Beach Cleanup Hopes to Continue to Keep Approximately 30 Local Jobs From Going Under.

Carrie Jones and Shaun Farrar

May 14, 2026

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Restaurant Barn.

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BAR HARBOR—This year the clean-up of Hadley Point, organized by Marine Resource Committee members and members of the working waterfront got a little help.

Lydia Stiles, Jenn Kramp, and Andrew O’Donnell, brought 11 high school students, nine from a marine biology class and two from an environmental science class, to the town-owned beach and parking area.

They raked. They hauled trash. They interacted with a lot of algae and a lot of junk and they made a resource better.

It’s an important resource to keep clean.

The water quality is monitored by the state and if the state shuts down the beach, it shuts down the area nearby. Hadley Point had worried many harvesters because of last year’s water quality scores.

That shut-down would be devastating for local fisheries, particularly for Hollander & de Koning, a sixth-generation family-owned and run mussel farm and the Bar Harbor Oyster Company, a 22-acre oyster farm in Mount Desert Narrows.

Those two businesses employ approximately 30 people combined.

When people think of contaminating a water source or a beach, they often think of cars, oil, plastics, but one of the larger problems is dog fecal matter.

“One dog poop can shut down the size of an American football field,” Fiona de Koning explained last year about Hadley Point.

“You can’t be harvesting filter feeders when there’s poop around,” Mount Desert Island native Joanna Fogg had said.

Fogg co-founded Bar Harbor Oyster Company. de Koning is of Hollander & de Koning. Both women serve on the Marine Resources Committee, a town group of volunteers, led by Chair Chris Petersen, that are meant to preserve and monitor the town’s shellfish resource.

The issue for both of the women’s businesses and anyone who harvests shellfish in the area was that if dogs and other animals defecate on the beach and it’s not cleaned up, that fecal matter mixes in with the ocean.

And that?

That is a big deal when it comes to the state gathering data as well as when it comes to the water quality in the area.

The women, who are also part of the town’s Marine Resources Committee, worked with their staff and other committee members to clean up the beach last year. The committee also worked with the town about increased signage and waste containers in the area and other efforts to help keep it cleaner.

This year, Stiles brought 21 leaf-style rakes, a bag of work gloves, and most importantly, the 11 students coming from the high school.

The clean-up has been working so far.

If the site’s P90 score reaches 31, then the state has to close an area. In 2025, before the clean-up, Hadley Point was at 28.5.

“That would be a huge closure. It would include Joanna’s piece, Old Point, and our mussel farm here,” de Koning had said.

A closure would impact the wet storage harvesters use in the area. It would close the clam flats for recreational and commercial harvesters of all the shellfish in the impacted spot.

The trouble comes because there have been a few high scores recently in the data set that uses six years of scores to determine that overall P90 score. A particularly high score was four years ago.

The goal has been to make sure there are no more high scores and that means a lot of volunteers working to make the site better.

After last year’s clean-up and many worries about potential closures, the Maine Department of Marine Resources recently had positive news for Hadley Point.

It’s still safe. It’s still approved. It hasn’t gone higher than that 28.5 P90.

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LINKS TO LEARN MORE

Maine’s beach advisory status updates

MaineDMR Public Health – P90 Scores 2024

Bar Harbor’s Marine Resources Committee

Before clamming in any area in Bar Harbor (or anywhere) you should check to make sure the area is open. Potential shellfish closures are as listed:

• Bacterial closures
• Flood closures
• Red tide closures
• Statewide closures

Call the Department of Marine Resources Maine Red Tide and Shellfish Sanitation Hotline 1-800-232-4733 or 207-633-9571 with any other questions.

“One Dog Poop Could Shut Us Down.”

Carrie Jones

May 31, 2025

Read full story

After Last Year’s Volunteer Cleanup, Hadley Point Shoreline Stays Open.

Carrie Jones

Apr 21

Read full story

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Photos: Shaun Farrar/Bar Harbor Story

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