By Dan Aceto

Staff Writer

After an all-night voyage from Massachusetts, a barge that will assist construction of a new pier at Pine Point finally arrived outside the Fishermen’s Co-Op last Friday afternoon.

David Corbeau, the town’s marine resource officer, said construction will begin Monday and is expected to be finished April 15.

Corbeau said work will begin with the driving of Greenheart piles, which are specially treated to last longer. More than 100 piles must be set in place, he said. 

The new structure will be built just to the left of the existing pier, which will be left in place, said Bruce Gullifer, director of community services.

The new pier will be approximately 216 feet long, and 14 feet wide, said Gullifer, and provide access for fishermen to drive their trucks to the end of a new 72-foot-long, 25-foot-wide dock to unload gear. The installation of two, 1-ton jib cranes will allow fishermen to work during both high and low tides, something that could not be done with the existing pier, Corbeau said.

“Before there was only a two-hour window to load gear during low tide, so it would end up being a monthlong project just to get their gear in the boats. This will provide 24-hour access and should cut their work well in half,” Corbeau said.

David Provencher, a Scarborough fisherman at Pine Point, described the process: 

“The way we do things now, is we load our bait in plastic trays and drive down to the shore and put them in our skiffs. Then we lift the bait from the skiff to the boat,” Provencher said. 

Provencher said when it comes time to offload gear, fisherman must wait until low tide before they are able to drive their trucks close enough to where the water recedes next to the dock.

“Instead of waiting for the tide to unload our traps, we’ll now be able to hoist at any time,” Provencher said. “It should save my truck a lot of wear and tear,” he said with a laugh.

Corbeau said many fishermen suffer from bad backs and shoulder problems from hauling gear by hand, and that the new pier will increase not only their efficiency but safety.

“This is so huge for them to have and I’m just proud to be a part of the whole project,” Corbeau said. “I’m down there every day and I see what they do and the way they have done things in the past and I know it’s not the way I would want to do things.”

Other amenities to the pier will include a fresh water supply, lights and a power supply for welding, Corbeau said. It also will provide a place for the town’s public safety boat to dock at all times, he said.

Gullifer said funding for the new pier came from several bonds and grants he, Corbeau and Town Manager Tom Hall applied for over the course of four years: a town-approved bond of $400,000, a bond from Land for Maine’s Future of $252,500, and $100,000 from the Maine Department of Transportation’s Small Harbor Improvement Program grants.

Corbeau said the pier services approximately 30 to 40 commercial fishermen, and that the new pier was long overdue. 

“I’ve been working down there for more than 15 year and I see what the fishermen need to do business. I saw what they were doing as neither safe or practical, there’s a lot of lifting, bending and offloading of traps and I just saw it as an unsafe issue,” Corbeau said.“Hopefully their grandkids won’t have to do things the same way they did.”

Staff Writer Dan Aceto can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 237.