LUBEC — Despite its historic ties to the sea, there are limited docking facilities in this Passamaquoddy Bay town. So limited, in fact, that commercial and recreational use has sparked some conflict.
Many commercial fishermen use the state-owned and maintained public landing, but that facility is designated for recreational use. Typically, conflicts between recreational and commercial users are resolved informally. Fishermen are asked not to leave traps or their harvest on the slips and to keep the thoroughfare clear.
But that was not the case for Mike Pivirotto, who operates Bold Coast Seaweed, a business that harvests edible seaweed. His seaweed harvest constitutes no more than a pickup truck load, he said, and added that he does not block access to the landing during his brief stops there.
Pivirotto said he was confronted this summer by someone who told him he could not use the state-owned facility. Hoping to clarify whether he could launch his boat and land seaweed there, Pivirotto attended a town harbor board meeting in July. It did not go well, he said.
“They came down on me really hard and I was called an idiot,” he said.
Peter Boyce, a member of the harbor boar, remembers that meeting.
“Voices were raised,” he said, and remembers questions being raised on both sides of the issue. Boyce concluded that Pivirotto should be able to use the state landing. “It is not enough to bother anybody,” he said.
But Pivirotto concluded he was getting a cold shoulder from the town and turned to the state to clarify his rights. He found that the rules are more complicated.
The Maine Bureau of Parks and Public Lands has 13 coastal boat launching facilities. Lubec’s is one of four located on Cobscook and Passamaquoddy bays.
According to George Powell, director of the state’s Boating Facilities Program, the rules governing the use of these landings (funded primarily for recreational use through state tax of gasoline on recreational motor boats) allow for issuing special permits for commercial use. No such special permits have been issued for the Lubec facility, Powell noted in an email.
“While our rules prohibit commercial use of our facilities, it would be impossible for us to manage a permitting program on a case-by-case basis for every clammer, wormer, lobsterman, urchin or seaweed harvester, guide service, tour boat and ferry using our coastal access sites,” he wrote. “We only seek to enforce this rule when we become aware of a problem where commercial use is interfering with recreational use or when the commercial use threatens to damage the facilities.”
Powell said the agency was receiving more complaints from people seeking tighter regulation of the facilities because of noise, blocking of roads and disagreements about seaweed (rockweed) harvesting.
“We cannot be arbitrary or capricious in our enforcement of our rules, and so often we find we can do nothing except ask the commercial users to be considerate of others,” he wrote. “The other option is to strictly enforce our rules and prohibit all commercial use of our facilities. Obviously, we do not want to do this as we fully understand what a critical role our facilities play in the coastal economy of Maine.”
In Lubec, part-time Harbormaster Gary Brown is charged with enforcing the rules, but he said his primary responsibility is to ensure safety, not sort respond to complaints. He oversees all of Lubec’s waterfront docking facilities, which also includes the town-owned hoist and commercial fish pier.
Town Administrator John Sutherland predicted use of the landing will only increase. Summer passenger traffic includes those boarding and disembarking from the Lubec-Eastport ferry and those going on whale watching excursions. Both presently uses the commercial pier, a point that Pivirotto found incongruous with the objections to his use of the facility.
Sutherland hopes improvements to the facility can alleviate conflicts.
“There has been an increase in passenger traffic and we have reason to believe that this will continue and grow,” said Sutherland, and so the town applied for a state small harbor improvement grant to help fund a new ADA compliant ramp and slips at the site of the old marina, which was dismantled in 2003 because of extensive damage from the winter sea conditions.