EARTH DAY REPORT: MDI's Northeast Creek on 'impaired marine waters' list

Acadia chief of water quality seeks better monitoring of MDI watershed

BAR HARBOR, April 20, 2024 - In an unusually blunt statement, Acadia National Park this spring expressed alarm at the pace of development near the island’s most precious and largest watershed - Northeast Creek - which the state DEP has added to its list of “impaired marine waters.”

“Over the past 20 years several housing subdivisions have been built
in the watershed and approximately 1,260 acres have been developed
from 2005 to 2021,” ANP stated in a memo seeking federal funding to monitor such activity.

The ANP memo was sent around the time a Bar Harbor staff planner discovered the state’s impaired water body designation.

In an email Feb. 14 to the Bar Harbor Conservation Commission, staff planner Max Moreno, who has since left his town job, wrote, “After a little digging I found on the Maine DEP website that NE Creek is labeled as a ‘Nonpoint source threat.” That meant the polluting nutrients are coming from rain or snowmelt and not from a single point.

It is the first body of water on MDI to have such a designation. The discovery has not been widely communicated, as the town’s summary of existing conditions for its comprehensive plan, “Bar Harbor 2035,” continues to state that no such designation exists (Page 16).

In his memo, ANP chief of water quality, William Gawley, wrote, “Currently, over 175 acres have recently been approved by the town to be developed within the watershed, and there is increasing community pressure for zoning changes to allow increased housing density and commercial growth.”

He added that development pressure surrounding the park is growing “exponentially” and that tools are “urgently needed” to evaluate future land-use and climate changes on nutrient loading to protect the Northeast Creek estuary.

“The study and condition of NEC is of great interest and concern for many stakeholders, including park land conservation partners Maine Coast Heritage Trust (MCHT) and Friends of Acadia (FOA) as well as the Town of Bar Harbor for their zoning and planning purposes,” Gawley wrote.

But his memo - a “statement of need” to the U.S. Geological Survey and obtained by the QSJ - caught the town’s planning staff by surprise.

“The Town was not aware, specifically, that the Statement of Need document was being posted, nor were we aware of the specific contents of the document,” stated staff planner Hailey Bondy in an email.

“We are currently working with the park to understand some of the numbers …Hopefully, we will be able to clear up any confusion and are looking forward to continue working with ANP moving forward.”

Conservation Commission chair Jacquie Coburn said the commission is working to inform all stakeholders about the DEP designation and the ANP memo so that they may coalesce around the best ways to protect Northeast Creek.

Gawley’s memo reflects the tension between conservationists and housing developers, including nonprofits such as the Island Housing Trust and the Bar Harbor YWCA, on how far to push for development even as the island desperately needs affordable housing.

Conservation Commissioner Lucian Smith, who has been farming on land near the Northeast Creek with his wife Maggie for 25 years, said he was heartened by the park’s proactive stance to protect Northeast Creek.

Preservation, after all, is the park’s stated mission, he said.

In his memo, Gawley described the watershed as a “near-pristine estuarine habitat for recreational activities like canoeing, bird watching, and cranberry picking.

“Culturally significant archaeological sites are common in the MDI landscapes associated with salt marshes, which are also valued for indigenous harvesting of salt marsh species such as sweetgrass (Hierochloe odorata).”

Gawley was circumspect when I asked him about the construction of the memo.

He said the park has applied for the same funding the last three years for the tools to model the nutrients flowing into Northeast Creek and was rejected each time.

Specifically, the park is seeking a $100,000 to upgrade the software which simulates nitrogen loading in the watershed of Northeast Creek. The system was regularly utilized by park and Bar Harbor planners but is now obsolete due to platform changes, Gawley stated.

Asked whether private individuals or groups, such as Friends of Acadia, could fund such an initiative, Gawley said he was not familiar with USGS’s funding mechanics.

Eric Stiles, FOA director, did not respond to the QSJ’s email question as he has not done so since March 18 when the QSJ asked him about FOA’s failed attempts to hold its annual fundraiser in Northeast Harbor’s public park in August.

