Harpswell leaders are asking state and federal regulators to address an ongoing concern that Maine’s floodplain management rules effectively forbid the rebuilding of many severely damaged or destroyed fish houses and other structures vital to local fishermen.
The town hosted a meeting on the topic on Nov. 26 at the Harpswell Town Office. It was attended by Federal Emergency Management Agency and state government officials, as well as representatives of U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, and U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Angus King, I-Maine.
Town leaders are seeking to clarify — and ultimately change — floodplain rules adopted by Harpswell and the vast majority of Maine communities in order to remain eligible for federal flood insurance and some disaster recovery aid.
The chair of the town’s Planning Board has said the current rules effectively prohibit Maine communities from approving applications to repair or replace storm-damaged fish houses located seaward of the mean high tide.
Select Board Chair Kevin Johnson put it bluntly at the meeting: “It is impossible. The standards can’t be met.”
Harpswell Town Administrator Kristi Eiane added that many working waterfront property owners in the town have received grants to rebuild their infrastructure but can’t get their projects approved because of the strict rules.
The restrictions don’t apply to wharves and docks, only enclosed buildings. However, there is no provision allowing existing fish houses to be rebuilt under prior rules, and no special consideration for Maine’s beleaguered fishing industry.
There are exceptions for structures smaller than 200 square feet, and for those with only minor damage, the meeting’s attendees agreed. But they don’t cover larger buildings that need to be replaced, or whose estimated repair cost exceeds 50% of the structure’s assessed value.
Sue Baker, coordinator of the Maine Floodplain Management Program, attended the meeting. She said such structures also can be rebuilt without running afoul of state or federal rules if they will be raised above the base flood elevation, the height at which there is a 1% annual chance of flooding.
Dean Savramis, Mitigation Division director for FEMA’s Region 1, which covers New England, also was at the meeting. He said FEMA has updated its policies in recent decades to strongly discourage construction in flood-prone coastal areas.
Still, Savramis said municipalities can issue a type of waiver known as a variance to allow the repair or rebuilding of seaward structures in circumstances when strict adherence to FEMA regulations would cause the applicant “undue hardship.”
But there’s a catch: If the federal agency determines a community has been too liberal in its use of variances for coastal rebuilding, that can jeopardize the community’s continued participation in the National Flood Insurance Program.
“If a community gets into a pattern of issuing variances for projects that are deemed to be inconsistent with sound floodplain management (practices), then there could be potential consequences in the program,” Savramis said.
He noted that FEMA’s rules and restrictions for rebuilding damaged fish houses in Maine haven’t changed since the mid-1990s, when the state explicitly asked for the 200-square-foot exemption, which the agency granted.
Savramis said a federal rule change to increase the exempt square footage — or add a grandfathering clause for existing structures — would likely require a five-year process and might receive pushback because of climate change concerns.
“Can some of these restrictions be revisited?” he said. “We could certainly take back any requests to the office, but I think we would need specifics, like what are we looking to increase these numbers to? It’s hard to take the conversation back (to FEMA) and progress it with broad generalities.”
Other meeting attendees said the issue has only come up recently because of the unusually destructive, back-to-back storms that struck the Maine coast last January. The Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association has estimated that 60% of Maine’s working waterfront infrastructure was damaged or destroyed in the storms.
Local officials remarked that other coastal states don’t seem to be having the same problem with allowing the rebuilding of damaged fish houses, suggesting that the issue might be Maine’s interpretation of the FEMA rules.
Savramis agreed, saying Maine’s threshold for allowing variances appears to be stricter than FEMA’s. That issue could potentially be resolved by lobbying the Maine Legislature to change that threshold, which could be achieved more quickly than changes at the federal level.
But meeting attendee Joan Walton, director of Maine’s Municipal Planning Assistance Program, said that in addition to state legislation, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court’s interpretation of the undue hardship requirement for variances also has shaped the way Maine applies the standard.
“During the tenure of my career, the Law Court has tended to interpret the undue hardship criteria very narrowly,” Walton said.
Both state and federal officials said they would bring the discussion back to their respective offices to address Harpswell’s questions and concerns, and to explore potential workarounds. They also agreed to research how other states are interpreting FEMA rules to make coastal rebuilding possible.
Harpswell Planning Board Chair Amy Haible, who attended the meeting, suggested that Harpswell could join forces with other coastal communities to lobby the state for changes that won’t jeopardize the future of their local fishing economies. She said the status quo simply isn’t acceptable.
“Something needs to change,” Haible said. “(Fishing) is a major job generator, a major money generator for the state of Maine. We’re only going to see more of these storms, and we need to have more flexible reconstruction capabilities in order to keep this industry alive.”
