CAPE ELIZABETH, Maine — Spurwink Marsh is divided by portions of Sawyer Road/Sawyer Street that connects Scarborough and Cape Elizabeth.
The road is low-lying and with a rising sea in the mix, the road often floods. That’s exactly what happened during last month’s devastating storm. History is likely to repeat itself as the effects of climate change worsens, and town officials are asking themselves whether they should rebuild the road or retreat from the marsh.
"Just leaving it the way it is, isn't going to be an option for very long," Cape Elizabeth Town Planner Maureen O’Meara told NEWS CENTER Maine. "We're going to have to look at making a significant investment or really rethink the status quo."
The road is also damaging the marsh by restricting the flow of water, according to O’Meara.
"When that happens, the water tends to pool. It's killing the vegetation that's sitting underneath the water, and then that area of the marsh sinks," she said.
O'Meara said elevating the road by building some kind of causeway could cost $10 million.
Plans for the project call for removing more than 1,000 feet of the road that cuts through the marsh. The road would have a public turnaround on each side. Nearly $1.6 million of the project would be covered by grant money. Both towns would need to pay $180,000 to cover the rest.
Some locals are concerned about losing the road.
"This isn't an easy decision, this was a problem that was identified back in 2015," Scarborough City Councilor Karin Shupe said. "The reality is, we're dealing with a lot of other more thoroughfare roads that are flooding... with these infrastructure needs and lack of funding, we have to make some tough choices."
At a Scarborough and Cape Elizabeth town council workshop, it was announced the road averages about 1,000 trips a day, according to Shupe.
"Maybe that seems high, but when you start looking at the traffic counts of the other more sustainable roads around us, it's pretty low," she said.
If the project is approved, the portion of the road is expected to be removed in 2026.