Working waterfronts provide the critical infrastructure that supports our rural, natural resource-dependent, economic activities, much like the saw mills in western Maine that support the timber industry or the grain elevators in the Midwest that support family farms.
Maine fishermen know that losing access to the water means losing everything, from their income to their way of life. Access to the water is threatened by increasing coastal property values and rising populations in coastal communities. Access to the water is also threatened by increased costs of maintaining waterfront infrastructure faced by pier owners, coupled with the decreasing profits of many fishermen who are their customers. Together, the combination of converting property to incompatible uses and shrinking revenue streams threatens the long-term viability of Maine and the Nation’s working waterfronts, as well as the sustainability of our coastal communities.
Since starting at the Island Institute, I have had the opportunity to travel around the country meeting fishermen and others who are working to make their communities sustainable by preserving their waterfront access and marketing their product to increase the price they receive for their catch. A few months ago I was in Louisiana, and before that I was visiting Tangier Island in the Chesapeake, the Outer Banks and Downeast North Carolina, San Diego and greater San Francisco area. Each community is different, but all these communities rely heavily on natural resources and have strong connections to the nearby oceans.
The fishing community in San Diego has set up a dockside market in an attempt to improve the prices the fishermen receive. In North Carolina, the fishermen are struggling with increasingly restrictive regulations, a low price for their catch, recreational fishermen and construction for the tourism industry threatening their access to shore side infrastructure. On Tangier, working on the water is the main economic driver whether it is fishing for oysters, blue crab or striped bass, but these days many of the young men are taking jobs working on tugs and barges for the reliable pay and to get away from the constant struggle and uncertainty of fishing regulations.
Louisiana does not possess Maine’s picturesque harbors. Fishermen there tie up along the sides of the canals and waterways. They also have to compete with offshore oil and gas businesses for access to the prime waterfront property. Transportation infrastructure, the ability to get fish to the market—whether it is to New Orleans restaurants or to east, west, and north to other markets, access to the highways that trucks maneuver to carry product is a major challenge.
Our tour guide and local expert, Rusty Gaude (see “Fishers, For Better or Worse” pg. 6) made it clear that ice, fuel, and a place to off-load your catch—access to services and fishing related infrastructure rather than a physical place to moor your boat—were the critical working waterfront issues in the area. Everywhere we turned, there was water, and over the span of a couple of days, we drove along hundreds of miles of canals and waterways. Twenty miles of berths for fishermen go by in the blink of an eye when you are driving next to a canal with boats on both sides.
In Louisiana, what matters is proximity to the gulf and estuaries where shrimp and oysters are grown. We frequently saw boats that were 20, 30 or more miles inland—a long stream in a narrow canal. The real threat to Louisiana fishermen is not the outright displacement of access to the water but rather being pushed farther inland, farther up the canals and away from their fishing grounds, which, coupled with rising fuel costs, increases the cost of each fishing trip, slowly draining profits from the industry.
Outside of the area protected by levees, threats to the local working waterfronts include Mother Nature—these working waterfronts are at significant risk of being destroyed by a hurricane’s storm surge. The protection offered by miles of buffering salt marsh that dissipate the power of storm surges is disappearing as the removal of oil and gas from the ground and the channelization of the Mississippi reduces the sediment transport to these areas, causing the marshes to sink.
Despite the differences in how working waterfronts look, the role they play in our communities is the same, and without working waterfronts, neither Maine nor Louisiana’s fishermen have a place to land their catch or run their businesses. To help raise the visibility of working waterfronts as an important community and economic development issue in national conversations, small community groups, Sea Grant staff, Coastal Enterprises, Inc., National Marine Manufacturers Association, researchers at universities, and the Island Institute are forming a National Working Waterfront Network. By working together, we hope to bring more resources and attention to deal with these fundamental infrastructure needs that are critical to the sustainability of our natural resource-dependent coastal communities.
Nick Battista is the Island Institute’s Marine Programs Director.