BDN October 8, 1992
Harbor Tragedy

I have lived on Stockton Harbor for 21years. l have moored several small
boats perhaps a mile south of the site of the proposed marina. I want to warn all
concerned. both the prospective builders and the people of our town, that there
is a grave danger tharl have not yet heard discussed.

1 have learned over the years the location of virtually every rock. every sand
bar, every old rock jetty, and the general configuration of the shore of virtu-
ally the entire harbor, both as a boat user and as an amateur scuba diver.

Ever since the causeway was constructed between Kidders Point and Sears ls-
land, there has been a profound change taking place in the harbor. Boating has
become a nightmare.

The shape of the bottom of the harbor is changing so rapidly that sand bars
holding rocks and huge boulders and glacial deposits that were for years
barely visible, buried under feet of sand or water, are now totally exposed. 

One can observe nearly a daily change, as the sand that was for years a part of the
beach along the east shore has now been pulled away from the shoreline and re-
shaped into newly created sand bars that now cause the depth of the harbor to
rise sharply to shallow levels of a few feet deep a good distance offshore and
then sharply drop off in unnatural underwater embankments to great depths.

Our mooring anchors have been buried under tons of sand. Anchors left one
season are missing the next. The depth of the tides has changed dramatically.

Last winter, as I have always done, I left my mooring anchors marked by two
floating blocks of wood. One anchor, 125 pounds with heavy three-quarter inch;
chain, was dragged approximately 250 feet by the shifting sands and bottom
topography. The other anchor was simply ripped from the marker rope as it
fell down the deep new steep dropoff.

Equally disturbing are the new currents that make boating hazardous.
Where my small sailboat is" moored there are such strong currents that even
in strong winds the boat points not into the wind, but rather in the direction of
the current or sideways to it, struggling to find a way to rest naturally at the
mooring. 

Often I have watched the mooring rope lift off the mooring chuck on the bow
of the boat as the boat fights the wind direction and the now opposing
forces of the current. The three boats moored in this part of the harbor always
point in different directions due to the dangerous cross currents.

The changes in the sea life configurations are as deeply troubling and confus-
ing. Starfish, which were generally confined to the bay side of Cape Jellison,
are now being seen by-the hundreds of thousands in the harbor. They are gen-
erally malformed, and wash up dead by the thousands. Little crustaceans, look-
-ing like mutations of small shrimp, are abundant by the millions._ The tides are
so low that one can easily stand where there used to be deep waters, and the
tides are so high that the beach no longer exists.

One must blame many forces in this tragedy: the greenhouse effect, with its
accompanying rising tides, foolish overcutting and bulldozing of trees along the
shoreland properties, and most of all the building of the causeway that has vio-
lently changed the natural movement of the waters in the harbor into a
nightmare.

To construct a marine or boating facility at this time, before one can carefully
map the bottom of the harbor and understand where the changes are heading,
and before it has all settled down into a stable system, is pure folly and asking
for untold tragedy and danger in the boating accidents that are sure to occur
as boats ram into rocks which were not a threat two months earlier. 

Something is horribly wrong in Stockton Harbor, and adding thousands of
new feet of construction, driving pilings,thus loosening and upsetting the natural
bottom further, and bringing in dredges and other destructive construction ap-
paratus is asking for a destruction of Stockton Harbor, an end to the lobster
and fishing industry that used to flourish there, and a possible collapse of Cape
Jellison and Sears Island.

We are all facing many great changes on the Earth, and we are seeing it early
in Maine. Route 1 has already been predicted to be under water, in the midcoast
region, within the next eight years.

We have the chance for Stockton Springs to be once again a recognized
and affluent community. Don’t let us lose this possibility for a better life by
being greedy and acting too quickly. We must not allow outsiders to once again
exploit and destroy our precious natural surroundings and toss us a little toy to
keep us- quiet, as if we were stupid dogs or ignorant children unable to know bet-
ter. 

The ecosystem in which we live is too far gone and too frail to take it.
Please move carefully and slowly. it will pay greatdividends in the long run.


I, as a resident of Stockton Springs, call for public hearings on every aspect
of the‘ marina proposal, and request government agency observation super-
vision and guidance.

Lorin Hollander‘ is a resident of Cape
Jellison at Stockton Springs.