Wharf Project
The Wharf Project is a long-term resiliency effort aimed at ensuring that Monhegan’s only deep water access remains usable and useful well into the future. As a vital utility on the island and the lifeline to the mainland, this infrastructure must serve the community from its businesses to its year-round residents in the pursuit of their personal pursuits and their economic wellbeing. This page is dedicated to highlighting the ongoing and future work, providing an outline of the current project’s process as well as details about current phases and past work.
Wharf Project Process Description
In January 2026, the Board of Assessors received the revised concept design from GEI Consultants, Inc. as part of the Fiscal Year 2025 Shore and Harbor Planning Grant. The designs combined community feedback with new data collected over the course of the grant to create drawings that captured the desires of the community using the most accurate physical data possible. The deliverables also included a topographic and bathymetric survey, a geophysical survey, a permitting and regulatory memorandum, an opinion of probable cost, a funding strategy memorandum, and the presentation given by the engineers. These deliverables are provided below.
The revised designs were then discussed at a public meeting on February 27, 2026, at the Monhegan Memorial Library. The presentation slides, handout, and minutes from said meeting are provided below.
Following the January 2024 storms, the declaration of emergency status allowed Monhegan to establish a working project with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Details about this project will be added to this page in the near future.
At the Annual Town Meeting on April 5, 2025, the Monhegan community approved Article 48. This article promotes the institution of a Wharf Surcharge fee for the ferry companies wherein a nominal charge from all passenger ticket purchases would be directed towards wharf maintenance and long-term planning. The Monhegan community approved the exploration of what this surcharge could entail as well as issues and options for implementation.
On June 17th, 2025, the Assessors hosted a Wharf Surcharge Input Meeting to gather feedback about implementing a surcharge to wharf users. Below are the slides presented at the meeting as well as notes.
Wharf Surcharge Presentation Slides
Community Meeting Notes
Following the public meeting, the Wharf Surcharge Survey was created to further consider public opinion towards the wharf surcharge proposal. A PDF of the survey questions is linked below.
To conclude the analysis period for the Wharf Surcharge Proposal, the insights from the community meeting and the survey were combined into an analysis report. This was shared with the Monhegan ferry companies to promote process transparency, and it is linked below.
Thanks to grant funds from the Maine Coastal Program, Monhegan Plantation retained GEI Consultants to conduct a resiliency assessment of the public wharf facilities. This project included a wharf condition assessment, an operations review, and an evaluation of the impact of climate change on the long-term safety, and serviceability of the only public deep water access to the island. The final report (linked below) was presented to the community in a public meeting, the minutes for which are provided below. This project concluded in December 2023, and it set the stage for future wharf resiliency efforts described on this webpage.
Monhegan Public Wharf Condition and Resiliency Assessment Final Report
November 6th, 2023 Monhegan Wharf Condition & Resiliency Assessment Presentation Minutes