Maine officials reveal plan to permanently remove road between two of the state's beauty spots

Plans to region a salient roadworthy betwixt 2 beauty spots are moving guardant owed to flooding and biology concerns successful Maine. 

The saga is occurring successful confederate Maine, wherever nan towns of Scarborough and Cape Elizabeth person decided to forgo nan often flooded agelong of Sawyer Road.

The portion successful mobility is simply a quarter-mile conception that crosses nan Spurwink River. 

Without it, drivers will person to usage alternate routes to recreation betwixt nan 2 communities.

Removal of nan marshy roadworthy is slated to commencement successful December 2026, officials from some towns confirmed.

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'How agelong do you proceed to conflict Mother Nature?' Maine Department of Transportation Deputy Commissioner Dale Doughty told The Bangor Daily News Friday of nan decision. 

'It comes down to a worth judgment. We request to return a difficult look astatine really we money roadworthy repairs and improvements.'

'I deliberation that is successful our future,' Joyce Taylor, main technologist for nan agency, added, arsenic it now mulls abandoning different flood-prone roads that get little traffic.

But that's not nan lawsuit pinch Sawyer, locals opportunity - contempt often having to return a detour anyhow owed to flooding, adding a fewer minutes to their drive.

'Shutting that roadworthy is astir apt gonna summation postulation done nan municipality of Cape Elizabeth rather significantly,' Scarborough resident Mark Coleman told Fox 23 earlier this year.

'I deliberation a batch of group are gonna beryllium disturbed aliases upset that they'd moreover see closing it,' he added.

He and others who unrecorded adjacent Sawyer person aired those concerns astir really a imperishable closure could effect traffic.

However, because of nan costs of addressing ongoing h2o damage, on pinch nan penning connected nan wall involving ambiance change, officials like Scarborough Sustainability Manager Jami Fitch opportunity repairing nan low-lying roadworthy is nary longer worthy it.

'It's a trade-off that we person to make successful nan look of rising oversea levels,' she told nan position erstwhile officials came up pinch nan scheme successful February.

'The roadworthy is blocking tidal flow,' she added, motioning to really nan roadworthy splits nan Spurwink Marsh successful two.

'The culvert is not allowing capable h2o to walk through,' she explained.

 'So, we're really affecting nan usability of nan marsh successful this area.'

At different constituent successful nan interview, aft immoderate characteristic dense rains deed nan area, he pointed retired a information of nan thoroughfare conscionable disconnected nan roadworthy was filled pinch water.

'We person this ample excavation present adjacent to nan road,' she said, a period aft nan roadworthy was wholly flooded pursuing a large wind successful January.

'That's not expected to beryllium there.'

He and different officials successful some Scarborough and Elizabeth received a $1.6million assistance from nan authorities to region nan roadworthy and reconstruct nan marsh to sphere nan surrounding environment.

But pinch scenes from that caller large wind that forced residents to commandeer boats and kayaks to enactment supra nan surge caller successful his memory, residents opportunity it's much than that.

'There's been a batch of flooding,' said Paul Hayes, who lives adjacent nan marsh and nan street. 'We saw a car float distant successful nan large wind successful mid-January.'

Now group to much forward, nan scheme will now require some towns to fork complete a further $185,000 - a costs incurred by building a dead-end connected each side.

Once gone, travelers betwixt nan 2 towns will only request to thrust astir 5 minutes distant to different connecting roads - thing immoderate person said they are already utilized to erstwhile nan road floods and closes to traffic.

Meanwhile, different parts of Maine - notorious for its rains and wetlands - are confronting akin problems, with riverfront communities ranging from Bangor, Hallowell, Skowhegan, Lincoln, Gardiner, Augusta to Lewiston regularly contending pinch rising water. 

Communities on nan seashore successful peculiar carnivore nan brunt of nan upwind events, which origin vulnerable large wind surge and flooding.

'Communities were virtually trim disconnected [from nan remainder of nan state],' Taylor said of nan Rumford area during a large wind this past December.

'Our occupation is to convey group safely, particularly successful storms,' he continued, arsenic officials perpetrate to keeping many times affected roads for illustration nan mountainous Route 2 corridor contempt nan cost.

'Emergency entree is thing we person to see if we spell successful and walk money.'

The roadworthy will beryllium removed successful 2 phases, betwixt December 2026 and April 2027.