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September 2017 MAINE COASTAL NEWS Page 5. S W I L-S S


KITTERY – As you head out of Kittery there is an island at the entrance of the Piscataqua River on the Maine side with a framed building on it. This is Wood Island and the building was the Wood Island Life-Saving Station, which was built during the winter of 1907-08. Following its closure in 1948 the building and seawalls on the island fell into disrepair. About 10 years ago the Town of Kittery decided to demolish the building, but a group stepped forward, formed a non-prof- it organization, and off ered to restore the building and island’s infrastructure. They wanted to save it for its historical value by making it a tourist destination. Sam Reid, a spokesperson for the


Association, said, “I have lived in the area my entire life as have previous generations of my family. We have known and grown up with the Wood Island Life-Saving Sta- tion for decades. It was very troubling and concerning when the owner of the property, the Town of Kittery, began to make plans to demolish her. Once that started, a number of residents, myself included, began to ask questions and try to help. Ultimately we formed a nonprofi t and that nonprofi t has worked closely with Kittery to respond to a public bid for help. Ultimately this ended up with two contracts for our nonprofi t. One is to restore the building at no cost to the town. The second contract is to operate the fully restored building as a maritime museum open to the public. We are making some outstanding progress. We estimate that the full restoration of the 1908 historic building in the range of $2.5 million and we are well on our way, perhaps $1.7 million worth of cash and value has been raised. We could be open to the public late in the summer of 2019, two years from now.” This all sounds easy, but getting to


the point they have has taken a lot of time, meetings and money to make it all happen. Starting in 2009 it took two years for the town to put out a request for proposals for help. It took another two years to fi nalize the contracts and another two years before a compromise was reached. At this point the Association formed a plan, began the permitting process and was able to begin raising the money needed to make it all happen. Sam added, “By the summer of 2016, we could really go at it and that is when construction started. First, a signifi - cant amount of remediation was necessary. The building was fi lled with asbestos, toxic


bird poo, lead paint and every other horrible thing. That had to be cleaned out at a cost of approximately $250,000 which was paid for by EPA, the State of Maine economic development folks and the Maine DEP. We marched ahead spending $400,000 last summer in restoration work and that was provided by the National Park Service’s grant program call the Maritime Heritage Grant Program. Also the State of Maine General fund would pass legislation that allowed for $200,000 for this project. Aaron Sturgis, who is the owner of Preservation Timber Framing Company was the lead for everything and did an exceptional job. Dave Allen of Chesterfi eld Associates out of Westport Island, Maine, was our general contractor and coordinated the extremely challenging logistics for getting site work done. We are on an island here at Kittery Point and there is no pier. We are talking about 100 tons of material came on and off that island last summer and it is all thanks to Dave Allen and his 75-foot Navy landing craft. He used dumpsters and dumpster trucks to take all the good material on and the bad material off . This is a person that made the impossible possible.” This year is another $400,000 bud-


get, and we are moving into fi nishing the exterior of the station,” said Sam. “As the season ended last year the structure was all redone, brand-new asphalt shingle roof, all redone, but she was just wrapped in Tyvek. So no windows or doors and no shingles. This summer the Tyvek came off and Typar goes on. Beautiful shingles have just arrived from Dow Shingle out of Corinth, Maine and they are beefy 18 inches long 5/8 inch thick. They are unbelievable. The windows have just arrived, 49, crazy expensive, cus- tom-made windows came down from Green Mountain Window, Rutland, Vermont. We are just about to install windows, shingles and doors. The exterior of the building will look complete by the end of September or early October.” “Come spring of '18,” added Sam, “we


look forward to taking on the site work and fi nish the interior. The focus is the station, but it is critically important to focus on the site. This is a funny little island, maybe it is an acre at low tide, which has two 200 foot seawalls that are about 12 feet tall. They are either gone or soon to be gone and a chunk of the island has eroded because of this. We worked very closely again with the Maine


The Wood Island Life-Saving Station off of Kittery Point getting completely restored.


DEP, who has been fantastic to work with. We got permitting to rebuild the seawalls and backfi ll behind them. That is what our plan is for the spring of ’18, specifi cally the north sea wall and approximately 600 tons of rock that is going to go in behind it. We are also planning to do the electrical and plumbing install of the station and grounds. It is really a fun challenge. We have got a lot of people working hard to make this all happen.” Once this is complete and the Station


is ready to receive tourists they are making plans to have the gundalow, which is in 18th century replica sailing barge on the Piscataqua; the Portsmouth Harbor Cruises boat called HERITAGE, and the Isle of Shoals Steamship Company boat called CHALLENGER make stops at the island. “We estimate the total market of a 150 day summer season is something shy of 40,000 passengers,” explained Sam. “Our plan is


to bring in less than a quarter of those, and that will take a couple of years to build up to. Just think about the septic issues. The Maine DEP was helpful in directing us towards the technology that is literally designed for projects that are too close to the water be at the lake or be at the ocean, which is basically a small scale wastewater treatment plant, electrically powered. Human waste goes in and rainwater quality comes out. It is so clean that you plumb it back into the toilets. It can also operate on salt water which is a huge deal for us.” They also hope to be placed on the


National Register of Historic Places. At this time there are only three lifesaving stations in Maine that are on the national register. Sam added, “This building is 1908. It is called a Duluth type, meaning the fi rst was built in Duluth, Minnesota in 1896. There


Continued on Page 10.


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