MOUNT DESERT MOVES FORWARD TOWARD CREATING OTTER CREEK WORKING WATERFRONT RESOLUTION
And other Selectboard news
OTTER CREEK AND MOUNT DESERT—On Monday night, the Mount Desert Selectboard directed Town Manager Durlin Lunt to go ahead and create a resolution about the restoration of Otter Creek’s working waterfront for members to review at their next August meeting.
Lunt explained that part of the problem is that the efforts to rebuild that working waterfront have been ad hoc and unfocused. Citizens would protest park actions and, on occasion, Acadia National Park (ANP) administration would meet with Mount Desert town managers and attend Selectboard meetings, but very little resulted from these efforts.
Now, they want to focus a bit more on continuity and results. Part of doing that would be to make a resolution and then see if that resolution could also become a part of the town’s comprehensive plan.
“We should adopt a town policy around the five goals set forth in this packet,” Lunt said. The goals are amendable and not all-inclusive, he said. “Such a policy would ensure that this effort would not lapse with the end of tenure for municipal administrations, select boards, and ANP administrations.”
The goal is to not start over every time the town manager, Mount Desert Selectboard composition, or Acadia National Park superintendent changes, Lunt said.
The discussion came after Lunt presented to the Otter Creek Aid Society last week.
THE SIX ‘C’S AND THE FIVE GOALS
For Lunt there are currently five main points needed to start restoring Otter Creek’s working waterfront and six core principles that would underlie his approach.
The goals involve the tidal flushing of the inner harbor, getting land from Acadia National Park to make the village’s boat launch ramp a bit more usable, clearing the vista so that people can see the harbor again, restoring the traditional trails that were there before Rockefeller acquired the land, and determining the ownership of Quarry Path.
He wants to approach those changes using six principles, all starting with the letter C. Those are creativity, common sense, collegiality, conciliation, collaboration, and compromise.
At the Mount Desert Selectboard meeting, he mentioned the Seawall Road project where citizens created a temporary fix to reopen the broken road rather than waiting for the state to permanently repair it. The state work would begin next year. The road had been closed for months before its July reopening.
“The citizens rose up and said that we’ve got problems,” Lunt said and eventually the rules were modified—not abandoned—to allow the process to run its course.
What would have happened if the citizens hadn’t insisted, he asked.
He wants to explore federal rule changes that allow local park administrators greater flexibility to work with municipal officials in problem solving efforts. This would likely be necessary to get Otter Creek’s working waterfront back since the village is now landlocked and surrounded by Acadia National Park.
Lunt wants the waterfront’s restoration to occur with collaboration and collegiality. He spoke of the golden rule.
“What I mean by the golden rule is not that he or she who has the gold rules, but treating each other with respect,” Lunt said. “Local and federal officials (should) work together, not against one another but for the common goal of public service.”
But, he also wants the federal government to recognize the loss of Otter Creek’s working waterfront and that it was what he defined as a devastating blow to the village from which it has never recovered.
“When you use the six ‘C’s what you get is evolutionary change,” he said. When you don’t, he said, you get revolutionary change.
The next steps might include creating, refining, and approving a Selectboard resolution about restoring the working waterfront to Otter Creek, and then create concrete goals and create a coalition to advance the goals.
“The terrific energy that you’ve brought to this over the last four or five years, it’s tremendous,” Kendall Davis said. He represents Mount Desert on the Acadia National Parks Advisory Commission. “You’re an excellent partner.”
THE BOAT LANDING
One of the five elements of the potential restoration is the enhancement of the town’s boat landing so that it is more usable.
The landing in Otter Creek rests at the end of a steep, narrow gravel road and has been used by Otter Creek residents who can access it for at least 127 years.
It’s the only way boats have to access Otter Creek and its cove. Because of how the causeway is built, however, only very small boats can move from the landing to the bigger cove and ocean. This has not always been the case.
The road to the landing is narrow. It’s almost impossible for most people to turn their vehicles around. That’s especially true if that vehicle is hauling a boat.
The problem is that the land, once owned by John D. Rockefeller, surrounding the boat landing is owned and controlled by Acadian National Park. Rockefeller gave it to the park in his will.
