SOUTH THOMASTON — A group South Thomaston residents are concerned about a pending road project on Spruce Head, and are asking the Select Board to slow down and reconsider aspects of it. 

The board meets Sept. 22. In advance of the meeting, the citizens sent the following letter. The matter involves a grant that the town received to raise a road to prevent its future flooding. But, the citizens have learned that the town is also considering a land swap with a developer that could lead to future commercial development, they said.

September 21, 2020

Dear South Thomaston Board Members:

The persons named below are property owners and residents of South Thomaston (the “Town”) whose properties will be affected by the two segments of the Island Road Project in Spruce Head being proposed and advanced by the Town’s Select Board, and other Town officials.

We applaud the town's leadership and its initiative to proactively address climate change and to keep our roads safe and dry. We support the effort to raise portions of Island Road in order to prevent future flooding. Your efforts to procure grant funding and your drive to get the project on a forward path are commendable. Thank you for working on our behalf.

Nevertheless, due to the total absence of notification from the Town, we have only very recently become aware of the existence, extent and “scope-creep” of the proposed project. In the very short amount of time provided by the Board, we have taken the opportunity to acquaint ourselves with, and become knowledgeable of, the proposed road design and its many deleterious impacts.

We find that the Board is not only seeking to provide sea-level rise road improvements, but is promoting a project that proposes to re-design the working and efficient intersection at Village Way, and straighten Island Road between Seal Cove Road and the Island Bridge, to calamitous effects.

We agree that raising some road segments to meet rising sea-levels is laudable. However, based upon our collective understanding, research, and professional experience with community planning, military efficacy, road design and construction, as well as our extensive familiarity with the road segments in question from living on the road collectively for over 200 years, we have found numerous deficiencies and fatal flaws in the project, as currently proposed by the Board. 

Most alarming is that the Board’s proposed project has veered far beyond the scope of its initial uncomplicated and worthy goals, and has now become a very unnecessarily dangerous, expensive, and tremendously flawed proposition for the taxpayers of the Town, for the environment, and especially for the local home owners who will be directly and irreparably impacted. 

Therefore, in order to promote a project that is:

1) well-suited for its intended objective;

2) supportable by the local community;

3) buildable without any Town tax dollars being spent;

4)  environmentally sound;

5) approvable by the permitting agencies;

6) more compatible with Spruce Head Island’s character; and

7) much safer for the public, please allow this correspondence to serve as a formal and respectful request that the Board re-consider its current position on the scope, design and timing of the Project, to consider our below-listed collective questions and concerns, and to implement our easily executable recommendations for the project, as outlined below:

Concerns/Questions:

1. Increased Taxes.  This whole project could be completed with zero Town taxpayers’ money. The Town already has 100% of the project funds to be used for the sea-level rise only improvements from outside grants. However, the project, as proposed by the Board, with its harmful, dangerous and wholly unnecessary extra work, will ultimately raise the already high taxes for South Thomaston’s taxpayers.  There is no way around this fact. Any Town-funded expenditure will raise our taxes. Based on a shortfall in 2019 revenue, and an increase in expenses, including this project, the Select Board decided to raise the Mill rate for every property owner in South Thomaston. We had an almost 10% rise in 2020 taxes when we absolutely cannot afford it. The Town’s people certainly cannot afford another increase like that, especially now, yet the Board wants to waste huge sums of taxpayer dollars on an arbitrary, needless and strongly opposed re-alignment of Island Road. An alternative design that meets 100% of the climate change objectives, without the extra harmful work, can be accomplished with no Town taxpayer money. Why would the Board not support such a pragmatic alternative instead?

2. Unfair Property Swap. The Town currently does not own the right-of-way for the road re-alignment near the bridge. Thus, the project, as proposed, will require the Town to trade right-of-way it does not own for valuable property right benefits to a single out-of-state real estate developer who could then develop more of their ocean-front property while hurting all the other home owners near the project and adversely affecting the charm and appeal that brings in valuable tourist dollars. This public give away of development rights to a private Boston developer not only may allow more sea-side development rights for that out-of-town owner, but will also require even more expense and complications from required lawyers and multiple landowners to paper the deal. While we support our working waterfront, we are not in favor of additional development rights being conferred in this location and we do not support such a give-away due solely to the defective needs of the proposed road re-alignment. 