Stiles appeared Tuesday night at the Town Council to say FOA was contributing $10,000 toward a $34,000 request from the Planning Board to conduct a preliminary study into whether a 50-acre parcel of land being transferred from the park to the town could be developed for housing.

The QSJ wanted to ask Stiles whether the FOA and the park are working at cross purposes - one funding a study to develop housing near the Northeast Creek estuary while the other seeking funding to halt such development.

“Long-term increasing residential and light commercial development of parts of Mount Desert Island (MDI) is contributing nitrogen, phosphorus, and other contaminants to groundwater and streams and rivers that drain to the major estuaries such as NEC,” Gawley wrote. “Of specific concern is the relative contribution of increasing numbers of septic systems to nutrient loading in relation to nutrient inputs from other sources.”

In 2010, scientists were surprised when water quality tests showed a 66 percent increase in nitrogen loading into the creek’s tributaries when they had expected a 7 percent increase.

The tests were conducted after heavy rains - exactly the kind of weather which is now more common on MDI.

It is not known why more frequent tests were not conducted after the 2008-2011 period.

Meanwhile, development in the estuary continued, including 10 homes by the Island Housing Trust at Jones Marsh near where the water monitoring occurred.

The Bar Harbor YWCA seeks to build affordable rental homes on 27 acres at Hamilton Station in Salisbury Cove. The Bar Harbor Planning Board last week approved a five-lot subdivision on Crooked Road near tributaries that run into Northeast Creek, and the town is proposing to allow businesses to house up to 14 employees in that rural section of town.

Scientists worry about the cumulative effect of all the development on the estuary even though individual lots may pass current standards.

The Washington Post reported this week of a massive shift in priorities within the Interior Department to put preservation, recreation and renewable energy on equal footing with resource extraction.

While not exactly comparable to Northeast Creek, the issues are the same.

Meanwhile, Bondy is pursuing the town’s own research into ways to create a watershed management/protection plan.

Bondy said Friday the town faces a May 8 deadline to apply for a $50,000 federal grant administered by the state to develop a plan to restore “NPS-impaired water bodies or protect water bodies threatened by NPS pollution.” The grant requires the town to match 25 percent of the funding.

‘Sustainability’ is more than just solar panels

MOUNT DESERT - We’re coming upon the fourth anniversary of the closing of the waste-to-energy plant in Hampden which promised to eliminate 80 percent of our garbage headed to landfills.

We still rely on the same mechanics of disposal - either by taking the garbage bags to the transfer station ourselves, or in the case of the well-endowed Town of Mount Desert, they come and pick up our trash.

But these days it ends up in the same place - most likely the Juniper Ridge landfill in Old Town or the landfill in Norridgewock, Maine.

It bothers very few people - certainly very few on MDI’s so-called sustainability committees - that we are violating the Number 1 tenet of the energy heirarchy to manage your own detritus first.

Two companies, White Oak Global Advisors and Bemis Capital are working to bring Hampden and the incinerator in Orrington back online by 2025 or 2026.

None of this rises to a topic worth discussing on any town council or select board except that of Southwest Harbor, where select member Jim Vallette, a materials use consultant, has dogged the trash disposal issue for years.

Two years ago Vallette ran to be the island’s representative on the Municipal Review Committee, the regional water disposal consortium, which was represented by Mount Desert’s then public works director Tony Smith.

Smith has been on the MRC board for more than a decade, through its breakup with the incinerator in Orrington, its fanciful courtship of Fiberight founder Craig Stuart-Paul and his $90 million plant which last seven months, his glowing support of Delta Thermo Energy to be Fiberight’s successor even after reporting by the Bangor Daily News and the QSJ on DTE’s misrepresentations.

Smith has a direct conflict - between the interest of the MRC and that of the customers - the 115 towns, most of whom are not board members. The contracts with the towns are one-sided, like control over recycling, composting.

As a town resident I believe I have a legal claim that the Town of Mount Desert acted against my interest by having its public woks director serve on a board negotiating against me.

