BREAKING NEWS: Seawall Road repair starts next week - to open July 27
SOUTHWEST HARBOR, July 18, 2024 - The select board, in approving the agreement with the state DOT Wednesday to repair Seawall Road temporarily so that work may start next week, expressed enormous gratitude for the five contractors who are donating services and materials.
Their donations allowed the towns of Tremont and Southwest Harbor, and the National Park Service, to coalesce around an extraordinary community effort to compel the DOT to accept the temporary repair so that half the season may be salvaged. The state earlier this year said it would not repair the road until further notice.
At the urging of the towns and State Sen. Nicole Grohoksi, DOT deputy commissioner Dale Doughty appeared before almost 200 residents in Pemetic School June 27 to hear their pleas to repair Seawall Road.
The QSJ reported that the two towns collected $65 million in state sales taxes in FY23 - most of it during the tourist season when traffic on Seawall Road to that section of the park and the Bass Harbor lighthouse is at its peak.
Multiple winter storms destroyed sections of the road - the major egress into Acadia National Park’s Seawall Campgrounds and two popular trails leading down to the edge of the ocean. It is also a lifeline for businesses such as a lobster pond and camping supply store.
Town Manager Marilyn Lowell wrote in an email blast this afternoon, “It is official. The work will begin on the repair of Seawall Road Monday morning, July 22nd through Friday, July 26th. There will signage on both sides of the work area, ‘Road Closed to all Pedestrian Traffic.’”
Charlotte Gill, owner of Charlotte’s Legendary Lobster Pound, wrote in an email, “A resounding hallelujah, and deepest gratitude to all who have been involved in making this happen, and gratitude beyond words to these five amazing companies that have step forward to get this done.”
They are John Goodwin Jr., BFP Trucking, Doug Gott and Sons, Rings Paving and Northeast Paving, which is donating asphalt, Lowell told the select board.
Gill said her business is down 60 percent this year because of the closing of the road, the primary access to that section of the national park by campers and hikers.
Aimee Williams, a neighbor on Seawall Road, also praised the contractors for their donations. “This is great,” she told the select board at its special meeting Wednesday.
The DOT stated that it expects the temporary road to be destroyed again next winter after which it will reinforce Seawall Road with more resilient features such as “gabion baskets.” See below photo.
