ROCKLAND — Though undeniably a working waterfront town, Rockland has become home to a busy recreational boating scene, a boom fueled by its large harbor, protected by a nearly mile-long breakwater, and by the more recent development of a tourist-friendly downtown.
City officials want to keep both the working and recreational waterfronts vibrant, and thanks to grants from the Maine Coastal Program, planning, design and engineering work will begin to improve both the fish pier and the public pier.
John Holden, the city’s community development director, said the $10,000 grant for the fish pier will help pay for a survey of depths around the facility to determine the need for dredging and associated costs.
The pier itself has problems, Holden said, with holes appearing in the asphalt surface over the last several years, the result of salt water eroding concrete around the granite blocks on which it was first built.
“In some places, you can actually see down to the water,” he said. The city’s public works crew has patched the holes with asphalt, but a comprehensive fix is needed, he said.
The planning grant will help “complement a previously completed engineering study for a complete redesign of the pier,” Holden said.
Currently, the pier is used by more than two dozen lobster boats, three herring carriers, three lobster buying boats and two bait dealers, he said.
In addition to the possible dredging and repair to the structure, the grant will help pay for investigating the possibility of using new equipment to reduce odor.
“We want to keep it a fish pier,” Holden said, “but if we can make it as high-tech as we can, it would help.”
The city is working with the state Department of Transportation on a redesign, and city officials, including Harbormaster Ed Glaser and Al Gourde, manager of the fish pier, have discussed collaborating with the other five public fish piers in Maine on management and maintenance practices, he added.
The city also landed $15,000 from the state program to plan changes to the public pier at Harbor Park.
“The city has plans for redesigning Harbor Park and the parking lot,” Holden said, with an eye to making the pier accessible during the three big festivals that fill the area each summer: the North Atlantic Blues Festival, the Maine Lobster Festival and the Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors show. With admission charged to all three, boat owners and others wishing to use the waterfront often have a hard time getting to the shore, Holden said.
In addition, the city wants to link the wooden boardwalk built by MBNA along the shore south of Harbor Park with the concrete sidewalk that runs parallel to the shore in the parking area of the park. Holden said the sidewalk might be replaced by a wider, wooden walkway, possibly cantilevered over the water, as the boardwalk is.