SCARBOROUGH – With the Scarborough Town Council set to get a first look at new rules for dogs on the beach and piping plover protection this week, at least one resident is questioning the need for the town to change its ordinances at all.

On Wednesday, after the Current’s deadline, the council was scheduled to hold a first reading of ordinance amendments designed to pacify the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which in late fall slapped a fine on the town after a threatened piping plover was killed by a dog on a Scarborough beach in mid-July.

The current plan is to institute what Councilor Bill Donovan has described as a “divide the beach” concept, which would simultaneously protect piping plovers and continue to allow dogs maximum off-leash time on the town’s three public beaches.

To accomplish the plan proposed by Donovan, who serves as the council liaison on the ad hoc Animal Control Committee, the council would create protected areas on Higgins, Pine Point, Western and Ferry beaches, designed to keep dogs away from nesting piping plovers and their chicks, during the plover season, which runs from April 1 through Labor Day.

In addition, the ordinance amendments create definitions for a “responsible dog owner” and “sight control,” as well as requiring all dog owners in Scarborough to sign off that they have received the responsible dog owner rules before getting their annual dog license.

The ordinance changes would also prohibit kite flying, kite surfing or parasailing within 650 feet of a nesting, adult or unfledged chick between April 1 and Aug. 31.

Also during its meeting on Wednesday, the Town Council was scheduled to vote on a resolution creating the new Canine Education and Enforcement Ad-Hoc Committee.

The committee, which would consist of five members, is designed to work with Community Services to develop educational programs and materials for dog owners, providing support to the town’s plover coordinator in the development and implementation of beach monitoring programs and developing an off-leash tag program, among other duties.

While Donovan said he believes the town is “making some real progress” toward a “fair compromise in a difficult situation,” resident Julie Hannon is questioning the need for the town to make any changes at all to protect the piping plover.

Prior to Wednesday’s meeting, Hannon said she planned to argue to the Town Council that none of these rule changes are required and that the town should actually challenge the wildlife service on the imposition of the $12,000 fine.

Hannon said her concern is that the town is just bending to the federal government without taking into consideration the rights of Scarborough residents to have access to the beaches with their dogs.

“What they’re trying to do is cut off beach access, but what becomes of our rights if we give them away?” Hannon said. “I don’t want to be overregulated unnecessarily.”

Hannon said continued, unrestricted public access to natural areas is particularly important in a state like Maine that has a history of allowing the public to freely use its “vast wilderness areas.”

She’s also concerned that the beach concept, which designates certain areas of the public beaches as “protected,” would be too difficult to manage.

And, Hannon said, adding in the fact that the piping plover population has significantly increased in New England during the past several decades and that dogs are not the worst predators when it comes to plovers, she sees no need for the new rules.

That’s why she would like the town to “first figure out if there is any liability at all” regarding the killing of the piping plover chick last July.

“I think the town is just trying to get out of this easy and move on quickly. There was no due process for the town and no questioning of the fine,” she added.

But Town Manager Tom Hall said Scarborough still has the option of challenging the federal wildlife service, but taking that route could end up being much more costly, in terms of money spent and staff time, than amending the town’s ordinances.

Hall said when the town received the notice of violation from the U.S. Department of the Interior in September, one of the issues “fully explored” was whether to challenge the fine.

“At that time, the Town Council decided fairly quickly that it wanted to work to satisfy the feds,” Hall said, “and that decision has not been revisited.”

Hall said it would be better for the town to change its ordinances to be more plover friendly on “its own terms” rather than being forced by the wildlife service to adopt more highly restrictive rules.

He also said it’s not yet clear whether the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service will accept the compromises the town is considering, and Hall said that Scarborough, therefore, could still be on the hook for the entire fine.

Donovan said the whole reason the town is exploring the ordinance changes to protect the piping plover is because “we are trying to protect the town from as much liability as we can, and we have a responsibility to minimize that risk.”

Donovan, who is a lawyer, also said the town of Plymouth, Mass., tried to challenge the wildlife service regarding a violation of the Endangered Species Act, and it ended up “spending in excess of $200,000 and still lost.”