South Portland Communications Officer Shara Dee said in a written statement, “Our collective focus is on ensuring that there be no reallocation of those funds. We are hopeful that the legislature will support an outcome where these funds stay committed to the restoration of Portland Harbor.”
However, since the U.S. DOT has rejected the dredging request three times, the Mills administration prefers to divert the $10 million to extend health insurance subsidies for small business through the end of the year.
The Small Business Health Program, set to expire in April, reduces premiums by $50 a month for one covered employee to as much as $130 for a family. Since the program began in 2021, 5,753 businesses and 46,131 residents have participated.
“With the current lack of funding for the dredging project and with the Small Business Health Insurance Premium Relief Program ending in about three months, the Governor believed it would be best to reallocate the funding to continue helping small businesses and their employees,” Sharon Huntley, Director of Communications, Department of Administrative and Financial Services, said in a written statement.
Huntley said $3 million in state funding for the dredging project has been allocated by the Maine Department of Transportation “with a commitment to contribute additional funding in the future if more local funding becomes available.”
Parker Poole, owner of Determination Marine, a marine towing and salvage service operating in Casco Bay, is an advocate for the dredging plan — to dig out 5 to 10 feet where needed — to remove sedimentation that can create risks for boats coming ashore at low tide.
“Some of these berthing areas are losing six inches of depth a year,” Poole said in an interview. “Without this dredging project, eventually this is all going to fill into to the point that nobody’s able to operate out of this port.”
The problem affects both commercial and recreational boats, fuel ships and ferry boats to the islands, as well as Coast Guard and the Portland Fire Department vessels.
Portland Fire Department Captain Chris Alves, pointing to a large rescue boat, said, “When we pull in on the medical, we go bow in, and so in low water, the bow in in the mud.”
Alves said a smaller rescue boat faces hazards too. He said, “Just at a regular low tide, we can’t keep the motor down — it’s in the mud, or the silt — and then in the wintertime, you like to have your onboard motor down, so it doesn’t freeze.”
“Our business is greatly affected by this,” Poole said. “We need to be able to get our boats underway at any time. We can’t tell them to call back when the tide comes in a little bit.”
Poole also described environmental benefits that would result from the dredging.
“The mud and sediment that’s filled in here is from a long time ago, so it’s contaminated fill. Portland had a lot of tanneries, and there’s a lot of heavy metals in it,” Poole said. “It can’t just be taken out and be dumped like normal dredge material. This will safely dispose of the contaminated material, and the project’s goal is to dig a foot below what will ever be dug again.”
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