Smith was the public works director during the Northeast Harbor Main Street project where he under-estimated the cost of negotiating the 35 easements needed and delayed the project by 18 months.

He is still chair of the Acadia Disposal District and is angling to bring household hazardous waste to be disposed at one of the island’s most perilous depositories, the transfer station in Southwest Harbor where five nearby wells have been positively tested for contamination and are under the guise of the DEP’s remediation division. The manager of the division said she doesn’t know anything about the proposal to haul hazardous waste and would like to learn more.

Smith says he doesn’t read the QSJ. He did not respond to my questions.

Meanwhile, the so-called sustainability committees on MDI seem to have a single obsession - solar energy. Which is understandable. They are easy markers to demonstrate progress. But their benefits pale by comparison to to the epic ecological nightmare we have on our hands affecting 159 towns in Maine.

That would be the 115 municipalities under the control of the Municipal Review Committee and the 44 towns in the partnership which uses the incinerator in Orrington.

The MRC is actively recruiting new members and trumpeting its new partner, White Oak Global Advisors, touting the billions it has under asset management and the millions it is spending to bring the Hampden plant back online with a new process.

But it is precisely because White Oak is so well-funded which is what makes me nervous. If its investment in Hampden cannot achieve profitability - or significant profitability - it will pull stakes and write off the expense like petty cash taken out of a drawer.

Similarly in Orrington, another financial investor, Bemis Capital, is spending $10 million to upgrade the incinerator with the help from the Town of Orrington, which turned its $1.5 million taxes owed into a first mortgage to lure Bemis into taking over operations.

Both of these enterprises are out of our control as citizens.

MDI needs a serious sustainability strategy. It would make sense for Bar Harbor to join the Acadia Disposal District as its primary partner and invite Lamoine, Ellsworth and others in the region to take back control of our trash destiny from the MRC.

I just returned from a week trip to Taipei, where I grew up and where industrialization in the 60s produced the moniker “Garbage Island” for its waste management practices which were rife with scandal and rats.

Today, Taiwan has one the most advanced trash management systems in the world.

I could not find any public receptacle to dump my tissue, plastic water bottle, candy wrapper and other such personal trash.

So I held on to them until I got back to my hotel room.

In Taipei, people are responsible for bringing their own trash to the collection point. In some areas, nonrecyclables must be collected in color-coded bags that can be bought at convenience stores.

Garbage collection trucks play music to alert people of their presence. Songs played include Beethoven's “Für Elise.” Taiwan has taken garbage disposal to an art form.

How does it feel, Mount Deserters, that 90 percent of your garbage goes to landfills in Old Town or Norridgewock, which I have a hard time finding on Google Maps?

Yes, they are conveniently distant so not to fill us with guilt and angst.

I have gone from growing up in a Third World to returning to a Third World when it comes to trash disposal.

TRIBUTE: Charles Edward "Charlie" Mitchell III

1935 - 2024

BAR HARBOR - Charles Edward “Charlie” Mitchell III of Bar Harbor passed away Sunday morning, April 7, 2024, at Birch Bay; he was 88. His passing came only two days after that of his uncle, Carlton Mitchell; one year apart in age, the two had been like brothers. Charlie was born September 9, 1935, in Bar Harbor; he was the only child of Charles and Flora (Sawyer) Mitchell.

He grew up in the School Street neighborhood and attended Bar Harbor schools, graduating from Bar Harbor High School in 1953. As a schoolboy he enjoyed sports, playing football and baseball. Later, he played semi-pro baseball in Ellsworth, where he was a pretty good southpaw pitcher. In 1957 he married Dorene Kimball, and later that year they welcomed their first son, Mike. The family moved to Connecticut, where Charlie worked as an auto mechanic and then as a machine operator for defense contractor Pratt & Whitney. In 1961 they had their second son, Scott. After a few years, the Mitchells returned to Maine, where Charlie worked as an auto mechanic at Bar Harbor Motor Co. and Morrison’s. In 1963 they welcomed their third son, Tommy. For a time, Charlie co-owned a Texaco station and garage with George Nelson, while there he was badly injured in an accident at work. He was told that he might never walk again severely breaking his legs and pelvis. Stubborn as a mule, Charlie persevered and eventually recovered enough, not only to walk, but to have a career as a lineman, climbing poles for New England Telephone and Verizon.

