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The major storms that hit Maine in the winter of 2024 damaged large sections of the coast, eroding bluffs, banks and beaches while also harming docks, piers and other waterfront infrastructure.
The resulting effort to rebuild has inundated the state’s environmental regulators, fueling a roughly 50 percent increase in the number of applications they’ve had to process. The bulk of that uptick has been from landowners wanting to stabilize their sections of coastal shoreline.
Now, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection has proposed rules that are meant to streamline the handling of those applications, by allowing more of them to be approved through an expedited process known as permit by rule.
But those changes are controversial with engineering and construction firms that stabilize eroding shorelines. That’s because they would encourage the use of more natural and biodegradable materials for shoreline stabilization, while also putting some limits on the use of a hard material called riprap — or layers of large stones — that has traditionally been used for the same purpose.
The Maine Board of Environmental Protection is now reviewing the proposed changes after a public hearing in December that featured hours of testimony for and against them.
Here is an explanation of the rule changes, why environmental groups support them and why engineers have spoken out.
What is permit by rule?
There are two different ways that projects affecting waterways, wildlife and other natural resources can be approved by state environmental regulators. They can go through the regular permitting process to ensure they meet the requirements of the Natural Resources Protection Act.
Or, if they meet certain standards, they can go through the fast-tracked permit-by-rule process, which allows a project to be approved after 14 days if the environmental department does not respond to it.
Starting in 2009, Maine excluded shoreline stabilization projects in coastal areas from being allowed under permit by rule — although they have still been eligible along some inland waterways. But now, one of the key changes in the proposed new rules is that some of those coastal projects would again be eligible for the expedited permitting.
In a memo describing the proposal, the environmental department said that allowing a subset of coastal shoreline stabilization projects to be permitted by rule would help reduce the burden on staff processing those applications without impacting environmental outcomes.
What changes are being proposed?
There are two changes that have received some of the most attention: allowing nature-based solutions to stabilize shorelines under permit by rule, and requiring applicants not using permit by rule to prove that those methods would not work for a project that plans to use riprap.
Nature-based shoreline restoration work often uses biodegradable materials — such as logs made of coconut fiber bolted to the ground — combined with the planting of native flora that will grow and prevent erosion once the material has decayed after several years, according to Luke Frankel, a scientist with the Natural Resources Council of Maine who supports the proposed changes.
While riprap is an important resource that’s effective at controlling erosion in some cases, it can also contribute to erosion of adjacent properties, fails to provide a natural habitat for animals and can otherwise alter the ecosystem, according to Frankel.
“A lot of the erosion issues happened because of deforestation, or humans altered the landscape where there was vegetation, and plants and trees and their roots do a great job of stabilizing soil,” Frankel said, adding that the goal is “to get back to the way things were and let nature do what they do.”
The allowance of natural solutions under permit by rule would apply to all private and municipal shoreline stabilization projects inland and on the coast, but Frankel noted that they wouldn’t work in all cases given the harsh and dynamic conditions along Maine’s coast.
The changes would also allow projects on coastal wetlands to receive permits by rule, after that was likewise banned in 2009, according to the environmental department.
But under the changes, erosion-control projects using riprap would only be allowed through permit by rule to protect certain structures or places, including septic systems located less than 25 feet from the upland edge of an eroding bank; legally existing water-dependent structures, such as docks and piers; and publicly owned spaces like municipal parks.
However, Frankel argued that nature-based solutions should be encouraged for municipal parks.
And the rule changes would require people applying under the normal permitting process — as opposed to permit by rule — to prove that they could not use nature-based shoreline stabilization before they use riprap.
The environmental department memo says that these rule changes will ensure that riprap and other hardened structures are only used for sites where erosion is actively affecting infrastructure and land use, including water-dependent structures like piers, an existing structure located within 100 feet of the shore that cannot be moved back, and farmland.
Why are engineers against it?
Numerous coastal engineers contacted by the Bangor Daily News did not respond to requests for comment. But several engineers spoke out against the changes at the December hearing on the proposed rules.
Craig Coolidge, a geotechnical consultant and principal of Summit Geoengineering Services, said they would further restrict what engineers could do to stabilize shorelines for complicated projects.
“And so the messaging is that these things are complex, and that’s why we as engineers present the best boots-on-the-ground approach to evaluate each of these complex situations. We can understand, ‘Is this a landslide hazard?’” Coolidge said. “And landslides don’t care if your structure is 100 feet away, if it’s on the neighbor’s property or your property, it just cares where the water is going or what the influence factors are to create that event.”
Several other engineers also brought up liability. Mark Adams, president of Sebago Technics, said if the engineers must use nature-based solutions and they fail, clients would place the blame on the engineers.
“When they fail later on, they’re going to look to us. They’re not going to look to the Department for ‘Why did it fail?’ And our simple response is going to be, ‘This is what was able to be permitted,’ but that’s not going to fly with a lot of folks,” Adams said.
Adams added that he wanted the entire engineering “toolbox” available to engineers, including nature-based solutions.
Jules Walkup is a Report for America corps member. Additional support for this reporting is provided by BDN readers.