Machias’ getting older dike may very well be changed by a bridge with fish passage. Some locals are opposed

Simply east of downtown Machias, Route 1 passes over the construction often called the dike-bridge. It is a scenic spot, with the Machias River estuary to the south, and the Center River to the north. For the final 150 years the dike has prevented tides from flowing up into the Center River. However the construction has deteriorated, and locals are divided over the plan to interchange it with a brand new bridge.

The important thing parts of the dike-bridge are 4 culverts that enable water to stream south from the Center River, into the estuary, and gates, or clapper valves, that forestall tidal water from speeding in.

This story is a part of our collection “Local weather Pushed: A deep dive into Maine’s response, one county at a time.”

The design permits the land above the dike for use for pasture and hay manufacturing. And as he stands on the dike and appears upstream, Charlie Foster of the Downeast Salmon Federation sees meadow the place there was as soon as salt marsh, and fish habitat.

“It’s grow to be nice habitat for deer and different animals,” Foster says, “however the Atlantic salmon, who’re critically endangered, and different fish species that use this river can not make it into the system, for essentially the most half.”

Murray Carpenter

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Maine Public

The Maine Division of Transportation had been leaning towards a plan to restore the dike and enlarge the culverts. However underneath stress from federal fisheries regulators, the division introduced in June that its most popular different is to interchange the dike with a bridge

That, Foster says, would enable alewives, smelt, striped bass and Atlantic salmon to swim freely into the Center River. And it might create a uncommon alternative to revive pure salt marsh habitat — and sequester carbon.

“Within the Center River, we estimated over a meter of peat loss over the previous century, which might translate into a really massive supply of carbon into the environment that did not exist earlier than,” he says. “So now, with the conversion again to a salt marsh, you possibly can flip that carbon supply into an precise carbon sink.”

However not everybody desires to see the salt marsh return. From right here on the dike-bridge, you may see a tall pole erected within the riverside mud, topped with a flag that reads “Don’t Tread on Me.”

Murray Carpenter

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Maine Public

“I used to be upset,” says Chris Sprague. “And so what I put up was a Liberty Pole.”

Sprague says the Liberty Pole is a logo that Machias settlers used to defy the British. Now he is opposing the bridge plan with the identical fervor.

Sprague’s home sits on 90 acres simply upstream of the dike. He says the unique impetus for the construction was to create higher farm land.

“And so they figured it might be simpler to hay this in the event that they did that important dike system throughout.”

Strolling alongside a path he maintains by a meadow, Sprague says it might look fairly totally different if DOT builds a bridge.

“Excessive tide, we’d be about waist-deep proper right here,” he says.

Sprague thinks it might make sense to restore the dike and the tide gates, that are beginning to fail and not maintain all the tidal water out. He additionally fears that reopening the marsh will launch contamination from an upstream dump.

Murray Carpenter

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Maine Public

However most agree that one thing needs to be finished.

“That dike will probably be eliminated by a storm if we don’t take away it quickly, or change it drastically,” says Tora Johnson.

Johnson chairs the Division of Environmental and Organic sciences on the College of Maine at Machias.

She has been watching the dike for years, and mapping native sea-level rise. And he or she witnessed firsthand the results of a significant storm in April of 2020.

“I went down there in the course of the evening to see it,” she says. “The Division of Transportation truly had of us on the dike, as a result of they have been involved that the dike itself can be destroyed. And what I witnessed was water flowing over the dike into the Center River above it, and waves crashing on it.”

The following day, Johnson noticed that the dike had practically been breached. She says such excessive occasions have gotten extra widespread with local weather change.

“Floods which are purported to occur on common as soon as each 100 years — we’ve had 4 of these in six years,” Johnson says.

Murray Carpenter

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Maine Public

Advocates of the bridge possibility say it might defend Route 1 from the impacts of local weather change.

However doubters, together with Chris Sprague, say they don’t see an imminent risk within the space.

“To me, the idea behind the ocean degree rising, I do not actually purchase that,” Sprague says. “To me, if that’s true, folks wouldn’t be shopping for shorefront property in Florida and issues, they might be promoting it. To me, if it’s true that the ocean degree is rising, effectively, right here’s a dike system, let’s assist maintain it again very similar to the dikes in Holland.”

And in the course of the controversy are native officers like Machias city supervisor Invoice Kitchen.

“My job as city supervisor is to be sure that all of our individuals are heard,” Kitchen says. “That if there are going to be affected landowners, that they’re going to be compensated.”

However Kitchen says no matter plan is chosen, he hopes the design will create a vibrant hub, maybe incorporating a fishing pier, and even an amphitheater.

“It has the chance to be excess of a 1,000-foot-long two-lane piece of infrastructure to get you from level A to level B,” he says. “It has the chance to have large influence on each the cultural and financial growth of a rural hub in Washington County.”

Murray Carpenter

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Maine Public

Regardless of the last design, It will likely be costly. DOT estimates that fixing the dike and culverts would price as much as $22 million, and constructing a bridge as a lot as $30 million.

Only a brief stroll from the city workplace, water is flushing from the Center River underneath Route 1, and out by the clapper valves into the low tide of the Machias River estuary, as they’ve because the Civil Struggle period. However it will quickly change. DOT hopes to start constructing the bridge by 2026.