3. Blasting Ledge. The Board’s favored road-straightening design will needlessly, and at significant additional Town expense, blast huge amounts of roadside granite ledge with explosives for a completely unnecessary road re-alignment. The current Board proposal not only intends to blast ledge with high explosives to move the road, which is disastrous itself, but the engineer who created the plan decided it would be nice to blast another several feet of ledge toward our homes to straighten the road to make it even easier to speed in that area. That same engineer also graciously admitted in the public hearing (and we paraphrase here) that this re-alignment concept was his creative idea to straighten things out, and absolutely does not need to be done to meet the sea-level rise issue. Yet, for some unknown reason, the Board went along with it. Perhaps, and this is said sincerely with all due respect, no Board Member has yet designed or built roads, and you all simply believed this “expert” engineer who seems to think only with a ruler, not as a community leader. The ultimate expense of this blasting is still unknown, and is, by the engineer’s own estimates, way above and beyond the amount of the sea-rise fund grants. 

4. Damage to Wells and Homes. According to our outside legal counsel, the nearby residential water wells will be impacted by the drilling and blasting of ledge so close to existing homes. No matter how careful the engineer says/hopes the explosives contractor might be, damage to nearby homes and wells will almost inevitably occur, and insurance alone cannot resolve this potential devastation. Any damage will, unfortunately, open up new and expensive litigation from property owners against the Town, as we seek reparations to what was needlessly damaged.

5. Increased Speeding and Accidents. The Board’s road-straightening design will intentionally significantly increase traffic speeds on an already well-known speed-prone roadway, with devastating and irreversible results to public safety, and with no way to slow it down. There is irrefutable evidence that speeds increase when roads are straightened and industrial road designs are utilized. The U.S. Dept. of Transportation specifically recommends horizontal shifts (curves) for reducing speeds. Why would the Board even contemplate eliminating an existing natural speed reducing element and replace it with something that they know will increase speeds? Even with the slightly curved-road we have now, trucks have been clocked going 90 MPH on that road segment, with little or no enforcement. With numerous residential driveways dotting this proposed speedway, in addition to the many pedestrians who regularly walk this road, injuries and fatal accidents will no doubt occur. Semi-trucks and lobster laden pick-ups traveling at 65-95 MPH meeting multiple residential blind driveways and pedestrians, will clearly not mesh well.  It is no stretch to say that needless injuries and deaths will result over the years, and the Town will constantly be spending additional taxpayer dollars on new signs, useless traffic calming attempts, additional police presence, and costly wrongful death lawsuits. Again, the Board is knowingly and intentionally proposing a road project that will increase commercial truck traffic speeds on a residential island road. The proposed flashing speed limits signs will not only be repugnant to the quaint ruggedness, and the dark night skies of Spruce Head Island, but, as is well-proven, will not slow traffic. As the engineer has aptly pointed out, speed humps and other such traffic calming measures will not work here. Speeding up traffic on rural residential roads is never a good idea. This is contrary to the interests of the community. Keeping the road as is, and cutting back brush and adding ‘blind curve’ signage, is a much less expensive and more effective way to keep this road safe.  

6. Insignificant benefits. The great cost for the taxpayers, the environment, the neighborhood, the island aesthetics, and the accidents of straightening of the road and intersection, are all a completely unnecessary “fix” of a problem that does not exist. This makes no practical sense. Raising the road to accommodate the rising sea-level studies is the task at hand and will be consistent with the intent of the grant funding.

7. Avoidable Adverse Environmental Impacts. The adverse environmental impacts from the Board’s proposed re-alignment project are unnecessarily destructive and completely avoidable. The proposal will permanently dump tons of artificial fill material into Seal Cove during seal pupping season, destroy with explosives huge swaths of fragile granite ledge and wetlands, and replace beautiful, decades-old seaside shrubbery growth with harsh industrial grade design material. Where there were once wild roses in bloom, steel guard rails will loom. Again, there are alternative designs for the project that are much more environmentally sensitive, can be done at no cost to the Town, are much less harmful to the local residents, are safer and more supportable by the public as well as the state and federal permitting agencies. It is our understanding that the Board has not even seen, or requested, any project alternatives. We believe that reviewing alternatives is essential.

