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Back To The Harbor: Ellsworth Eyeing Waterfront’s Future
By Aaron Porter
Given the vital
role played by the harbor in Ellsworth’s early development and
prosperity, it is surprising how insignificant a role it has played
in the city’s recent past.
Ellsworth’s planners are envisioning a bigger, better waterfront
that will play up its working past. |
Silted in and lined
by car lots, commercial operations, vacant lots and the city’s waste
treatment plant, the harbor has been ignored by all but a few
die-hard aficionados over the last few decades.
That has changed in
the past couple of years as the harbor and its approaches have been
dredged and the city property at the harbor has become a well-used
public space. It promises to change even more as the city’s
Executive Committee for Waterfront Development puts together a
strategic plan to be addressed by the city council in the fall.
“What we’re
concerned about is what might happen with the future of Water Street
from the bridge down to Indian Point,” Committee Chair Roger
Woodbury said.
The essential
dredging in the Union River was completed by the Army Corps of
Engineers this spring. For the first time since 1910 the federal
agency had maintained the harbor depth, returning it to an average
of about five feet at low water. The $1.4 million effort was
contracted out to Burnham Associates of Salem, Mass., which dredged
over the course of two years. They removed an estimated 90,000 cubic
yards of mud, lumber debris and cobbles from the riverbed.
While that effort
has opened the channel for deeper vessels, the harbor itself remains
fairly small. The city will pay almost $500,000 to make the mooring
field and turning basin larger with further dredging to be carried
out in the fall.
While dredging has
increased boat traffic to the city dock, it hasn’t changed the
city’s relationship to the waterfront.
At a public
planning session this spring, many residents and business owners
didn’t recognize in-town views of the river a planner had
photographed.
The daylong
planning session produced numerous ideas for the development
committee to factor in to its strategic plan. They included a
public walkway along the east bank of the river, city purchase of
the Morrison car lot, development of better harbor facilities, and
many others.
Woodbury conceded
that changes to the look of waterfront businesses and buildings will
be slow. But he and others believe that with careful planning the
river could once again play a vital role in the commercial and
cultural life of the city.
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