Tremont is using state grant funding to explore a living shoreline at Seal Cove Picnic Area, where erosion threatens the beach and Cape Road.
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The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by ArtWaves.
TREMONT—Tremont’s beloved Seal Cove Picnic Area is slowly disappearing as the ocean erodes the beach and quietly makes its way to the Cape Road. Could an erosion control concept called living shorelines be the answer to help combat nature and save the beach?
It might.
On November 3, Tremont voters passed Question Five on the town’s ballot, Land Use Ordinance – Living Shoreline, 589 – 235.
According to the Maine Department of Agriclture, Conservation, and Forestry, a living shoreline is defined as the following:
- Has a footprint that is made up mostly of native material;
- Incorporates vegetation or other living, natural “soft” elements alone or in combination with some type of harder shoreline structure (e.g. oyster reefs or rock sills) for added stability; and
- Maintains continuity of the natural land–water interface and reduce erosion while providing habitat value and enhancing coastal resilience.
A living shoreline would be an alternative to traditional hard armoring protection made up solely of riprap, boulders, or other specialized concrete or rock based materials used to protect shorelines from erosion.
The Town of Tremont has been working on a living shoreline project since 2025 when it received a Maine Community Action Grant in round five of grant awards.
According to Town Manager Jesse Dunbar, the grant amount awarded was $79,950 and that amount was broken down into three different tasks based upon estimates of costs associated with planning and consulting. None of the grant money was used for any physical work as it was not within the scope of the grant and there were no town funds used. The three tasks and the amounts allotted to each are below.
- Task one – Living Shorelines – $32,125.
- Task two – Coastal Resiliency Infrastructure – $24,675.
- Task three – Working Waterfront Resiliency – $18,200 and federal reporting $4,950.
At its November 9 meeting, the Tremont Select Board heard an update on all three tasks, from A Climate To Thrive’s (ACTT) Wilson Haims with a goal of deciding whether or not to combine remaining funds from tasks two and three into task one to move planning for the living shoreline project further forward.
As all of the tasks involve only planning and consultation work toward that planning, tasks two and three are essentially fulfilled.
Task two was to help create a more resilient coastal infrastructure. That planning project was led by the Hancock County Planning Commission and supported by ACTT. This project covered planning and consultation for potential work at the town dock and low lying portions of Lopaus Point Road.
Task three was planning to help build a more resilient working waterfront. Following conversations with fishermen, the harbor master, harbor committee, and other stakeholders in the working waterfront, a report has been completed and submitted to the town manager that encompasses all of the areas of discussion. The report brings forth the issues that these people believe need to be focused on at both the town and state level for a more resilient working waterfront.
Task one was a study of the Seal Cove Picnic Area with the hopes of some shoreline and salt marsh restoration while negating future erosion. The town recently completed a technical assistance program with the Northeast Regional Ocean Council and The Nature Conservancy. This was a first of its kind opportunity, only two communities in Maine were selected to participate with Tremont being one of the two.
The program thus far has consisted of group meetings and calls to learn about the different strategies and techniques that can be used to help shorelines that are experiencing greater than normal erosion rates.
Dunber, Haims, Tremont Consolidated School science teacher Tonya Prentice, and Tremont resident Josie Lawler participated in this planning series.
The group members also worked with the Woods Hole Group as a consulting firm. They created a conceptual design for the area to help fight increased erosion via a living shoreline rather than hard armoring. Members of the Woods Hole Group came to Tremont to meet with representatives to learn about the importance of the picnic area to locals and why it should be preserved and what some of the areas vulnerabilities are.
Due to its proximity to the shore, the Cape Road may require relocation in sections as sea level rise becomes an increasing problem in Tremont. This potential future project is outside of the scope of the current projects.
The Woods Hole Group provided conceptual drawings for the picnic area’s restoration via the living shorleine concept and broke the erosion control areas into tow different zones, A and B.
The images below show the current state of each zone along with a conceptual plan to rebuild each zone.
With the development of the conceptual designs, the study program wrapped up in September, bringing the project to an estimated 15-20%completion.
There are several more possible steps to get this project closer to an actual construction phase. These steps could include working with an engineering firm for a final design, meetings with agencies such as the Department of Environmental Protection for permitting, and seeking out funding sources for completing the project.
In order to move forward with the project the question before the Select Board was whether or not the town should combine the remaining grant funds from tasks two and three with the remaining grant funds from task one and spend those funds on next steps.
Select Board member Ben Harper asked some clarifying questions regarding the grant and where the money came from with Dunbar responding that the monies came from the state and there were not matching funds required from the town.
Harper also asked if A Climate To Thrive was a nonprofit and charging the town for their assistance. Dunbar said that the town was paying them to assist with the project.
“Now I know why our taxes are so high. I think this grant is a load of B.S. I think other than the money that might be used to shore up the Cape Road, this vegetation and all of this, I think is ridiculous. I think it’s a waste of taxpayer money, state money, to waste money on all of these grants from the state, we all got people in their little departments, pushing their own agendas and one of them is this climate agenda,” said Harper.
Harper continued, “They said back in ‘92, we had ten years to do these things or we would be under water, we wouldn’t be breathing fresh air. Here it is ‘26 and we are still breathing pretty good air and we are all surviving pretty good. That’s my two cents worth. I think it’s just a waste, a waste of money that the state could be using on other things, that to me, have a higher priority.”
Chair Jamie Thurlow clarified that if the town doesn’t spend the remaining money that the money will be turned back over to the state and Dunbar said that was accurate.
An audience member said that there have been landowners in Tremont who have gone to her looking for advice on living shorelines because their property is receding.
“We’re noticing just a growing interest in our town of people wanting more information related to what this grant is doing, this part of the grant,” she said.
