Working Waterfronts - Boothbay Harbor

Boothbay Harbor is one of Maine’s tourist playgrounds with art galleries, souvenir shops, restaurants, and hotels that cater to summer visitors. If you drive past the shops and condominiums along the waterfront you will see, sandwiched in and among lobster restaurants and marinas, four commercial piers with buying stations, bait companies, and other marine services that support a vibrant generational fishing community.  This is the East Side of Boothbay Harbor. In 2019, Boothbay Harbor residents voted, by a small margin, to downsize the marine use district on this side of the harbor to just 23%, allowing for 77% of the area to be used for limited commercial use. That decision was yet another blow to commercial fishermen and marine business owners in a years-long struggle to fend off development. 

In response to increased pressures on working waterfront access, nonprofit groups like the Boothbay Region Maritime Foundation and Boothbay Harbor Waterfront Preservation, as well as local business owners, have come up with innovative and varying solutions to sustain Boothbay Harbor’s fishing heritage. In this episode, we’ll explore the challenges, solutions, and future needs of these organizations and individuals. What do you lose if you lose commercial access? And who should care about it?

This podcast is made possible by the Fund for Maine Islands and a partnership between the Island Institute, College of the Atlantic, Maine Sea Grant, and The First Coast.