STONINGTON, Maine — According to Gov. Janet Mills, the back-to-back storms that hit the state earlier this year left behind more than $70 million in damage to Maine's infrastructure, including the destruction of several working waterfront properties and docks, ultimately leaving the success of this year's lobster fishing season uncertain.
Last week, the Maine Legislature signed off on a $60 million supplemental budget for storm damage relief. According to the Maine Department of Marine Resources communications director, $25 million from that budget will go toward helping waterfront property owners cover the cost of making repairs to piers along the coastline.
Another $25 million from the budget will cover the cost of public infrastructure upgrades, and the remaining $10 million will be available for businesses and organizations impacted by the storms.
The federal government issued two disaster declarations, allowing people whose properties were damaged by the storms to apply for financial assistance.
Although the budget has already received the green light, damage relief funds will not be available until mid-July when lobster fishing season is at its peak.
Workers in the lobster industry are scrambling to make out-of-pocket repairs to their piers and other damaged property.
"If you watch the waterfront property that your family has utilized for generations fall into the water, there is a grieving process that happens," Maine Coast Fishermen's Association Director of Community Programs Monique Coombs said.
Stonington Lobster Co-Op in Stonington is one of many piers damaged by the storms. Managers from the business said about forty fishermen fish from the pier in the town, but now the dock is too damaged to use.
Here is how the Stonington Lobster Co-Op looked after the back-to-back damaging storms that hit in January:
Workers were hard at work Wednesday making out-of-pocket repairs to the pier.
"These guys are out there on their own trying to figure out, you know. ... We just lost our $200,000 dock," Garrett Aldrige, who owns Isle au Haut Boat Services, said. "How do we even come close to fixing it or salvaging it."
Aldrige's ferry dock was damaged by storms as well, but his repairs are complete. He said he's watching lobstermen push on at their lowest.
"Fishermen are carting bait from trucks down on carts to where a dock used to exist," Aldridge said. "They can't do that. They can't survive like that. These businesses need to be put back onto their feet where these guys can have a functioning bait shop and a shop to buy the lobsters without having to worry about hand trucking it 300 yards down the parking lot to get to shore."
Aldridge said although his dock repairs are complete and that Stonington Lobster Co-Op has been able to fund their own repairs, until they can be reimbursed through state damage relief funding, some waterfront property owners had no dock left to repair.
He explained many piers were completely ripped to shreds and washed away in the storms and severe flooding.
With some property owners having no pier left and plagued by delayed funding for repairs, Coombs said she fears many lobstermen's livelihoods are at stake.
"Communities that were wholly dependent on one or two properties for that, if they lost those properties, they have to find new places to land their lobsters. ... And that could be in a different town," Coombs said.
For now, lobstermen are making the repairs they can while they wait in uncertainty about what this lobster fishing season will bring.
"Any type of reimbursement, whether that's now or six months down the road, is going to be incredibly helpful to these businesses," Coombs said.
Waterfront property owners and people who suffered losses due to storm damage can start submitting applications for storm damage relief funds on May 9.
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