMP members in two closed meetings on January 27 and February 9. In addition to the dike recommendation, the committee also accepted a slate of proposals to limit flooding in downtown Machias. All of the group's recommendations will be discussed with the public at a special meeting on Monday, February 23.

Machias Select Board Vice President Ben Edwards was one of 18 UMBMP members who supported the plan to replace the dike in kind, which would prevent flooding of private lands north of the dike. "This has been going on for nearly two decades. This is a problem that needs to be solved, and it's what I believe is approximately the right outcome."

UMBMP Leadership Committee Chair Hannah Rice agrees. "A lot of us from the beginning have been there to represent our constituents. And for me, that's the landowners."

But there are questions about the outcome if such a recommendation is eventually presented to the Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT), the ultimate decision‑maker. Some people believe that possible legal action by environmental groups in reaction to the recommendation would delay the building of a new dike.

If a lawsuit were filed, it would likely be against MDOT and in response to the plan to build a replica dike that, like the current one, would prevent saltwater and fish from traveling to the inland portion of the dike. It might take years to wind its way through the courts, further postponing any solution to the dike crisis.

Sunrise Economic Development Council Executive Director Charles Rudelitch says the potential of a lawsuit was the reason he chose to join four other UMBMP members in voting against the dike‑replacement recommendation. "I am concerned that we may be heading toward a path that this may get tied up in litigation for many years."

It's been a long process for the UMBMP, which began its life more than a year ago after the MDOT agreed to step back and allow local residents to attempt to reach a consensus on the dike and other issues. Over the intervening months, members met with consultants and experts to draft a series of ideas they then took to the public last year for input.

The recommendation to replace the current dike with an exact replica was only one of several originally put forward to solve the problem; others allowed for varying degrees of fish and saltwater passage. The UMBMP used the public comments submitted in last year's meetings to reach their recommendations.

Other issues brought before the public last year regarded flooding in downtown Machias, water quality and natural resources. At the February 23 public meeting, the UMBMP committee will also put forward recommendations to solve these problems, including building retention areas and landscaping slopes to lessen flooding, exploring upgrades for stormwater and wastewater infrastructure, issuing suggestions for property owners to mitigate flooding damage and proposing an engineering study with other municipalities to look at regional solutions to flooding.

But for many Washington County residents, the most important recommendation deals with the replacement of the dike, which carries all U.S. 1 traffic over the mouth of the Middle River. The 1,000‑foot‑long, earth‑and‑stone structure was built in 1868 and upgraded in the 1930s, but it has deteriorated significantly in the last 20 years. MDOT currently rates its safety and stability at three out of nine, and a temporary bridge was installed by the MDOT in 2023.

"This is such an important issue for Machias, and I hope that it moves very quickly," says Machias Town Manager Sarah Craighead‑Dedmon. "We want this resolved."

Resolution, however, could be many years in the future, some warn, if the recommendation to build an exact copy of the current dike is advanced. They worry such a dike would be contrary to good conservation practices and could violate federal laws and regulations.

"It will further impair our fish and wildlife," says Dwayne Shaw, executive director of the Downeast Salmon Federation and a member of the UMBMP committee who voted against the replica dike. "It is a blocked watershed." With proper fish passage, salmon, alewives, sturgeon and other fish would be able to pass through from the sea to the river.

One of the solutions would have been to install one or more self‑regulating gates in the dike that could control the amount of water let through. Using self‑regulating gates, however, would require that people agree on an acceptable water‑level rise in the Middle River.

MDOT Deputy Commissioner Joyce Taylor says her agency recognized the potential of a lawsuit but would not be in favor of self‑regulating gates. She was more concerned about the possibility that landowners could be deprived of the use of their property if water was allowed to flow freely from one side of the dike to the other. "We do not believe we can flood property for the purpose of fish passage."

Another UMBMP member who voted against exact dike replacement, Jacob van de Sande, associate director of land protection for Maine Coast Heritage Trust, says he was dismayed that so many UMBMP members seemed unwilling to find common ground that could allow fish and water to pass through the dike with only minor river level rise. "A compromise solution is the best answer here," he says.

If the dike issue does wind up in the courts because the plan does not allow saltwater and fish passage, any solution would likely be taken out of local hands. "It means the courts will determine what the dike eventually looks like," says Tora Johnson, co‑director of the Sustainable Prosperity Initiative for the Sunrise County Economic Council, who is serving as director of the UMBMP committee. "It will play out in the courts, and we won't get a say. And it will take another six to 10 years."

Whatever eventually happens, MDOT's Taylor says her agency is currently working on a solution in the short run. The temporary bridge currently on the dike will need replacement, and MDOT is accepting bids to replace it with a sturdier alternative that could be longer lasting.

All the newest recommendations will be presented for more public discussion during a meeting on Monday, February 23, from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at the Pellon Center, 90 Main Street. After that meeting, the UMBMP committee will then have one more chance to alter some of the recommendations before they're passed on to the MDOT.