A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a series of workshops that the town of Brunswick put on in collaboration with the Curtis Memorial Library around conservation, sustainability and climate action. The most recent event in the “Sustainable Brunswick” series focused on preparing for the change in seasons and provided resources for property owners who want to do just that.

Going back a couple months, the topic for August was a unique one in the series in that it included a field trip. This workshop, a recording of which was just made publicly available, “Coastal Erosion and Flooding,” began at the library, as did the others in the series, but finished at Wharton Point, the site of one of the erosion experiments being done in collaboration with the state as part of their Living Shorelines program (maine.gov/dacf/mgs/explore/marine/living-shorelines/).

Back in 2020, the town worked with the state to identify local sites where they could test the efficacy of a variety of techniques that use natural materials to help buffer erosion in coastal areas. These materials, installed in April of that year, were put together in a number of ways to see what did and didn’t work at several sites across Maine as well as sites in four other New England states undertaking similar efforts with funding from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coastal Resilience program.

Two sites were selected in Brunswick — Wharton Point and Maquoit Conservation Land. Each of these is publicly accessible, which provides opportunities for community education and participation, and is experiencing significant erosion. Teams of volunteers along with town and state staff worked to install two basic “treatments” — mesh coconut fiber (coir) bags filled with oyster shell and tensar (a type of polymer) gridded geometrically shaped boxes known as geo-reefs, also filled with oyster shells. Other sites in Maine used additional materials, including logs and even Christmas trees. Depending on the success of each technique, the idea is that they could be used as tools for property owners to help buffer erosion.

Brunswick’s coastal landscape is quite varied, but one of the common forms along many of bays and inlets are coastal bluffs. This is simply where there is a drop from the land up above down to the water line. In between, there is some type of sediment and also some type of vegetation. The tricky part comes when either or both of these are removed or washed out. Then, that bluff is vulnerable to collapse. If you are interested in learning about which sites around town are most vulnerable, there is a Maine Geological Survey map that shows these locations here: maine.gov/dacf/mgs/pubs/mapuse/series/descrip-bluff.htm.

One of the goals of the workshop was to educate people about ways to reduce the vulnerability of bluffs on their properties. Pete Slovinsky, Marine geologist for the Maine Department of Forestry and Conservation, explained the importance of the “toe” of the cliff (where it meets the water) and how this defines the shape and slope of the bluff. He described how regrading a bluff to expand its slope can reduce the risk of collapse or how planting vegetation in the upland area can help to reduce the water flow over the surface of the bluff. He also provided several practical resources to property owners, including a Coastal Planting Guide and a Maine Coastal Property Owner’s Guide to Erosion, Flooding, and Other Hazards, both of which are available at cumberlandswcd.org/documents-1/coastal-bluffs.

Another part of the workshop focused on the opportunities for the public to engage in community science. An AmeriCorps Coastal Resilience fellow from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute presented information in their Coastal Flooding Community Science Project — a project designed to document high water levels in areas along the coast. This project enables people across the state to submit observations about water level and erosion in their local areas through an easy online platform (gmri.org/projects/coastal-flooding-community-science/). QR codes exist at several sites, including Wharton Point.

The third component of the presentation linked all of this to the town’s Climate Action Plan. Brunswick Environmental Planner Ashley Charleson implored people to participate in the public input opportunities for the plan so that the resources they think would be most helpful will be included and the issues they find most important can be addressed. She encouraged people to sign up for the newsletter to be notified of opportunities to provide comments and input (brunswickclimateaction.org).

Out in the field, participants got to see first-hand how the experimental buffers did or didn’t work. The fiber bags, for example, completely dissolved. But the oyster shell inside stayed in place and naturally cemented together to form a semi-hard structure on the otherwise soft sediment. The geo-reefs performed better and, while not entirely naturally composed, offered a workable solution — and even survived the massive January storms.

There is much more to this presentation and field trip than I’ve shared here. For more information, a recording of the the workshop is on Brunswick’s TV3 at tv3hd.brunswickme.org/CablecastPublicSite/show/5908?site=1. For questions about this presentation or any others in the series, please contact Charleson at acharleson@brunswick.com or 721-4025.

Susan Olcott is the director of strategic partnerships at Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association.