Maine county is rebuilding its destroyed dunes. It's just the start to save the coastline

This image from body camera video provided by the Buffalo Police Department shows Nurul Amin Shah Alam, center, led by Buffalo Police officers after being arrested on charges of assault, burglary and criminal mischief in Buffalo, N.Y., on Feb. 15, 2025. (Buffalo Police Department via AP)

A crew guided a York County barge equipped with a giant sea vacuum across the waters of Wells Harbor last week.

One contractor nudged the so-called dredge in a tiny tugboat. Another manned the equipment, which sucked up sand from the seabed. Still more workers maneuvered a more than 2,000-foot tube to Wells Beach.

There, the tube deposited great heaps of sand that a crew member in a bulldozer carefully molded with GPS-guided precision, restoring dunes that disastrous winter storms washed out two years ago. The equipment deposited sand right up to the seawalls of some residences.

Roughly 7,600 cubic yards of dredged sand will be deposited in front of a long row of waterfront homes and businesses along Wells Beach altogether, a sight that York County emergency preparedness coordinator Chris McCall once doubted he’d ever see.

York County purchased the dredge in 2021 with federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act.

After the 2024 storms caused the county roughly $40 million in public damage and wrecked more than 200 homes, county officials began plotting how to use the machine to rebuild dunes from Ogunquit to Old Orchard Beach.

The initial plan was to restore the dunes to protect against a 100-year flood, which has a 1 percent chance of occurring any given year. But the Trump administration’s cancellation of a popular federal resilience grant last year caused the county to pivot.

Instead it created a two-tiered plan: First is this $5.1-million stopgap measure, currently underway, to bolster dunes in Wells, Saco and Old Orchard Beach to protect against a five-year flood.

The work is primarily funded by federal disaster relief money, which covers 75 percent of project costs, while a mix of state and municipal funds from the three towns pays for the rest.

Second, the county wants to pursue a broader, $50-million project to restore the dunes to withstand a 100-year flood.

A slew of federal permitting delays pushed the first phase’s start date back from November, and it wasn’t until late last year that York County got the green light to begin.

York County started by trucking sand onto two stretches of dunes at Old Orchard Beach in January. Then contractors with the Wisconsin-based construction company Michels Corporation began dredging in Wells Harbor a month later.

Next a separate contractor will plant more than 100,000 dune grass seedlings along Wells Beach and deposit 6,200 yards of sand at the Camp Ellis beach in Saco.

McCall watched the dredge in action on a blustery day, Feb. 19, relieved that the work was underway.

“Finally getting to this point is a big achievement, even though we know it’s still the first step of many,” McCall said.

McCall and county emergency management director Arthur Cleaves have been sounding the alarm about York County’s vulnerability to future storms for two years.

Cleaves said the 2024 storms — during which Maine recorded its highest water level ever — decimated the county’s coastal defenses, leaving the landscape and homes exposed to future storms.

Flooding destroyed 28 percent of dunes along four segments of southern Maine coastline, including in Saco and Kennebunkport, according to a study published by University of New England researchers last year in the research journal Geomorphica.

Climate change makes powerful storms like those that rocked Maine’s coast that winter more likely, while rising sea levels put protective sand dunes at greater risk, the authors add.

“The dunes served their purpose. They were wiped out,” Cleaves said last April, referring to the York County coastline. “How much damage would have happened had they not been there before the storm? So the vulnerability is there now, and we’re gambling every day that we don’t do something.”

Surging tides have washed away the flagstone patio in front of Camp Ellis resident David Plavin’s beachfront home a few times since he moved there in 2017. Plavin, who is vice president of environmental nonprofit Save Our Shores Saco Bay, has long awaited restoration work in the dunes beyond his neighborhood’s seawall.

“There’s optimism and hope that this will make a difference,” Plavin said. “This beach has lost two to three hundred feet of sand. … High tide and a storm will flood the street.”

Scars from the January 2024 storms still linger in Camp Ellis. Plavin said the beach has receded significantly, and some homes that were breached by high winds or floodwaters are now raised up on stilts.

After the dredge finishes in Wells, it will travel up the coast in early March and spread 1,200 cubic yards of sand from the Saco River along Camp Ellis Beach. In addition to this project funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Saco is purchasing an additional 6,000 cubic yards of sand to further fortify the beach, according to city officials.

York County commissioner Justin Chenette said the area’s beaches, like those at Camp Ellis, support the backbone of Maine’s economy, and the success of the dune restoration could be a rallying call for additional state and federal funding.

“This is a new venture for the county to really take a leadership role,” Chenette said. “I think when the project is completed it’s going to spur momentum for other communities along the coast.”

The question remains how York County will scrounge up the additional $50 million needed to restore dunes to 100-year flood protection. Even Cleaves, a former official for FEMA, has had difficulty navigating the new terrain of gutted FEMA grants.

The county will likely have to string together a combination of congressional allocations and smaller federal and state grants to cover the cost, but Cleaves said he isn’t sure if that will be enough.

Meanwhile, a $75 million state bond measure for coastal resilience projects proposed by state Sen. Donna Bailey, D-Saco, awaits funding from the Maine Legislature.

“Additional funding will help protect homes, businesses and our vital tourism industry,” Bailey said in a statement.

If the beaches are engineered to withstand a 100-year flood, they’ll be eligible for future FEMA reimbursements after every federal disaster, Cleaves said. Until then, they’ll remain relatively exposed, even with the current restoration projects.

“I worry because protection is not there for all these areas,” Cleaves said. “What day is the storm coming?”

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This story was originally published by The Maine Monitor and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.