Residents say mussel draggers abuse ramp area

GOULDSBORO – Commercial use of a town boat landing has stirred up bad feelings between mussel draggers and residents who say the draggers are a nuisance.

Town officials say, however, that they are taking steps to address the problem.

The draggers have blocked Gouldsboro Point Road completely while loading mussels onto large trucks at the ramp, they have left trash behind, and they have made rude gestures and insulting remarks to residents, according to people who want the town to ban commercial draggers from the site.

Town officials admit there have been some problems, but say they want to reach a resolution without having to regulate who can and cannot use the ramp.

Dana Rice, a lobster dealer, is Gouldsboro’s first selectman and its harbor master.

Rice said Monday that the harbor committee has looked into the issue and has asked him to approach mussel draggers who have been using the ramp about the residents’ concerns.

Rice said the harbor committee had asked the board of selectmen to ban commercial use of the ramp, but selectmen were reluctant to do that because of declining shorefront access in Maine for commercial fishermen.

“If you make a rule or regulation, it affects all your ramps,” Rice said, pointing out that Gouldsboro also has public ramps in South Gouldsboro and Bunkers Harbor. “Hopefully, we can work it out without an ordinance.”

Rice said the draggers are gone for now because the mussel beds have been harvested, but they are likely to return in a few years when mussel beds have been replenished naturally and the mussels have reached harvest age.

Robert Berube, who lives off Gouldsboro Point Road, said Monday that residents have been treated rudely by draggers whose trucks have blocked the dead-end road.

Berube, a retired lobster fisherman, said the congestion has been so bad at times that fire trucks and ambulances would have had a hard time getting to an emergency south of the ramp site.

“It is a big problem,” Berube said of the draggers’ presence at the ramp. “People on Gouldsboro Point are really upset.”

Gouldsboro Point Road resident Frederick Snyder, who also has lobbied town officials to ban draggers from the ramp, said the facility was built in the 1980s with the idea that it would be used only for transferring boats in and out of the water.

“I think there should have been an ordinance [enacted] when the launch was put in,” Snyder said. “[The draggers] kind of come in and seem to take over.”

Snyder said a trash bin the town put at the site to address the trash problem is used by everyone and fills up with trash the same day it is emptied.

“It was just bad vibes between the fishermen and the people who live here,” Snyder said of the recent confrontations.

Colby Young, a lobster fisherman who serves on the harbor committee and is Gouldsboro’s assistant harbor master, said Monday he does not have sympathy for Gouldsboro Point residents who have objected fiercely to the draggers’ use of the ramp.

“That’s what [the ramp] was put in for,” Young said. “They knew it when they moved there.”

Young said the issues cited by residents who live near the ramp have been exaggerated.

“For the most part, it’s just pickup trucks,” Young said of traffic congestion at the site. “It’s nothing, as far as I’m concerned, that’s unbearable.”