Maine’s Department of Marine Resources
Working Waterfront Access Protection Program
C/O Coastal Enterprises, Inc,
2 Portland Fish Pier, Suite 206Portland, Maine 04101, 207-772-5356
Pemaquid Fishermen’s Cooperative, Bristol
The Pemaquid Fishermen’s Co-op (the oldest known continually operating fisheries cooperative in the country going on 60 years) wanted to preserve their fishing heritage by sale of a covenant on their 4.5 acre property located adjacent to Pemaquid Harbor in the town of Bristol (Lincoln County). The covenant will secure the property’s extensive capacity to support the lobstering, shrimp and scalloping activities of the 21 current Co-op members and allow room to handle more than 30 boats. Approximately 50 fishing and harvesting families including vessel captains, and their sternmen and women are supported by this working waterfront access. The Co-op plans to invest their award in their waterfront infrastructure to include general maintenance and a state of the art chilled seawater system housed in a new shoreside building as well as better lobster storage equipment for their boats. These improvements will allow them to store over 10,000 lbs. of lobsters for months with very low mortality and no feeding costs Some of their award will be devoted to better branding and marketing of their high quality lobsters leading to higher profits.. The Co-op was granted an allocation of $265,400.00 from the Land for Maine’s Future Board to purchase a covenant on their property.
