Island Institute News
1772 Foundation Helps Expand Historic Port Clyde Wharf
ROCKLAND, Maine, May 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Island Institute announced today that the Port Clyde Fishermen's Cooperative has received $100,000 from the 1772 Foundation, a historical-restoration organization based in New Jersey, for the repair and expansion of the cooperative's historic wharf. The award was distributed through the Island Institute's Affordable Coast Fund (ACF), a grant-making program established by the Island Institute in 2007 to promote affordable housing and working-waterfront access projects. The ACF also contributed $30,000 towards the project in 2007.
The award funds the next step in an unprecedented project in Maine to combine the working-waterfront access resources for two fisheries and to help preserve Port Clyde's fishing heritage.
The Port Clyde wharf has provided working-waterfront access since the mid-19th century, serving as a buying station for lobster and groundfishermen who harvested nearby Muscongus and Penobscot Bays. Currently owned by the lobstermen of the Port Clyde Fishermen's Cooperative, the property was identified as one of the state's 81 remaining prime working-waterfront access points by the Island Institute's working-waterfront mapping project, completed in 2007.
This fall, the cooperative received a $340,000 award from the state's Working Waterfront Access Pilot Program in return for selling development rights and placing a commercial-fishing covenant on the property. The cooperative has committed the funds from this sale to expand their dock and provide working-waterfront access for the Port Clyde Draggermen's Cooperative, representing the last remaining groundfishing fleet in Midcoast or Downeast Maine. Expanding the Fishermen's Cooperative dock will ensure permanently-protected access for the lobster and fishing fleets, and will return the dock to its historical role of serving multiple fisheries.
"This is about preserving access for our future generations," said Gerry Cushman, manager of the Fishermen's Cooperative. "In order to accommodate our current work and to predict the future needs and requirements of both fisheries, we need substantial financial assistance and every grant we receive brings us closer to that goal. None of this would have been possible without grant programs such as the state's bond fund, the ACF and the 1772 Foundation."
Stanton Geary, president of the 1772 Foundation, stated that his board of trustees was "thrilled to assist in the preservation of Port Clyde's fishing culture, which is unquestionably the heart and soul of the Maine coast."
The Island Institute partners with Maine's 15 year-round islands and coastal communities to ensure that they remain vibrant places to live and work.
SOURCE Island Institute
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