8. Poor Timing. Now is just not the appropriate time for this Project. In fact, the timing in the middle of a pandemic could hardly be worse. Sea-level rise that could overtake these roadways is estimated to happen in 80 years. But, right now, people are struggling financially, and the Board wants to create and build a huge and expensive new road construction project that will bring traffic to Spruce Head Island to a halt next summer.  Right now, the Town’s revenues are down and expenses are up, more-so than 2019, which will increase taxes even more - just when most people can afford it the least. So, why increase the Mill rate, and thus everyone’s taxes, even more this year versus spending the money on actually currently necessary projects or not spending the money at all? 

9. Summer Traffic. The project is proposed to start in the spring through the summer of 2021 and cause hours of traffic delays each day due to the requirement to have only one lane open each day. This traffic, again for completely unnecessary work, will impact all the businesses, all private homeowners, and all rental properties that use Island Road. What a disaster. Next summer is exactly when we (homeowners, and businesses alike) would hope to be recovering economically and otherwise from the pandemic. It will be a time when visitors, whose money we greatly need, should be flowing into the community. The traffic from this project will slow down the entirety of Spruce Head Island for many months. How will the lobstermen, the truck haulers and McLoons feel about this – not to mention out-of-state visitors who have many alternatives to spending their vacation dollars?

10. Conflicts and Safety. We fully support the working waterfront and lobster pounds on the Island, yet we fear the inevitable conflicts when speeding trucks meet private driveways and pedestrians at high speeds and accidents. Another conflict will be the difficulty of pairing the newly raised road with the current residential driveway grade levels. How does one get up an additional three feet into and out of their driveway with enough speed and agility to compete with a semi-truck coming at them at 75 MPH? To further compound the safety issue is the project’s proposed road-adjacent drainage ditch. The dangers of extreme traffic speeds coupled with residential driveways and pedestrians will only be compounded with a three-foot deep open ditch on the sides of the road. Is this where the people, cars and trucks will end up?  And to where does this new focused drainage drain? Into Seal Cove?

11. Property Damage. Moving the road and intersection, as proposed, will needlessly require the taking of home owner’s driveways and the re-shaping/sloping of other driveways, impact views, increase noise to nearby homes, remove valuable landscape and scenery, and ultimately decrease property values in the area. This is something the Board should not find acceptable.

12. Permit Problems. The state and federal agencies who must approve this Project due to its direct adverse impacts on the ocean, and ocean-adjacent habitat and wildlife, require alternative analyses that specifically illustrate project design alternatives that are less impactful to the environment, the local residents, and other stakeholders. Since there are unequivocally less impactful and harmful, yet equally effective alternatives, the agencies will not approve this project as it stands, and will send this project back to the Town for new expensive studies and design revisions. We propose applying for permits with an alternate design that will actually be supported and approved. We are currently making contact with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to discuss the current project’s flaws.

13. No local input considered. As South Thomaston property owners being impacted by a major road project, we would expect that the Board would have directed, and made very sure, that we were provided ample notice of the project, and at each of the Town’s meetings regarding the project, we also expected the Board would have requested our input and garnered our support. The Town and Board made no such effort, and we had to find out about it only through word of mouth. No public notice or outreach was provided to us, whatsoever. We feel completely disenfranchised and unconsidered. Some of us have only known about the project for a few days now, yet we are expected to adequately represent our interests and discuss all associated issues at a Board meeting scheduled a mere few days from our discovery of the project. Is this what the people of South Thomaston should expect from this Board in the future? What are the Town’s laws and policies relating to public meeting notices of impacted owners? In any event, we were deservedly upset when we found out what was going on without our knowledge. When we contacted the Town for answers, and to share our concerns, we were unapologetically told it was basically too late for input since the Board had been working on the plans for almost four months. Four whole months for a road project that will impact the entire island and South Thomaston taxpayers for years to come. It is our opinion, and that of well-settled New England town policy precedent, that the Board’s first and utmost priority for such a major project should be garnering local community support – or at least awareness and a period for public comment , and contrarily not proposing something that is ardently opposed by its residents and taxpayers. After all, it is the community for whose benefit the Board exists. The citizens need input on projects that directly affect them and their neighborhoods. Please note that every ocean-close road will need to be raised in the immediate future, so adequate public notice and input will be a community wide imperative. Moreover, saving as much money as possible by excluding superfluous work is absolutely necessary in order to fund all the expected work. Now that the Board is aware of rising sea levels that will interrupt services in our Town, has the Board created or sanctioned a comprehensive plan to save all the ocean-adjacent roads in the Town from flooding, or just the one serving Spruce Head Island?

