BANGOR – Two lobstermen have settled their dispute with the town of Cutler over preferential use of the harbor and will be given moorings in the harbor.

The two also will be paid some $40,000 by the town, according to Ralph A. Dyer, their attorney.

The lawsuit over whether residents should have preference over nonresidents in applications to moor boats in the harbor divided the community.

In settling the case, neither Dale nor Michael Griffin, who are brothers, nor the town admitted any liability or wrongdoing.

At the brothers’ request, the settlement includes a clause that states both sides have made a commitment to try to have some form of “peace on the water.”

“The Griffins looked at the matter and looked at what it would take for the case to go to trial,” Dyer said Wednesday, the day a notice of settlement in the case was filed in U.S. District Court in Bangor. “We had [the U.S magistrate judge’s] recommended decision in hand and used that as a way to discuss a resolution. Everybody compromised on both sides.”

Mark V. Franco, the town’s attorney, said Friday that the estimated cost of the trial would be about $42,500, the amount offered in the settlement.

“A trial and possible appeals was going to be a long, expensive process,” Franco said. “We tried to come up with a practical solution everyone could live with.”

Dale and Michael Griffin filed the lawsuit against the town in Washington County Superior Court. It was transferred to federal court in March 2005. Lobstermen since 1996, the men argued that in the summer of 2004 they were illegally denied nonresident permits to work out of Cutler Harbor.

The town asked that the lawsuit be dismissed. U.S. Magistrate Judge Margaret Kravchuk found merit in some of the town’s arguments in the case, but ruled that Cutler had denied the lobstermen’s access to the harbor.

The court noted that the Griffins have a right, as Maine and United States citizens, “to have equal access to mooring privileges in Cutler Harbor, asserted exclusively under the Equal Protection Clause of the federal Constitution.”

They have “a right to equal access to a municipal boat ramp based on the same grounds” and “a right to be free from discrimination in regard to making commercial use of Cutler Harbor as a nonresident of Cutler as compared with residents making commercial use of the Harbor.”

The men have continued to fish in the waters off Cutler but have moved their boats to the harbor in Eastport, which adds about 45 minutes to their trips to their lobster traps, which are closer to Cutler.

The settlement agreement calls for them to have three moorings in Cutler Harbor – one for Michael Griffin of Edmunds Township, one for Dale Griffin of Whiting, and the third for Dale’s son Brent Griffin, also of Whiting.

The lobstermen will be given equal consideration along with residents each year they apply for moorings in the harbor, Dyer said.