Twenty years ago, as Maine’s beautiful coast was “discovered” for the umpteenth time in the last 150 years, the narrow land perch from which marine resource harvesters worked was in danger of vanishing. The Island Institute launched this newspaper in large part to help protect that perch, the so-called working waterfront.
Today, just 20 miles of Maine’s 5,000 miles of waterfront is protected for fishermen and others working the sea. The Legislature created a fund to purchase such land—docks, piers, parking lots and the like—to stop it from being developed for housing and commercial uses. With the weak economy, it’s hard to imagine another wave of development pressure is ready to break over our coast. But it is, and it will.
There’s not an abundance of access for fishermen, but today, there is stability and a growing understanding of the need for that access, which is a kind of victory. So let’s broaden our understanding of the working waterfront. Let’s think about it in terms of its assets and how those assets can be leveraged into sustainable, sensible economic development. Let’s acknowledge that it extends a few miles from the saltwater, and that even when the water is out of sight, it remains an essential part of life on the coast. And let us be sure we understand the working waterfront, as we are now conceiving of it, well enough to protect it from threats, present and future.
The geneticists and bioengineers working at Bar Harbor’s Jackson Laboratory may appear to have little in common with the lobstermen landing their catch a mile or so away. But the lab, probably the largest single employer east of the Penobscot River, with 1,100-plus workers and looking to add 50 more, is based in Bar Harbor in part because of that waterfront.
It’s a clean, successful, thriving organization that is on a solid economic foundation—and poised to grow.
The lab was born from funds provided by the wealthy summer “rusticators” on Mount Desert Island, as Laurie Schreiber’s front-page story reports. And since those early days, the lab has been able to recruit scientists and technicians because the region is a beautiful and wonderfully rich place in which to live.
Jackson Lab has expanded to Connecticut, California and Florida, and has struggled in Maine to fill positions. It purchased the former Lowe’s store in Ellsworth to be closer to a larger labor pool. So part of the working waterfront formula must include encouraging population growth in areas where jobs can support it. Most of the Maine coast is such a place.
Though the lab worries that prospective employees think they must have advanced science degrees, there are in fact many jobs in support roles. Still, an educated population along the coast is essential to keeping the waterfront working.
Affordable housing also is part of the mix; if those workers in support roles can’t afford to live on MDI, the labor pool shrinks and the lab may look to other states to grow. That concern exists in many, if not most, of our waterfront communities, and certainly in our island communities. So the new working waterfront must include entry level and rental housing.
Other elements are important: public access to the water, zoning that allows mixed uses yet protects the environment, public investment in infrastructure like piers, roads and wastewater treatment plants.
This new working waterfront is taking hold in Belfast, where the Front Street Shipyard, serving yacht owners, is thriving. And in Rockland, where recreational boating, restaurants, bars, galleries, and museums keep the downtown hopping. And in Portland, where so many of the state’s young people are landing, helping broaden a lively, small-city scene.
Next month, we’ll take readers to Brunswick, where another economic success story is unfolding. Like Jackson Lab, jobs are being created that range from the medical field to food production. And it’s there because of a waterfront that works.