Member Kevin Buck then explained to Harper that the vegetation is just another form of erosion control that, unlike riprap and other hard armoring, doesn’t just move the erosion down the shore to another property.
“The state is moving towards doing this a lot more,” Buck said.
They are funding projects like this to see how well it works.
“This approach should get stronger as it ages,” said Buck.
“I think a big thing with the DEP (Department of Environmental Protection), too, from what I have seen, is they are decreasing the amount that they will permit for shoreline stabilization when it comes to, is there a structure that is endangered or is it just your lawn?” said member Eric Eaton. “Because they really only care about the structure and the DEP is pushing towards the natural vegetation cause the whole coast of Maine is just looking like unnatural snow, essentially. ‘Cause people are putting hundreds and hundreds of feet in (of hard armoring). I see it everyday. I see it fail everyday. I see it work too, but I was just looking at one that was probably 15 years old and the whole top of it’s all crumbled down and rolling into the water.”
“I do know that if you do have strong vegetation, you can get around the bulkiness of putting large stones,” Eaton added. “I think that’s the big push, too, because everybody buys a house, comes from wherever, and then they put 400 feet of stone across there and to me it doesn’t look that great, kind of takes away from the Maine coastline, I think. I am not opposed to it because I think it’s a method that will make the state look better.”
It is early in the process and a lot of the money is being used to see how the living shoreline method will hold up in the real world under different conditions and wave actions, according to Buck. The work in Tremont is literally a test case.
Audience member Josie Lawler, who said she enrolled in the training partly as a resident and partly as a practitioner, participated in the six-month training program because she was skeptical and wanted to know if it would actually work.
Lawler said that this won’t work at every site but the Seal Cove Picnic area was chosen because they think that the concept will work at that location and that the goal was to develop a design that could be given to an engineering company for an actual quote to move forward with as a town. The cost of a living shoreline saves money over the long term.
The Select Board unanimously voted to move the remaining funds from task two and task three, roughly $17,675, to the remaining funds in task one, roughly $8,972, for an approximately $26,647 balance.
Tremont’s living shoreline language is in the town’s Land Use ordinance, Article VI, “Performance Standards,” section D, paragraph 6, and reads as follows.
“All shoreland stabilization activities shall be designed to minimize adverse impacts, including loss of vegetation, habitat, and soil erosion, while preserving natural shoreline features. The use of nature-based shoreline stabilization techniques (‘living shorelines’) in place of structural or hardened approaches is encouraged.”
Under Article XI, “Definitions,” the definition of a living shoreline reads as follows.
“Living Shoreline – A shoreline stabilization approach that uses natural materials and systems such as native vegetation, biodegradable materials, sand, or rock to stabilize the shoreline while maintaining or enhancing natural coastal or riparian processes.”
Fire Department Pickup Truck Purchase.
At a March 17, 2025 Select Board meeting, the Tremont Select Board denied a request from the Tremont Volunteer Fire Department to purchase a new pickup truck.
At its November 9, 2026 meeting, the Select Board approved that purchase.
The Tremont Fire Department has a 2014 Ford pickup truck with 14,000 miles on it that it will be replacing with a new one. While the current truck is low mileage and in pretty good shape, it does not meet the latest requirements for a piece of fire apparatus and upgrading it to meet these requirements would be costly.
The FY27 Fire Department budget includes $16,000 for a lease payment for a new pickup.
Fire Chief Keith Higgins got two bids on 2027 Ford F-350 trucks from Darlings Ford and Casco Bay Ford. The Casco Bay Ford bid was the lower priced bid at $62,744 and it could be leased through MCB Leasing, LLC, for $13,990.51 per year for a 5-year lease under a municipal leasing program that has no buy out amount at the end of the five years.
Vice Chair McKenzie Jewitt asked what would be happening with the old truck and Chief Higgins said that the fire department would sell it and use the proceeds to outfit the new truck with a drop-in utility box and some other up-fitting that was not included in the purchase price of the new truck.
The Select Board unanimously voted to approve a “motion to authorize the purchase of a 2027 Ford Superduty crew cab from Casco Bay Ford in the amount of $62,744 and a motion to authorize the town manager to accept the lease proposal dated November 6, 2026, from MCB Leasing, LLC, to finance the purchase of a 2027 Ford F-350 truck in the amount of $62,744.”
The new truck will be owned by the town as opposed to the old truck which is owned by the fire department and not the town because it was purchased with funds from private fundraising efforts. That occurred because the town declined the funds for the fire department to purchase a new truck when it originally proposed the purchase in 2013.
Tremont Energy Rebate Program.
According to Dunbar, in 2022, the Select Board approved an energy rebate program using $20,000 of ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds for the program.
At the time, the Select Board also used $5,000 in ARPA funds to create a heating assistance program along with a heating assistance reserve account.
As of the November 9 meeting the town has only used $2353 of the energy rebate program money, leaving $17,647 unused.
Dunbar proposed to the Select Board that they move the remaining $17,647 to the heating assistance reserve account due to the anticipated costs of heating oil this winter and the associated anticipated needs of residents for assistance with paying for heating costs. Additionally, the ARPA funds have to be used by the end of 2026 and placing them into the heating assistance reserve fund makes Dunbar, “more comfortable” than leaving them in the energy rebate program fund.
The Select Board unanimously approved the moving of the $17,647 from the energy rebate program fund to the heating assistance reserve fund.
First Week of Deer Hunt
During his town manager’s report, Dunbar said that as of Friday, November 6, after five days of legal deer hunting, Gott’s Store in Southwest Harbor had tagged 18 deer for Tremont hunters.
As of noon on Friday, November 13, that number had increased to 22.
The next meeting of the Tremont Select Board is scheduled for Monday, November 23, 2026, at 5 p.m., in the Harvey Kelley Meeting Room in the town office.
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