Seawall Road on Mount Desert Island will be temporarily closed through October while the state fixes a section of road damaged by severe back-to-back winter storms in January 2024.
The construction follows a more-than-two-year dispute over which government entity — the Maine Department of Transportation, town of Southwest Harbor, or Acadia National Park — should bear financial responsibility for the repairs and future maintenance.
The project has been delayed several times, including this past summer.
The road connects Manset and Seawall, villages within Southwest Harbor, to the southern edge of Acadia and Tremont. The shorefront road is essential to locals and popular among tourists visiting the park’s quieter areas, including less-congested trails like Wonderland and Ship Harbor.
The project, focused on less than a mile of roadway roughly between Beaver Lodge Lane and Acadia’s Seawall Campground, is intended to make it “more resilient to future storm events,” according to MDOT. The battered roadway abuts Seawall Pond.
The detour will divert traffic to Route 102 from Southwest Harbor to Tremont. The closures will force locals, visitors and emergency vehicles to take longer detours, cutting off Seawall Campground from easy access to nearby businesses.
The closure, announced Wednesday, will begin Oct. 5 and will last up to 28 days, according to state officials, who believe the job will be complete by Oct. 30.
Ellsworth contractor R F Jordan & Sons Construction Inc. will complete the work for $915,820, funded by the National Park Service and the U.S. Department of the Interior, according to MDOT.
Last year, Acadia received congressional funding for storm-related damages, which will be used to improve Seawall Road. The funding was used through the Good Neighbor Authority, which allows the park service to partner with state and local governments to restore and maintain public land.
The project will install new gabion baskets, which are wired containers filled with rocks or concrete used for erosion control, along the oceanfront and a reinforced concrete culvert that allows for fish passage, particularly eels, state officials said.
In 2024, the road was rendered impassable for several months following back-to-back winter storms that churned up heavy surf that battered the roadway. It was temporarily fixed by local contractors the following summer, but, as climate change causes sea levels to rise, bringing more intense storms, the road’s quick fixes weren’t expected to withstand future damage.
An MDOT spokesperson previously estimated the repairs would cost up to $1.45 million. The spokesperson did not respond to an inquiry Wednesday from the Bangor Daily News.