A coastal Hancock County town with 50-plus miles of coastline has no public access point that commercial fishermen can use at low tide.
To change that, the town of Brooksville has been working for more than five years on a plan to dredge out the area around its town landing at Betsy’s Cove.
The urgency of that project became more clear to Brooksville officials in recent years, after the yearlong closure of a private all-tide marina in 2023 demonstrated that public deep-water access was vital for the future of commercial fishing in the town, given that the next closest public access points that can be used at low tide are in Stonington and Blue Hill.
“Fishing is a core part of the economics of Brooksville and the region, and it’s an important public good to make that possible,” said Mark Shaughnessy, chair of the town’s harbor committee.
After deciding that it would be too expensive for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to do the project, the town now hopes to carry out the dredging work itself.
Though the private marina in Buck’s Harbor has reopened on a seasonal basis after a longtime summer resident bought it last summer, the closure was a “scary time” for Brooksville, Shaughnessy said. The business has traditionally served as an alternate access point for fishermen in the town that isn’t subject to the tide.
Between 20 and 40 commercial fishermen use the cove throughout the year, according to the harbor committee. The town’s harbor master told the Ellsworth American in 2023 that there’s sometimes a “scramble” when dozens of fishermen are trying to put hundreds of traps out at once.
Some Brooksville fishermen mostly work out of nearby Deer Isle-Stonington, which has public all-tide access, state license data shows. Blue Hill Harbor is the other public site on the peninsula that can be used at all hours.
In a 2020 interview with Stonington buyer Greenhead Lobster, a Brooksville fisherman said he came to Stonington every day for bait, fuel and a place to sell his catch. He noted that Buck’s Harbor, where Betsy’s Cove is located, had become more challenging for fishermen in recent years because it doesn’t have a deep-water public landing or a consistent lobster buyer.
“The place is no Deer Isle in terms of resources for fishermen,” the article said.
Deepening Betsy’s Cove and building a new pier would let fishermen access docks 24 hours a day, giving them a place to load and unload bait and catch. The project is also expected to improve access for recreational boaters, emergency services and overall safety.
The Maine Department of Marine Resources is now accepting public comment on the proposal to dredge Betsy’s Cove in an area 65 feet wide and 1,000 feet long, with a 130-foot basin for vessels to turn around. Shaughnessy described it as a relatively small project.
It would remove about 14,000 cubic yards of sand and silt to be transported to Rockland by barge for disposal.
A feasibility study alone through the Army Corps of Engineers would have cost about $600,000, according to Shaughnessy, and the town would have been responsible for half of that amount and 20 percent of the project cost.
An early report by the Army Corps of Engineers did find the proposal was economically important enough for the agency to pursue because of the benefits it would provide local fishermen. Currently, they can lose hours of their workday planning around the tides.
The committee won’t develop specific plans or cost estimates until permits are issued from Maine DMR and other authorities, Shaughnessy said, and the project itself would require approval from residents at a town meeting. That could take two years or longer.
The planning phase is funded by mooring fees, and if voters approve the project the harbor committee expects to pay for it with a combination of grants and taxpayer funds.