14. Destroys Community Character. Anyone who drives into the area instantly recognizes and values the charming, unique and rugged character of Spruce Head. While raising a road to meet rising sea-levels is important, creating ruler-straight heavily striped roads with flashing speed limit signs, shining steel guard rails, denuding the centuries-old roadside shrubbery and blasting ledge is not what the Island, its inhabitants, visitors or businesses need or want. Our slower, landscaped-lined, meandering roads are lovely for the businesses, tourists, residents and wanderers. It is our heritage that is being blasted away to advance an engineer’s flawed creation. This is not what the people want or the Town needs. 

These are but a few of the concerns and questions we currently have. For the sake of some semblance of brevity, we have excluded many others, but we are more than happy to share them with you and the resource agencies when we have more time. Since project information is only slowly leaked out to us at our urging, we will continually evaluate it and therefore reserve our rights to provide additional concerns and input. 

Recommendations:

1. We understand that having grant money in hand is attractive, but money alone should not drive the timing or scope of this project. We suggest this project be delayed until after the pandemic is over, the Town’s finances are in better shape, taxes are not rising at, or near, 10% per year, and the people and businesses of South Thomaston have had a chance to recover.  Spring and all summer of 2021 is not the time to shutter access to the Island. When the project is actually constructed, at an appropriate time, let’s not use Town tax increases to fund any unnecessary or undesirable add-ons. 

2. Re-engineer the Village Way intersection and Island Road re-alignment concepts to protect the local property owners’ land.    

3. Obtain actual construction bids before approving or applying for further permits for the project and expending more Town taxpayer funds. Right now, the project costs are flawed as they are based only on estimates from engineers who have not actually built a road. Cost over-runs are almost inevitable once real bids are obtained which will raise our taxes even more. The taxpayers should have a vote on how our money gets spent. 

4. Have a series of meaningful meetings, and thoughtful mutual collaboration, with the local impacted neighbors. Again, we are in favor of raising the roads, so long as it is done with sensitivity, intelligence and with fully vetted analyses. The Board gave us less than two weeks’ notice to put a discussion on their agenda for us. As citizens, taxpayers, property owners and residents of South Thomaston, whom the Board serves, we deserve your attention and well-noticed and attended planning meetings. We need the Board to champion a project that has the support of the local community. With all due respect, anything less is simply unacceptable. We sincerely hope that the Board members receive this letter with open minds so we may, together, come up with a project that the public, the Town, and the permitting agencies will mutually support. The sea-level rise being used as the basis for this project is not estimated to take place for almost a century. The Board can surely take a few short months to allow a win-win-win for this project. Honestly, we should have been included from the start.

5. We would also respectfully ask that the Town provide those impacted by this project (Island Road from 73 to the end of Spruce Head Island) with all communications and documentation about the project going forward. This will include future public meetings, revisions to the plan, transparent sharing of studies, permit applications, and reports, project sign-offs, input from state and federal agencies overseeing the project (e.g. Environmental Protection Agency, Army Corp of Engineers, Maine wildlife agencies, Department of Transportation), timeline of activities, and agency contact persons, etc.

6. The Town should proceed with only the sea-level rise road mitigation improvements that were the basis of the grants received from the Island Institute and Northern Borders and direct its engineer to draft alternatives consistent with these recommendations and that address our above-stated concerns and questions.

7. In order to promote an honest and transparent level of fact finding on the part of the Town, we request that the Board direct the Town administrator to compile and provide supportable responses to all the questions being asked in this letter and our other correspondence. 

In summary, since there is a perfectly viable, less expensive, less environmentally impactful, faster, safer, less complex, publicly supportable and resource agency permittable alternatives to the road projects currently being pushed by the engineer and the Board, we respectfully but strongly urge the Board to use such alternative, but only after thoughtful, well-noticed planning meetings that include us, to vet and collaborate on the impacts and timing of the revised alternative(s).

We sincerely thank the Board for its continued efforts to work toward mutually beneficial solutions and its anticipated thoughtful consideration of our above-stated concerns. We look forward to working with you. 

Sincerely,

Sarah Bullitt 

Lynne Fancher Canavan and Gerry Canavan 

Marc P. Draleau and Christine Flaherty

Gene and Susan Goodman 

Kevin Gordon

Chad Harris

Janine York Heath 

Adrian and Pam Hooydonk

Jim McDonald

Julia O’Brien