SACO – As progress for a solution to offset erosion from the Saco Jetty begins to slowly move forward, city officials are asking the community’s support to help ensure a proposed project will in the future become a reality Saco Bay.

The Saco Jetty, which extends into Saco Bay about 7,000 feet from the mouth of the Saco River, was built by the Army Corps of Engineers in the late 1800s to provide a smoother shipping channel in the river. 

The jetty has long been blamed for disrupting the natural flow of sand in the abutting coastal neighborhood of Camp Ellis. Erosion over the years has cut into the shore line, resulting in the loss of homes and putting current homes in danger. 

In 2007, congress allocated $26.9 million for a solution to offset erosion to the jetty. City officials say that $2 million of this money has been used for engineering studies, but the rest of the money has not been approved for spenditure.

The city held a meeting for members of the Camp Ellis commmunity at city hall Tuesday night to give an update on the progress of an Army Corps project to offset erosion.

City officials have been hopeful for many years that a federally approved and funded solution to erosion will be put in place, but the process has moved slower than many local people anticipated.

“Does this all seem like deju vu to you,” joked City Administrator Kevin Sutherland to the number of people at Tuesday night’s meeting.

Mayor Roland “Ron” Michaud said some progress had been made.

“It’s moving at glacial speed,”said Michaud. “But it has moved forward.”

A feasibility study, funded by the Army Corps from district overhead accounts, will be complete at the end of this month. Funding was just approved for the next step, a technical review by the Army Corps.

After the technical review is complete, the report will be sent to Army Corps headquarters.

Should the Army Corps endorse the feasibility study and additional funding be approved, the city and the Army Corps will work together on a Project Planning Agreement, and after the agreement is signed, funding can be allocated.

Sutherland said once the report is at the Army Corps headquarters, he would like community members to participate in a letter writing campaign to put pressure on the Army Corps.

The preferred solution to ofset erosion would create a 750 foot spur jetty, running perpendicular off the side of the jetty, renoursish beach sand when the project was completed and four more times in the next 50 years. This would cost $33.25 million, or $8.25 million more than what the city has allocated for the project from the federal government.

The cost of the proposed solution is more than originally thought due to the cost of transporting large rocks for the project and the cost of additioanl beach noursishments, said Sutherland.

Some members of the local residents expressed concern regarding how long they would continue to have to wait to have a project completed.

Saco Shoreline COmmission Member  Gil Lauzon said he thought asking the federal government to fund the four beach additional beach renourishments would stall the project, because the city was asking for additional federal funds.

Sutherland said including the four additional beach nourishment in the package would save the city’s taxpayers from funding them.

“It’s not going to get the job done, so I’m not sure it’s going to save anything at all,” he said. “(It’s going to) take away more homes, if it does not get done,” he said.

Saco Shoreline Commission member George Roth said there had been a lot of good discussion and ideas regarding erosion issues in Camp Ellis, however nothing was going to get done until a plan was approved by the Army Corps. He said the city and the community needed to collect its resources and lobby the Army Corps to approve a plan.

“Until it’s approved, it’ll just be talks,” he said. “I think we’re tired of talking and we would like to see something happen.”

— Staff Writer Liz Gotthelf can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 325 or egotthelf@journaltribune.com.