New Swampscott Pier Pushback Strong At Public Forum

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — Plans to build a new pier at Swampscott's Fisherman's Beach that could withstand expected rising sea levels over the coming decades ran into staunch opposition at a recent Select Board meeting and at a public discussion of the Harbor & Waterfront Advisory Committee for its projected cost, practicality, usefulness to the town's already-dwindling fishing industry and potential impact on the views of nearby residents.

The latest proposal for the new pier, which has been in a preliminary design phase for the past four years with state Seaport Economic Grant funding, would move it from its current location and lift it nine feet in the air to account for expected sea level rise.

"The idea is to come up with a replacement for the existing pier that's going to be both resilient and functional for all members of the town," committee members said of the project mission.

But a group of local fishermen calling itself the Fisherman's Alliance instead called for the restoration of the current pier to help extend its life as long as possible before the rising ocean does what it will with it, while several residents who spoke at Thursday's Harbor & Waterfront Committee said building a new pier is less of a priority than developing a plan to protect the entire waterfront that could be underwater even as the resilient pier extends into the ocean.

"I would be thrilled if the Harbor and Waterfront Committee could quietly and graciously shelve this plan," Swampscott Capital Improvement Committee member Ryan Hale said. "Come to the Capital Improvement Committee with the request to repair and maintain the existing pier and that will sail through and I will jump up and down in support with you. ... Read this room and listen to the people who don't want this pier."

Advocates for the pier said that it is a long-range project to ensure Swampscott still has a pier decades from now, and that the process has to begin well before the existing pier becomes obsolete, if residents decide they want to have a pier at all well into the future.

But Select Board liaison to the Committee Danielle Leonard said that while she understands "being planful and mindful because seal level is rising" and agrees that the town wants to take advantage of grant money available, that this may not be the time for such an ambitious project.

"Hopefully it will be there in 10 years or 15 years," she said of the matching funds. "Maybe it will be a different situation. We have to live within our means and as a small town that means fixing the pier."

Committee members allowed that the pier will not do anything to protect the coastline and that some hopes for that lie in a plan for the installation of Protective Living Reefs around the outer harbor in front of Humphrey Street, adding that "there is no silver bullet solution for the perfect layout" of a new pier.

The Harbor & Waterfront Committee meeting came two days after a testy back and forth at last week's Select Board meeting where the Fisherman's Alliance was added to the agenda to speak on the issue — and against the new pier project — on short notice.

"I have no issue with fisherman advocating for their needs," Select Board member David Grishman told Patch on Monday. "However, I do take exception with not receiving answers to open questions about agenda items from the Chair and want information provided to us ahead of time so as board members we can appropriately prepare."

Grishman added: "Including a one-sided discussion on an improperly noticed agenda with information intentionally withheld from board members until the 11th hour, and not providing notice to hard-working members of the Harbor and Waterfront Advisory Committee members to discuss both sides of an important issue that impacts all residents of our 15,000-person town, is a very poor process and missed opportunity to have a real discussion.

"That should not happen again. We can and should do better."

While Grishman and Select Board member Doug Thompson objected to the discussion, Leonard said at the meeting she supported the Fisherman's Alliance's chance to speak on the issue, while Select Board member Katie Phelan expressed regret that public in-fighting among the Board overshadowed the merits of the discussion itself.

Select Board Chair MaryEllen Fletcher said she originally had the item on the agenda so that Select Board members could question Fisherman's Alliance representatives on their assertions that the proposed nine-foot pier would not be useful to them but shifted it to being an untimed public comment at the Chair's discretion amid voiced concerns over open meeting rules regarding public notice of agenda topics.

Another Harbor and Waterfront Advisory Committee forum on the pier was preliminarily proposed for September at the end of Thursday's meeting.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)