A bucket loader empties beach stones that washed up during high tide on Beach Avenue in Kennebunk back onto Middle Beach on Jan. 10, 2024. Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald

In response to last year’s winter storms, Maine allowed coastal landowners to rebuild docks, wharves, and piers higher to prepare for future storms and sea level rise. Now a Wells lawmaker wants state regulators to allow the state to permit higher seawalls, too.

Rep. Bob Foley, R-Wells, wants landowners or municipalities to be able to raise seawalls by up to 2 feet, even if they are located in one of Maine’s protected coastal sand dune systems, to safeguard buildings and public infrastructure from rising seas and storms.

“During last year’s storms, waves simply rolled over the tops of sea walls, damaging the property behind them while washing hundreds of cubic yards of sand, rocks and debris off the beaches and into the properties and the roadways,” Foley told a legislative committee Monday.

Seawalls protect private homes and public infrastructure — Wells spent $200,000 last year fixing Webhennet Road three times — as well as municipal tax revenue, Foley said. Seawall-protected land in Wells is assessed at $970 million, bringing in an estimated $5 million in local taxes.

Maine’s 3,500-mile shoreline is being reshaped by rising seas and storm surge. Sea levels are rising faster than ever before, with record-high sea levels measured along the coast in 2023 and 2024. Maine Climate Council projects at least 1.5 feet of sea level rise by 2050 and 4 feet by 2100.

But opponents argue that seawalls meant to keep out rising waters can cause sediment erosion at their base, deflect water and damage neighboring properties, the sand dune system that provides natural flood protection and wildlife habitat, and the state’s 35 miles of sandy beaches.

The state only allows a rebuilt seawall to be larger than the original if it is less damaging to nearby sand dunes, wildlife habitat and neighbors, said Rob Wood, director of DEP’s Bureau of Land Resources. That generally means it must be built further inland to open up additional beach area.

Foley argued the limited erosion occurring at the base of existing seawalls won’t be increased by adding 2 feet to their height. Some property owners do not have the option of moving a seawall inland because they are sandwiched between the shore and a property line or road.

The DEP and several environmental groups testified against LD 228 at a Monday hearing of the Environment and Natural Resources Committee. They urged coastal landowners to raise buildings or sand dunes rather than seawalls that cause beach erosion.

Waves slam into a seawall and houses along Middle Beach in Kennebunk during high tide on Jan. 13, 2024. Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald

Wood and others noted that not everyone can afford to raise their seawalls. Those who live near a coastal property owner who could raise their seawall may find themselves facing a higher flood risk from storm surge that is deflected by their neighbor’s taller wall.

Nature-based solutions such as newly constructed sand dunes absorb storm surge rather than deflect it.

Sand dunes protect more than just homes and wildlife habitat, environmental groups noted — they also protect Maine’s sandy beaches, which generate $2.6 billion of yearly tourism revenue and 34,000 jobs, and raise the property value of the land located behind the seawalls.

“Maine beaches are economic engines that need to be protected,” said Luke Frankel, a staff scientist at the Natural Resources Council of Maine. This bill intended to limit sea level rise damage allows for “the temporary fix of one problem while making other problems worse.”

A lobbyist for Maine Audubon, Francesca “Ches” Gundrum, said Maine must strike a balance between trying to save coastal communities from sea level rise and acknowledging that such climate-related challenges will only get worse over time.

“We do really need to be thinking sort of big picture,” Gundrum said. “Is living as close to the coast as we are, living within these very sensitive systems that are disappearing, going to work in the long term? … There is not any one silver bullet.”

Large boulders from a seawall rest on Fortunes Rocks Road in Biddeford during a January 2024 storm that battered the coast and flooded inland communities. Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald

If lawmakers endorse the proposal, however, DEP requested the bill be amended to require applicants to offset erosion through beach nourishment or dune improvements, get permission from neighbors, and prove they can’t build the replacement wall inland or raise the protected structure instead.

Manager Katy Kelly said a seawall protected her employer, Lafayette Hotel in Wells, during last year’s storms. But the same waves overran smaller seawalls nearby and sent debris and hundreds of yards of sand washing over homes, businesses and roads, causing massive damage.

“It was stunning in its intensity,” said Kelly, whose hotel chain employs more than 1,000 people along the Maine shore. “The state depends on these properties for taxes and jobs. The state should be working with us, not against us.”

The committee will take the bill up again at a future work session that has not yet been scheduled. Foley introduced it as emergency legislation, which means that it would need 2/3 approval by both the House and Senate as well as the support of Gov. Janet Mills to take immediate effect.