ROCKLAND, Maine — A once powerhouse port, the city has seen its seafood catch drop dramatically in the past decade.
Landings information from the Maine Department of Marine Resources showed that, in 2025, less than 2.1 million pounds of seafood were landed in Rockland with its value estimated at less than $4.6 million.
This was divided up between 164 licensed harvesters of various seafoods, according to the Department of Marine Resources.
The 2025 catch was down from 7.1 million pounds landed in 2024, which were valued at $6.7 million. In 2016, 33.7 million pounds of seafood were landed in Rockland with a value of nearly $21.1 million. There were 239 licensed harvesters landing seafood in Rockland that year.
In 1983, when Rockland had multiple fish processing plants, 55 million pounds of seafood with a 1983 value of $12 million were landed in docks across the city.
Arthur “Hutch” Hutchinson, the manager of the fish pier, said restrictions on fewer days fishermen are allowed to fish for herring are likely behind the recent decline.
Rockland had long seen much of its volume of landings dominated by herring and menhaden, which have lower per pound values.
The city wants to do something to turn around that decline. The City Council is scheduled to vote on Oct. 14 to apply for a $300,000 Seafood Adaptation Fund Grant. The city would be required to match that grant with $15,000, which would come from the fish pier reserve account.
“The Rockland Municipal Fish Pier serves a critical role in the regional seafood supply chain by providing infrastructure that commercial fishing vessels depend on for harbor access, buying bait and selling their catch,” the city stated in its grant proposal.
Economic Development Director Julie Hashem said things like cold storage for seafood and energy efficiency/energy security investments are eligible uses.
The pier supports approximately 85 lobster boats, two herring vessels, five menhaden boats, five scallop boats, two seaweed harvesting operations and a fuel boat serving island communities in Penobscot Bay, the city states in its application. Two commercial bait and buying stations operate on-site. The pier provides berthing, bait supply, fuel access, trap storage and connections to offshore moorings, and serves as a market access point for island fishing vessels.
The first phase of the grant, if received, would look at site use, industry trends and related site planning. Hashem said, for instance, the city could look at anything needed to support existing or emerging fisheries not already on site, and are there uses in the flood plain today that would ideally be on higher ground.
“Despite its critical role in the regional seafood supply chain, the site’s upland area (approximately 1.5 acres) is underutilized and its existing infrastructure is aging and increasingly vulnerable. Cold storage is currently provided by trailers that are both aged and sited at elevations susceptible to storm surge. As climate change drives shifts in species distribution, ocean temperature, and storm frequency, the commercial fishing operations that depend on this pier face compounding pressures: declining traditional fisheries, emerging but underexplored opportunities in aquaculture and new species, and growing physical risk to on-site infrastructure,” the application states.
The second phase, if funded, could fund an improvement such as cold storage.
But it could potentially be any eligible use that comes out of the planning process if folks identify a different need that we aren’t yet aware of, Hashem said.
This story appears through a media partnership with Midcoast Villager.