Panel: Challenges Face Working Waterfront Infrastructure

CHATHAM – Working waterfront facilities for commercial fishermen have never been more threatened. Development pressure, high construction and maintenance costs, and sea level rise caused by climate change lead the headwinds facing both retention and upgrading of shoreside commercial fishing infrastructure.

 “For fishermen to work, they need a working waterfront,” stressed state Division of Marine Fisheries Director Dan McKiernan. “They need to be safe, dependable and with reasonable fees.”

 Most existing facilities are public, run by local municipalities. While state and federal fisheries management pose different challenges to the industry, the “choke point” for infrastructure is often municipalities, he said.

 McKiernan spoke as part of a panel discussion on protecting the Cape’s working waterfronts sponsored by the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance Main Street headquarters Wednesday, July 15. The event was part of the Alliance’s “Small Boats, Big Science” series.

 The commercial fishing industry faces plenty of natural challenges — climate change and the redistribution of fish species that has caused chief among them — but preserving infrastructure is something that can be controlled. Fishermen are adaptable, but what they can’t adapt to, McKiernan said, “is not having a place to offload.”

To establish a baseline of existing infrastructure, McKiernan’s department teamed up with the Urban Harbors Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston to develop profiles of Massachusetts fishing ports. The first Port Profile report was issued in 2021 and is currently being updated for release next month.

 The new update will include 10 years worth of data, according to Story Reed, DMF’s deputy director. A preview shows in Chatham how the amount of fin fish landings has declined since a high of 21.1 million pounds in 2016 to 10.65 million pounds in 2024. Invertebrate landings have remained steady, while shellfish landings have declined from a high of 10.1 million pounds in 2016 to 3.1 million pounds in 2024. Values, however, have declined less, with the value of invertebrates, which include lobsters, actually going up.

 The report is a tool for municipalities to use to provide data for grant applications, among other uses, said Reed. Orleans used the information in obtaining state Seaport Economic Council grants for upgrading commercial fishing facilities at Rock Harbor, a project that is just now finishing up, according to Harbormaster Nate Sears. The $9 million project benefited from a $1 million Seaport grant, which helped secure town funding, he said.

 “It’s been very rewarding,” Sears said of the project. “We have a thriving, working waterfront now, where the public can come down and watch boats unload. And we have happy fishermen.”

 It takes “all the stakeholders” to ensure support for waterfront projects, said Chatham Natural Resources Director Greg Berman. The town has completed several working waterfront projects in recent years, including renovation of the south jog bulkhead at the fish pier and reconstruction of the trap dock on Stage Harbor. Coastal resilience and sea level rise were incorporated into both, and will also be part of upcoming projects at Ryder’s Cove and Barn Hill. He termed the town’s approach as “functional adaptation”; the project can respond further to climate change, although he pointed out that there’s only so much that can be done before facilities must be raised to the level where they are no longer functional.

 To gain public support, it’s important that all voices be heard, Berman said, especially on large expensive projects.

 “Resilience is not cheap,” he said. “Doing nothing is even more expensive.”

 Funding is a “constant battle,” Sears agreed, noting that many of the region’s town landings or water access points were established a century ago when today’s development and environmental pressures did not exist.

 Director of the Urban Harbors Institute Kristin Uiterwyk said in putting together the latest iteration of the port profile report, it was necessary to look 20, 30 and even 50 years into the future.

 “We’re at the point where one of the decisions we make now will be important 100 years from now,” she said.