Landslide threatens Stockton Springs camps

STOCKTON SPRINGS, Maine — A coastal landslide Thursday night along the shore at Fort Point Cove is threatening three seasonal dwellings, according to Maine Geological Survey officials.

About 200 feet along the shore on Schooner Drive slid down into the waters of the lower Penobscot River, according to Maine Geological Survey marine geologist Stephen Dickson. The top of the bluff appears to have receded about 30 feet, Dickson said Friday afternoon.

The road has been barricaded, and officials are warning drivers to avoid the area.

A nearby railroad track southwest of the area also comes close to the bluff edge and could be threatened by a similar landslide, Dickson said.

Two of the affected property owners were out looking at the scene Friday. Both asked not to be identified.

“It’s kind of shocking, isn’t it?” said one of the property owners, a woman whose yard facing the water now ends abruptly about 10 feet from the porch of her camp with a steep drop to the shore below. “It’s pretty amazing.”

The other property owner, a man, said he “felt something” Thursday night when the landslide occurred.

Other coastal areas in Maine, particularly those that historically experience landslides, could be in danger this weekend, Dickson warned.

“Recent heavy rains through the month of June have contributed to high water tables and saturated muddy coastal bluffs,” Dickson said. Other natural slope failures, both inland and along the banks of rivers and streams, could occur, most likely in areas where the mud thickness is 20 feet or more and saturated by a high water table, he said.

A Maine Department of Environmental Protection specialist first reported the landslide Friday morning. The Maine Emergency Management Agency and the Knox County Emergency Management Agency were notified. One of the homeowners has a private engineering consultant on site.

Dickson said he and Alice Kelley of the University of Maine plan to document the event. Kelley, a professor in the Department of Earth Sciences, “has considerable experience with this subject and has mapped many Maine Geological Survey Coastal Bluffs Maps that are critical in identifying landslide hazard areas,” Dickson said.

The marine geologist said that while landslides are common in high clay bluffs along the Maine coast, it is not usually possible to identify a triggering event. There have been no earthquakes in recent days in New England that would have contributed to this slope failure, he said.

Maine Geological Survey hydrogeologist Thomas K. Weddle will be monitoring a historically unstable site in Brunswick this weekend, Dickson said.

Additional rainfall in coming days could lead to further slope instability and land loss, the marine geologist warned.

“It’s not over yet,” Dickson said.

Conditions could worsen for the camp buildings with the landslide continuing to eat away at more land in front of the camps, Dickson said.

He said he also was concerned about many areas up and down the whole coast of Maine that have similar high coastal bluffs, specifically those that are 20 feet or more above the high tide mark.

“These are susceptible to landslides, and we may see more slope failures in coming days,” he warned. Maine Geological Survey has produced coastal landslide hazards maps identifying areas of the coast at highest risk.

Dickson advised homeowners to look for the following features:

• Signs of cracks in the lawn.

• Slumping on the faces of bluffs.

• Open bare ground.

• Tilting trees or signs of tree movement.

In addition to rainfall, gusty winds also can threaten to destabilize slopes and move trees, he said.

Homeowners who are concerned should check with private engineering firms or qualified geologists for a site inspection.

They also can visit the Maine Geological Survey Web site to learn more about coastal bluffs and landslide hazards between Kittery and Schoodic Point or to add landslides to the Maine Geological Survey landslide inventory.

For more information, go to: http://www.maine.gov/doc/nrimc/mgs/explore/hazards/landslide/index.htm