In 1975 he and his second wife, Linda, added a fourth son, Joel. Charlie retired from the phone company in 1996. In 2000 he married his third wife, Suzanne Wilbur. They enjoyed traveling together and would escape the Maine winters to visit friends all over the Southeast.

Charlie had a passion for the outdoors. He was an avid bird hunter and traveled up and down the East Coast as well as to South Dakota to hunt with friends. Charlie eventually discovered Wirehaired Pointing Griffons, the ultimate bird hunting dog. Jack and Abbe, and later Kate, became his constant companions. Charlie loved canoeing and going upta camp. Later in his life, he would regale friends and neighbors with stories of camping and canoe trips with his friend Holly; he paddled the Allagash six times. Charlie was a builder, woodworker, and tinkerer, and he owned every tool known to man. He was known for cutting the grass on his riding mower every few days, whether it needed it or not, and did so right through last fall.
When Suzanne’s Alzheimer’s disease progressed to the point that she needed more care than he could provide at home, Charlie took solace staying busy with yard work, watching the Red Sox, Celtics, and westerns, (He favored Gunsmoke and John Wayne movies), phone calls with his grandchildren and his Uncle Carlton, and spending time with friends and family. Charlie was hard-headed and soft-hearted. He loved to eat out but always complained about the quality of the food. Charlie had a great sense of humor and loved to tease but, lest he offend you, made sure you knew he was only kidding. He loved talking to everyone, and he enjoyed hearing other people’s stories. Charlie had his afternoon coffee with Sonny Gerrish at the Hulls Cove General Store. He regularly treated friends to meals and conversation at his favorite haunts - Sylvia’s, Helen’s, Martha’s, Riverside Cafe and Yu Take Out. He ran into friends everywhere he went. Charlie spent countless hours on his front deck, soaking up the sun and waving to neighbors passing by. Most would come up the drive to sit and visit with “the mayor” for a while. He was known to keep kibble in his pockets, and the neighborhood dogs would always stop at his house for treats and pets. Charlie joyfully served as surrogate grandfather to the Robertson children next door, making them laugh and treating them to rides on the Mule.

Charlie is survived by his wife Suzanne Mitchell (Wilbur) of Ellsworth, and by his four sons: Michael (Jan) Mitchell of Buxton, Scott Mitchell of Bar Harbor, Thomas C. Mitchell of Sarasota, FL and Joel (Cori) Mitchell of Ellsworth; step-daughters Andrea Gerrish and Denise Swan (Buzynski) of Bar Harbor; by his grandchildren Lindsay Purtill, Holly Paramapoonya, Cami and Maci Mitchell, Becca and Hutchin Gerrish, and Kieren Murphy, along with seven great-grandchildren. Charlie also leaves behind good friends Frank Brume, Karen Candage, Kate Goshorn, Julie Lozier, and Peter Beckett, who Charlie called his “fifth son.” And last, but not least, he is survived by his beloved dog Kate, who now lives with Peter. Some of Charlie’s ashes will be buried with his parents at Ledgelawn Cemetery. The rest will be spread with those of his dogs, Jack, and Abbe, in some of his favorite outdoor places.

Graveside services will be held 1pm, June 8, 2024, at Ledgelawn Cemetery, Bar Harbor followed by a celebration of life at his home in Hulls Cove.

In his final years, Charlie struggled with vision loss caused by macular degeneration. In lieu of flowers, he would appreciate donations be made to the American Macular Degeneration Foundation or the Iris Network. and he never did get that damn hearing aid.

Arrangements in care of Jordan-Fernald, 1139 Main St., Mt. Desert.

Condolences may be expressed at www.jordanfernald.com