Federal legislation defines the park’s boundaries and doesn’t allow the park to give land away, officials have stressed. When it does happen, it usually happens as a land trade.
Otter Creek and the Town of Mount Desert would rather not lose more of its land.
“It really shouldn’t cost thousands of dollars in surveys and other miscellaneous expenses and take months to acquire a piece of unused land which is just over half the size on an NBA court or the infield on a baseball diamond,” Lunt said. “I think momentum can be gained.”
Selectboard Chair John Macauley said, “There’s got to be something beyond a simple gift of land for a turn around. If you want to really want a working waterfront, you need a marina, a municipal presence.”
In an October 2023 letter to former Senator George Mitchell from Superintendent Kevin Schneider, Schneider stresses that the park allows “reasonable access” to the fish house parcel in Otter Creek, and that the park is working with the Town of Mount Desert to “address questions concerning the ecological health of and access to the inner cove” of Otter Creek.
That cove is north of the causeway and bridge and is where the boat launch is.
“That area is constrained by wetlands on one side and steep topography on the other, which is why the original land exchange was not larger,” he wrote.
But times have changed.
“We do have an engineering study from Greg Johnston and Associates that says that this is feasible and permitable,” Lunt said. “These things are not difficult to do,” even with the wetlands, Lunt said.
There was also a short discussion about potentially explaining about the value of the land that was involved in the earlier exchanges between the town and park.
“The value of the land when the original swap took place was to be weighed in as being more than what it originally was. Is that what you’re saying?” Davis asked.
Lunt said that the question should be examined in relation to that concept and that the original conservation easement given at that time should be part of that property.
A 1987 Bangor Daily News article headline reads: “Village wants Otter Creek landing deleted from Acadia park boundary.”
That bill came after 20 years of what the BDN reporter, Anne Hyde Degan, characterized as “delicate negotiations.” And the request for that deletion came six months after the bill became law in September 1986.
Back then, Lunt wasn’t the town manager but the Selectboard chair.
“The whole village wants it very badly,” he said at the time. “We’ve been trying just about every opportunity we can use to try to address that issue without much luck.”
At the time, the Selectboard had written that Mount Desert wanted the Otter Creek issue settled “but not at the cost of holding up passage of an overdue and over-burdened bill.”
Resident Steve Smith, Degan said, had already “battled for years to preserve the Otter Creek access point.”
It’s just about forty years later and Smith, Lunt, and Otter Creek are still battling.
The inscription on the Acadia National Park marker acknowledges the community and how it interacts with the park is not always beneficial for all community members.
“Since the early 1800s, Otter Creek has been the site of a fishing village with wharfs and fish houses on the waterfront and homes on the hills. Residents caught fish, dried them on racks along the cove, and shipped them to Boston and other cities. Families also sold lobsters, worked in granite quarries, cut firewood, farmed, and later, provided services for summer residents and tourists. Today this community is completely surrounded by Acadia National Park,” it reads. “For some residents, this adds scenic values and quiet to their lives, but for others this causeway impedes access to the inner cove by boat and disrupts traditional patterns of fishing. Although most of the old fish houses are gone, generations of the same families still live here. Today, the Aid Society of Otter Creek promotes community life and preserves historic buildings in the village.”
The park has created two documents about the history of Otter Creek and its fish houses. The links for these documents are at the end of the article.
“It’s been challenging for everyone,” said Acadia National Park’s Management Assistant John Kelly. Much of it has to do with the rights and ownership of different lands. The park itself is made up of hundreds of parcels and land transfers.
Kelly said, “The Otter Creek Aid Society does have two legal parcels.” This was confirmed by court appointed land surveyors according to Kelly.
The right-of-way for the landing was granted back in 1993, Kelly said. Rights to the park’s land, he said, can’t be given without a process and involvement from Congress.
“The reason we exist is to protect and preserve the land,” said Public Affairs Officer for Acadia National Park and Saint Croix Island International Historic Site Amanda Pollock. “We are always trying to be good neighbors and partners to the towns of MDI.”
The Acadia Advisory Commission will meet at September 9 at 1 p.m. at the Schoodic part of the park. Lunt hopes that multiple people will speak at the meeting on behalf of Otter Creek’s working waterfront restoration.
