For Bangor and a good many other Maine cities and towns, the waterfronts have long been scenes of trash piles and overboard sewage lines, at best the backyards of businesses. But change is coming. What once were regarded as useless liabilities are now being converted into civic assets.

Bangor, after nearly a quarter century of planning and preparation, at last has the start of a promenade along the Penobscot River shore. An amphitheater overlooking the river needs only some permits before dirt can begin to fly. There’s a tentative plan for a 180-room hotel, possibly adjoining a high-tech conference center. A local group has been conducting quiet discussions for several months about a cluster of “high-end” condominiums and town houses. The city already owns the mile-long stretch of riverfront from the Chamberlain Bridge to the Veterans’ Bridge, except for the Barrett Paving Materials plant, which will continue to need barge access. After years of negotiation, the old railroad yards have been closed, leaving a single track that much of the way will seem below ground level, because an earthen berm will allow full views of the river. Architects are planning building arrangements that will protect “viewsheds” – just like watersheds except that they don’t refer to drainage but to lines of sight.

Stanley Moses, Bangor’s assistant community development director, foresees that in about 10 years the city will have a waterfront that looks something like the spectacular architects’ drawings under consideration.

Ellsworth is among others in early stages of developing its frontage on the Union River, once the site of a string of sawmills. The accumulation of old sawdust at last is being dredged, and a committee is considering such possibilities as a boardwalk with shops and restaurants and some landscaped open space in place of the present industrial occupants, who have no need for access to the river. To get federal or state grants, Ellsworth should have an approved municipal plan – one which, if in place earlier, might have kept the new county jail from looming next to the expanded library with its handsome landscaping and riverside path.

Bucksport is far and away ahead of the pack. When Roger Raymond arrived from Eagle Lake as town manager 17 years ago, his first assignment was to get things moving to improve the waterfront. Some folks dragged their feet, afraid it would cost too much. But by the mid-’80s work was well started. A lovely, safe promenade running a mile from the Routes 1 and 3 bridge almost to the International Paper mill provides views of the harbor, Fort Knox and the Hancock-Waldo county suspension bridge.

At the halfway point are the town dock, the marina, a gazebo, and the old railroad station, now a museum. People often stroll the walkway, which offers easy access a few steps away to points on Main Street. The development has strengthened Main Street businesses, which have gone from a 50 percent vacancy rate to a present one or two unoccupied. Bucksport people and businesses soon saw merit in fixing up the waterfront. Many owners of riverfront land simply deeded rights to the property to the city without asking payment. And a referendum last June on the $150,000 final phase of the project passed with 80 percent approval.

Waterfront improvement not only looks good, it attracts new residents, strengthens the old inner cities and boosts economic development. And if the rest of Maine’s cities and towns can do as well as Bucksport has done, we’ll all be ahead of the game.