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Valuing Maine’s Beaches:
Assets, Challenges, and Actions for Today and Tomorrow
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Concurrent Session II
Climate Change and Sea Level Rise
Protection and Maintenance of Ogunquit’s Barrier Beach Dune System
The Ogunquit Beach and dune system extends from the main parking lot at the mouth of the Ogunquit River northerly for approximately one and a half miles to Moody Beach at the Wells town line. The beach and dunes provide vital protection for the Ogunquit River estuary, one of Maine's most valuable riparian resources. The estuary supports a Spartina salt marsh with breeding nurseries for many marine species and nesting for migratory and wintering fowl and the beach and dunes are essential habitat for endangered and threatened species of birds.
The dunes were storm-breached in 1971, causing devastation to the habitat-rich Ogunquit River estuary. The lack of protective fencing, had allowed unrestrained pedestrian traffic to destroy portions of the original dunes. In 1973 the dunes were then completely rebuilt and fenced. But with no oversight during ensuing years the fencing deteriorated. In 2003 The Ogunquit Conservation Commission became responsible for the protection and maintenance of the dune system. Fencing destroyed by the April 2007 Patriots’ Day Storm was to be replaced, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service then opined that the snow fence was a hindrance to the nesting of the piping plover and withheld $30,000 in FEMA funds dedicated to replacing the fence on the dune's ocean side. In the years following a number of meetings were held with Ogunquit officials, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, Maine Geological Survey, FEMA, the Ogunquit Plover Project, Maine Audubon, etc. Finally, in 2009 a compromise was reached allowing certain portions of the dunes to be re-fenced and other portions to be minimally managed and left in a natural state.
Last updated on April 28, 2009
