The 35-year old campaign to build a marine research center on the Portland waterfront took another major step forward last month, but not everyone here is happy about it.
The Gulf of Maine Aquarium secured $2.8 million in federal funds March 10, which will be put towards building a $12 million, 58,000 square foot research center between the Fish Pier and Becky’s Diner in the heart of Portland’s commercial waterfront. It was the latest in a string of triumphs for the Aquarium, which last summer won title and zoning variances for the Naval Reserve Pier, where it plans to build the research center and, eventually, its namesake $40 million aquarium.
“We’re solely focused on this research lab because it’s a big, complex project,” says Gulf of Maine Aquarium president Don Perkins, whose staff works out of rented offices near the site. “We can make an important contribution to the state with this new research capability. There’s no debate about that.”
The research center has broad support amongst scientists, elected officials, and many of its neighbors on the Portland waterfront, largely because it will focus on the very sorts of applied fisheries ecosystem research projects so desperately needed to improve fisheries management. Much of its lab space will be devoted to fish ecology projects undertaken jointly with commercial fishermen. Perkins’ staff has already facilitated several of these joint-research projects, including one which improved understanding of the health of the Gulf’s herring stocks by collecting detailed sonar data collected by herring vessels at sea.
“They’re concentrating on a niche that isn’t covered by other organizations – the functioning of the ecosystem in support of fisheries – not only as a research topic but in communicating and cooperating with the industry,” says marine scientist Lew Incze, now a researcher at the University of Southern Maine.
“If somebody wants to come in and plunk down on our waterfront and create 100 marine-related jobs, it’s good for our city, our state, and our waterfront,” says Charlie Poole, general manager of nearby Union Wharf. “I think [the research center] is a no-brainer, because it fits right in.” Phineas Sprague, Jr., president of Portland Yacht Services agrees, calling the center “an asset to the community.”
But while the research center has broad support, building an aquarium on the adjacent Naval Reserve Pier does not. Critics of the aquarium component figure if the research center is built on the site, the aquarium is sure to follow, drawing tourists into the heart of Portland’s industrial waterfront.
“It’s a stupid place for an aquarium,” says Barbara Stevenson, a trawler owner and seller’s representative on the Portland Fish Pier, which is immediately adjacent to the Aquarium’s new property. “The first time it’s noisy and somebody’s out welding when they want to be doing something over there there’s going to be problems. It’s going to be like when the condominium people [on Chandler’s wharf] complain about the noise the lobsterboats make when they leave in the early morning.”
Stevenson and others say an aquarium is fine for Portland’s waterfront, in theory, but not if it’s built in the midst of its commercial core, where it will draw tourist traffic and gentrification pressures. “We’re going to get a heavy dose of tourism,” said one waterfront leader who asked not to be identified. “People aren’t saying much because it’s a fait accompli… fighting this thing is now politically incorrect.”
But while the research center is expected to open its doors at the end of next year, the aquarium itself is hardly a done deal. Perkins acknowledges that traffic and parking issues will have to be overcome, not to mention the matter of raising tens of millions of dollars to build the facility. But he argues that a well-conceived aquarium would pay for itself while providing a place where the public can “engage with the fishing community and in learning more about the marine ecosystem.”
“Fisheries issues and marine management issues get portrayed very simplistically in the press and the public doesn’t understand them,” he says. “We want to engage the public in complex issues, not just entertain them. If we succeed in doing that, we’ll probably build an aquarium here with a lot of community support. If we don’t, we won’t.”
(Colin Woodard is the author of Ocean’s End: Travels Through Endangered Seas. He lives in Portland and maintains a website at www.colinwoodard.com.)