Guest Column: Working waterfronts are more than just a space

There’s an old Brazilian tale that goes something like this: A fisherman and a businessman are talking in a small village. The businessman asks the fisherman about his day and the fisherman says in the morning he goes fishing, in the afternoon he spends time with his children, and in the evening, he eats supper with his wife and then joins his friends for a drink. The businessman tells the fisherman that he has a Ph.D. in business and that the fisherman should fish longer days so he can buy a bigger boat. The fisherman asks him why and the businessman tells him that if the fisherman buys a bigger boat he can catch more fish and make more money. And if he makes more money he can buy even more boats and start a canned seafood business and sell stocks and make even more money. And again, the fisherman asks why. The businessman tells him so one day he can retire and spend time with his wife and kids and go for drinks with his buddies, to which the fisherman replies, “But isn’t that what I’m doing now?”As the story implies, the value of time spent with family and community is immeasurable, and it is a value that many in Maine strive to experience every day, not just something to look forward to.

Working waterfronts are more than just how the space is used. They represent character, personality, and a sense of home for fishermen and their families. To diminish the working waterfront is to diminish the character that is Maine and to take away what makes fishing communities unique and wonderful. For those living in a fishing community and who often have lived there for generations, the value of the working waterfront is simply felt and understood. Whether it’s knowing that there is access to the water to make a living, that news is shared at the coffee shop in the early morning, or that the roads may smell a bit like bait, especially in the summer, the character of a working waterfront is unmistakable.

There’s a new but familiar conflict that’s becoming more common in fishing communities, and that is the threat to or loss of working waterfronts. Whether it’s a hotel development on a wharf on Commercial Street, summer residents threatening clam harvesters accessing in the intertidal zone in Harpswell, or unwanted undersea electrical cables in Port Clyde, many of Maine’s fishing communities are worried about the future of not just the Maine coast, but the way of life on the coast. Loss of working waterfront and access to the sea are not the only threats facing Maine’s commercial fishermen — climate change, sea-level rise, right whales, quota reductions, imported seafood, offshore wind turbines and oil drilling, conservation zones, regulation changes, gear changes, fuel costs, bait costs, and declining populations of species are all real and current worries.

So, when a hotel is proposed on a wharf or a summer resident peppers his property with ‘No Trespassing’ signs, it’s not just the access that is being lost, it’s another chink in the armor which makes a harvester even more vulnerable and a fishing community closer to losing its quality of life.

A hotel proposal on Fisherman’s Wharf in Portland is the current concern on the working waterfront in southern Maine. Although Portland is home port to only a portion of Maine’s fishermen, the project has fishermen all along the coast worried. Portland is a bellwether city, and what happens in Portland tends to impact the rest of the state.

If Portland fishermen continue to lose access to wharfs on Commercial Street, whether to berth their boat, unload, or store their gear, what will that mean for other fishing communities which are also highly attractive to visitors and retirees?It’s not just fishermen that are impacted by the loss of access to working waterfronts. Local businesses that sell marine supplies, truck dealers, restaurants, general stores, grocery stores, boatyards, even local ice cream shops in coastal communities all benefit from fishermen spending cash to purchase products. When times are lean for fishermen, other businesses will feel that pinch as well.

As the Brazilian story shows, there is no quantitative metric for happiness. But if the Maine coast continues down a path of development without planning or concern for the way of life and the livelihood of fishermen, without asking the critical question “Why?”, there will be no return to the way life should be. We will be left with harbors without boats, general stores without gossiping fishermen, and local bars without cribbage. If that happens, why will people want to visit? For the hotels that block the view?