THE HEALTH OF THE COVE
In November 2023, EA Engineering, Science, and Technology assessed whether or not the causeway in Otter Creek has “impacted hydrologic conditions within the cove, potentially leading to a decrease in biodiversity from historic levels.”
The short answer is that they are trying to find out, but some, like Smith, think they already know.
“The whole area is dead and it’s time that we face it,” Smith said.
“Park staff and local community of Otter Creek have noted that biodiversity in Otter Cove within Acadia National Park appears to have declined over the past 100 years,” the firm wrote.
The causeway and bridge was meant to make the basin it created “warm enough for swimming,” the report states. However, the stop-logs that were meant to contain the water within the inner cove were never inserted. At the Otter Creek Aid Society meeting, many people called for the causeway to be removed. There has been talk about it being a trestle bridge instead.
A July 24 email from Dr. Chris Petersen of College of the Atlantic said that a project testing heavy metals in the cove has floundered. He’d like to see sediment tested for copper, zinc, and cyanide or do the testing via pore water. The cost would likely be several hundred dollars, he wrote.
The causeway itself is a designated historic landmark, Kelley said and even though it’s over a natural resource, the park is obligated to protect both. The park had a tidal flow analysis done because of that need to protect the resource. The causeway was built, he said, to be part of the Park Loop Road.
APPOINTMENTS
Otter Creek wasn’t the only thing on the Selectboard’s agenda and the board made quick work of its business.
It quickly appointed Kyle Rounsavall as full-time firefighter/EMT at the probationary base rate of $29.21, effective August 27, 2024; accepted the resignation of Meredith Randolph from the Planning Board effective July 18, 2024; amended the earlier appointment of Anne Dalton as an alternate Planning Board member to full-time Planning Board member; appointed Daniel Burke as an alternate Planning Board member; confirmed the appointment of Stephen Anastasia to the Warrant Committee.
HAZARDOUS WASTE COLLECTION
On the board’s consent agenda, it accepted a letter from the Hancock County Planning Commission, which cancelled the HCPC’s hazardous waste collection event that was meant to occur this fall.
“Despite the high demand from residents and the obvious need for this service, it’s proving difficult to find funding to pay for it,” the July 23 letter from HCPC’s Medea Steinman says. There is a federal grant, but it’s competitive, and local fundraising has “resulted in almost no financial support.”
The projected fixed costs for the event were $16,500, but did not include the cost of the waste.
Steinmen writes that the HCPC is trying to find funds to pay for its staff time to work on the issue.
FIRE TRUCK
Bar Harbor’s 1937 Seagrave fire truck is leaving its home in Town Hill at the town hall building run by the Town Hill Village Improvement Society. It’s going to be towed and stored for up to a year at the Seal Harbor fire station #2 for a year.
The truck will still belong to Bar Harbor. The Bar Harbor Town Council also approved the agreement on August 6.
Fire Chief Mike Bender said, “They are looking for temporary storage. We have an empty bay to store it in Seal Harbor.”
One Selectboard member asked why Bar Harbor would want to keep the antique truck.
“It’s part of the town,” Fire Chief Michael Bender said and it’s part of the town’s history. He said that the rescue association in Mount Desert has a 1927 American France 11.
OTHER ITEMS
The town approved a propane bid from Coastal Energy at a price of $1.37 per gallon. It reviewed and approved a contract in the amount of $15,000 with A Climate to Thrive for solar implementation support and approved a contract in the amount of $240,000 with Olver Associates for professional and technical services and approved another contract in the amount of $14,208 with Gulf of Maine Research Institute for a Climate Vulnerability Assessment.
James Wadman will perform the financial audit for the town again.
LINKS TO KNOW MORE
To watch via YouTube
The Waterfront of Otter Creek, a Community History
Traditional Uses of Fish Houses on Mount Desert Island and in Otter Cove
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It was a real treat to see Mike Bracy's name in print. When I worked at Don's many years ago Mike's entrance into the store never went un-noted. No mater where you were in the store you knew where Mike was because laughter and good spirits followed him wherever he went!. Mike was the guy who made good friends of Otter Creek's beavers and a photo of him and his beaver pals once appeared in a Patagonia catalog! They don't make them like Mike anymore and he is surely missed by many people...