Machias weighs options for town office and flood mitigation

Following the winter's unprecedented flood events in Machias - which saw thigh high water surrounding the town office on January 10 - the town is considering its options for funding streams that could allow for a new building in the future. Simultaneously, efforts are under way to plan for, mitigate and repair damage from the floods along the dike and elsewhere, with fresh flooding on March 10 bringing new urgency.
"We were watching it all week," says Bill Kitchen, Machias town manager, of the most recent storm. At around 10:30 in the morning on Sunday, "the water was over the dike, and we knew we'd have to close Route 1." The road was only closed for an hour, but the high waters did plenty to damage the roadway, the trails around the dike and the Down East Sunrise Trail.
The Department of Transportation (DOT) is "aware and on it," Kitchen says of the new damage, adding, "They're really doing a great job."
On the heels of the floods in December and January, the flood on March 10 was not as severe. According to Kitchen, it was caused by high tide, rain and winds from the southeast. "When it comes perpendicular to the dike, that's the worst," he says. The flood on January 10, being the worst of the three, also had 4" of snowmelt involved. If the January 10 flood had also taken place at a peak high tide, it would have been catastrophic. "We haven't had the perfect storm yet," Kitchen says.
With that in mind, the imperative to prepare the town, and the downtown in particular, is paramount, Kitchen says. "Unilaterally, either everybody moves out, or some mitigating measures are put in."

Unique problems, unique solutions
While every coastal community in Maine is contending with rising waters, "Machias is unique," Kitchen says, owing to the "geologic and climate-driven forces" in effect within in and around it.
"We've got the Machias River, the East Machias River and the Middle River all dumping water all right here," Kitchen says. On top of that are the high tides of the region. "It's like a miniature Bay of Fundy."
At the same time, the historic and commercial downtown are located in a bowl shape alongside the waterways, Kitchen explains, "so we have a massive stormwater issue."
Part of the problem stems from the fact that the historic downtown area "didn't actually used to exist," Kitchen says. Referencing a map from 1835, he points out how the area where Hammond Lumber, the town office, Helen's Restaurant and buildings near them were "mostly water" before building filled in, primarily by sawdust.
"Then, in the '70s or '80s, they decided to put the sewer treatment plant in the lowest part of town," Kitchen adds.
"Along with these factors, Machias is contending with maintaining the Sunrise Trail across the Middle River, the failing dike, a salt marsh and a living coast," Kitchen says. "There are far more factors in play here than most municipalities have to deal with."
Fortunately, Machias has plans -- several of them, in fact. The formerly gravity fed wastewater overflow system that directed waste from the opposite side of the river will soon be operated by a pump station, relieving a situation that sees constant overflows into the area's mudflats. "That will fix so much of this problem," Kitchen says.
"The town is also in the midst of a salt-marsh restoration project," Kitchen says, "and both the dike and the causeway are being addressed."
"The dike, referring to the below road portion of the causeway, will be determined mainly by NOAA and DOT," he says, "but the causeway itself is where the town will have input in terms of landscape buffers, power lines, pedestrian walkways, vendors and so on."
"Not only do all these projects have to line up figuratively, they also have to line up literally," Kitchen says, explaining that they need to be considering similar sea-level rise assumptions for each one. "To accomplish that, they are forming a master planning committee to coordinate the town's roughly 10 in progress projects," Kitchen says. "That way we can make sure everybody's on the same page."

Options for town office considered
• The January 10 flood event hit the Machias Town Office hard, with over an inch of seawater encroaching into the building itself," Kitchen says. The seawater "wicked up the walls" and soaked in, and, being filled with organisms, "it can't just be dried out."
Town officials ran industrial dehumidifiers in the building for a month to attempt to salvage the building. In the meantime, the town is awaiting an insurance report that will inform them how much they'll have to put toward repairs. Whether it will be enough for the building to be usable again is questionable. "Insurance money does not allow building back better," notes Kitchen. But, if federal funds come through, including Governor Mills' damage mitigation request, there may be enough funds to rehabilitate the building.
Before moving back into the building, however, "I would need to be able to look the taxpayer in the eye and say, 'No, this isn't throwing good money after bad,'" Kitchen says. For that to happen, they would need to have completed significant mitigation efforts on the building. Some of the options on the table are installing dry floodproofing, three foot-high flashing or waterproof sealing doors.
"That doesn't necessarily mean we'll be moving back there," Kitchen says. As an alternative, the town is considering applying for an undetermined amount of funding in the next round of congressionally directed spending requests. If the funding is approved, it would "allow us to build, from scratch, a free standing, state-of-the-art town office and police department." It could be located next to Eastport Healthcare on a lot that the town owns, and it could be built within three years, although Kitchen cautions that is an "optimistic timeline."
While the town awaits the insurance report and considers applying for additional funding, it's relocated its operations to 17 Stackpole Road, also the home of the police department and the Department of Motor Vehicles. It's a serviceable enough building, but given its layout and lack of resources, the town clerks are "trying to work with their hands behind their back," Kitchen says. To make it more usable, they're going to have carpenters reconfigure the building to bring the clerks to the front so visitors don't have to walk down the hallway and past several offices to conduct their business.
"I do not see us getting out of here in weeks. It is more likely to be months," says Kitchen.