Thread: New Deep Water Pier is too Shallow for big ships

Here's an interesting little tidbit from the Portland Daily Sun.

It seems the city spent mega tax payer bucks to build a pier to accomodate larger cruise ships. However, they apparently neglected to do anything about the depth of their new "Deep Water" pier, which was christened last week.

The pier, with its "megaberth" is finished, but useless, as the water is too shallow.

However, now that the pier is ready, things seem to be proceeding at a normal government pace, and in the customary order:

The Maine Port Authority sent out a "letter of intent" last month to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as an exploration of cost, route and amount of sediment removal so a shallow area near the pier can be deepened.


FULL ARTICLE HERE: Dredging up money for a deeper pier | Portland Daily Sun

We were up in St. Johns right after they deepened their port area and apparently it has been money very well spent. Tourism is a major draw to that area now that fishing has dropped so precipitously.

And New England is one of the least developed coastal area, and in my opinion, one of the most interesting.

Is this that no ships can get in, or just the biggest ones? I remember Bermuda has an ongoing problem and can only handle the smallest of the main line ships.

Originally Posted by canarymoon

Here's an interesting little tidbit from the Portland Daily Sun.

It seems the city spent mega tax payer bucks to build a pier to accomodate larger cruise ships. However, they apparently neglected to do anything about the depth of their new "Deep Water" pier, which was christened last week.

The pier, with its "megaberth" is finished, but useless, as the water is too shallow.

However, now that the pier is ready, things seem to be proceeding at a normal government pace, and in the customary order:

The Maine Port Authority sent out a "letter of intent" last month to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as an exploration of cost, route and amount of sediment removal so a shallow area near the pier can be deepened.


FULL ARTICLE HERE: Dredging up money for a deeper pier | Portland Daily Sun

It's a touchy subject amongst those in the know in town right now (I'm a Portland resident). The issue arose after some extra large lunar tides lessened the capacity of the terminal not to critical levels, but to a degree beyond safety standards, and only very minutely.

No matter how minute - it's a problem as the new terminal is, in my opinion, a much more graceful way to enter the city.

They mayor and governor had an opening ceremony the other day with little publicity and a small turnout. Someone really flubbed up here - and it's a shame.

You can read more about the astronomical effects on the tidal heights and how it affected two cruise lines' decisions to leave early a couple of weeks ago - sparking this little issue off.

The article is here: Cruise ship departs 'megaberth' early in response to astronomical low tide | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram

Are you going to let a geological reality interfere with what the people want?