Eastport Breakwater Collapses

by Paul Molyneaux

Several boats were damaged including the schooner Ada C. Lore which had been moored alongside the earthen-filled pier suffered heavy damage. A truck, which had been parked on the breakwater just above the schooner, took a ride to the bottom, along with the pilot boat Medric. Paul Molyneaux photo

On Thursday, Dec. 4, just before 2 a.m., a large section of the 52-year-old breakwater in Eastport, Maine, collapsed into the harbor, sinking one vessel and severely damaging several others. According to Butch Harris, owner of the whale-watching schooner, Ada C. Lore, the vessel’s caretaker Pat Donahue and his dog were sleeping in the foc’sle when Donahue heard some rumbling. “He gathered his things and started to leave the boat,” said Harris. “But when he got on deck he saw it all moving and went back down below. Good thing, too. It would have buried him.”

The Ada C. Lore had been moored alongside the earthen-filled pier and suffered heavy damage. Donahue’s truck, which he had parked on the breakwater just above the schooner, took a ride to the bottom, along with the pilot boat Medric.

By Friday, Dec. 5, clean-up crews and volunteers had cleared away all the wreckage, and raised the Medric and Donahue’s truck. But with high winds forecasted for the weekend and the potential of more winter storms to follow, fishermen and port director Chris Gardner were scrambling for places to moor the city’s scallop fleet.

“There’s a storm coming and we got to get these boats out of here,” Gardner said to the assembled fishermen. “We can’t have six or seven boats rafted out from the finger piers. She won’t take it. Something’s going to break loose and somebody’s going to have their feelings hurt.” Gardner praised the fishermen’s ability to work together and implored them to move if they could.

The city of Eastport takes up the whole of Moose Island, which possesses a number of shallow coves all around it, none of which offer as much protection as the harbor inside the damaged breakwater.

Gardner told local fishermen of plans to deploy wave attenuators and to install emergency moorings in Broad Cove near the former fertilizer plant. According to Butch Harris, the city had considered bringing in spud barges to create a temporary breakwater, but at this writing that idea was off the table.

“Half the boats have got to go,” said Gardner. “You guys are good at self-policing. I know nobody wants to be the guy that did nothing, but is the first to tie up to the new moorings.”

“Well, let’s get out of here and make this happen,” said one fisherman, and the meeting dispersed with several fishermen promising to move their boats immediately or within 24 hours.

Kyle Lewey, who fishes aboard the F/V Ahkiq with his father, Fred Moore III, sat out the meeting. “I moved it around to the boat school yesterday,” he said over a seafood platter at the WACO diner. “The funny thing is, my father was after me to move the boat down to that end, but I never got around to it. Pretty lucky.” If Lewey had moved the Ahkiq in the days ahead of the catastrophe, it would have been directly in harm’s way.

Brian Young, an investigator for the National Transportation Board, arrived from Washington, D.C., around noon on Dec. 5. From Water Street, he photographed the blown-out breakwater. The torn ends of heavy steel sheathing, which had held since 1962, wracked a 150-foot section of dirt, rubble and asphalt that had spilled into the harbor. “We’ll conduct an investigation,” Young said, “looking for probable cause. And we’ll make recommendations. But that won’t be for a long time. It could be a year before you see that on our web page.”

Butch Harris believed that heavy rains on Dec. 3 may have led to the collapse the following morning. “Every time, they have a sinkhole. They fill it with gravel, and that don’t drain out. You got all that water sitting in there.”

According to Chris Bartlett, a member of Eastport’s Harbor Committee, the probable cause was clear. “It failed. The whalers that hold steel together gave out and that’s it,” Bartlett said, referring to the steel ties that hold the steel sides of the earth-filled pier together.

Bartlett was not surprised. “This thing was given a 20-year life span when they built it. Once those whalers are buried, there’s no way to know what’s going on with them, whether they rotted away or not.”

Bartlett pointed to an addition to the breakwater, built on pilings. “That section is dependent on the breakwater for stability, you see. It has no lateral bracing and if the breakwater was gone, it’d be all wobbly. “We’re going to build a new pier extending another 50 feet out, all on pilings, and take out the old breakwater.” Bartlett said the plan had been under development for the last two years.

Over a year ago, on Aug. 23, 2013, the local paper, The Quoddy Tides, reported that the Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT) had determined the breakwater had “reached the end of its useful life.” At a meeting earlier that month, Gardner had unveiled plans for the new addition to the breakwater and the dismantling of the old sheet pile structure.

Sheet pile construction consists of interlocking and relatively thin steel piling driven into the ground to form a continuous wall. In the case of Eastport’s breakwater, the wall enclosed a large L about 400 feet long and 50 feet wide, which was then filled with dirt and rock and topped with asphalt paving.

According to Gardner, the new breakwater construction will go ahead as planned, but will obviously have to start sooner than expected. “Phase one is remediation,” said Gardner. “We have to take up the ’62 piece first, and then rebuild everything we’re deleting on the inside.” Gardner said the plan is being re-engineered before going out to bid. Instead of sheet pile and fill, the new breakwater will be built on concrete-filled pilings and a single layer of sheet pile that will still protect the inner harbor, but be easier to maintain.

Funding for the new breakwater will come from a $6 million federal grant secured by Congressman Mike Michaud, $5 million from the state, and $2 million from the Eastport Authority. Gardner projected a cost between $10 million and 15 million. “Obviously, it’s going to be a lot more,” he said. He had no idea where the additional funds would come from. “Right now, we’re just plugging along,” he said.

In addition to the increased cost of reconstruction, the city and the Port Authority will face a question of liability, for the damage caused by the catastrophic failure of the breakwater.

The powerful bursting of fill from behind the sheet pile dismasted Butch Harris’s 85-foot schooner and nearly sank it. “I guess the city’s got insurance,” he said. “And I got insurance. But they’ll probably get together and fight over who’s going to pay. Probably going to take years. I just hope I can get enough money so’s I can get going in the spring.”

The many folks in the area and from afar who come to the breakwater to fish for mackerel and fill their freezers and smokehouses in the summer and fall have also lost an important asset. “We lost our fishing spot!” said Therese Lussier, who drives down from Houlton with her husband every fall. But she will get no compensation.