On several occasions where the public has met with him at required public hearings, Bruce Poliquin has been asked whether or not he is going to go forward and include the initially planned "Beach Club" as part of his Popham Woods Subdivision project. (This type of arrangement is known as "funneling" where a subdivision has some desireable remote element which it "funnels" its members to from afar.) At a required DEP hearing in October (DEP was not present and so could not answer any DEP related questions), Mr. Poliquin was asked whether or not the much talked about "beach club" facility at Popham Beach was an attached element of his plan. He was not mentioning it as being a part of it at this meeting. Indeed, he was not mentioning it at all. We were told that it was not to be included as part of the larger Popham Woods plan, at that time.

Shortly after that October meeting, on November 14th, 2005, an application to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection was submitted in the form of a Permit By Rule notification. It included a large building, 70 feet by 50 feet, and included a parking area 140 feet by 110 feet, with outbuildings and lawns to support the complex, located on tax map 14, Lot 43; the Poliquin lot At Popham. This facility would replace two cottages already on the site. A document contained in the permit package which located the proposed beach project site that was the subject of the Permit By Rule application was labeled as "Location Map; Dirigo Holdings, LLC."

This permit was approved without comment by the DEP, by default (see here for a discussion of the DEP Permit By Rule Process), on November 24th, 2005 by virtue of its status as a notification permit which is automatically approved unless reviewed (sometimes they are not) and found to be faulty or not in compliance with the DEP standards and rules for whatever type of project it may be . This project is sand dune project and must comply with the rukes for such projects. Those standards are contained in DEP publication #DEPLW0294-E2002, Permit By Rule Standards, Chapter 305, Section 16, Activities in Coastal Sand Dunes under the natural resources Protection Act and can be found here http://www.maine.gov/sos/cec/rules/06/096/096c305.doc.

DEP staff Robert Green,who had handled the permit process (reviewed ahead of time what would be required of and what type of permit would be needed to be applied for by the developer for the type of project being proposed-the "pre-approval process"), informed me that discussions had taken place on whether this permit should be tied in with the subdivision permit. Maine DEP had been decided that from the State's view, the two project areas were separated by significant enough physical space that they could not be considered linked in any permitting or regulatory way. This means in effect that they are to be treated separately by the State, and so have been. As evidenced by the already approved Permit By Rule # 39416, which HAS BEEN GRANTED to Mr. Poliquin, this phase of the project is complete as far as Maine DEP is concerned. While the permitting for the rest of the project is far from being completed and has already been the subject of much public comment directed at the DEP (this has made the DEP take a closer look at the permitting) this type of permit by rule is one which is automatic, required no further discussion and no notification to anybody.

Mr. Green further explained that it was considered and rejected by Maine DEP whether this project (the beach part) might require a full sand dune permit, a process where there might have been an opportunity for public input. This project does come under the regulatory statutes contained in the Mandatory Shoreland Zoning Act, which requires towns to follow at least minimum state guidelines for the protection of the shoreland zone. Mr. Poliquin has determined that zone on his DEP application. The town's ordinances prohibit development within a distance of 250 feet from the ocean shore. the town will have to consider, when the project is applied for to the town, whether or not to accept his delineations. This will be an opportunity to question the findings of the applicant, if one can discover the town's permitting before the 30 day period for appeal of it runs out. With current erosion, it is difficult to know where that zone of protection is. i am not sure the town has anyone competent enough to make such determinations (this is the subject of a lawsuit by my family against the town). In any event, I am sure it is not up to the applicant to determine the shoreland zone,as he has done here, though I have seen several instances where the town has accepted that information from developers without question.

I asked Mr. Green whether the DEP was taking into account the erosion which is taking place at an alarming rate at Popham, and he replied that they had consulted with and required of Mr. Poliquin that Maine State Geological Survey staff be consulted with on these issues. Reference to some sort of e-mail communications between DEP staff (Robert Green) and Maine Geological Survey staff, are presented with and cited in the PBR application as having taken place in August, 2005.Discussions took place prior to the submission of the application which were quite extensive and were obviously aimed at the submission of a successful application. The DEP seems to be very forthcoming in explaining what a successful application needs to contain for approval. The permit does not indicate any discussions with MGS staff about the current conditions at Popham. All materials submitted are historic with regards to the erosion at Popham; the materials all reference erosion data from 1986 to 2003. No current data is presented.

That said, I thought that determining V-Zone boundaries was the job of the DEP, MGS, and other experts, not the applicant! The DEP, having supposedly reviewed the application (Mr. Green was intimately familiar with its contents), apparently agrees with the assessments put forward by the applicant and sees no reason to doubt them. Bravo for the applicant for getting it so right that they would have no reason to question him or ask for anyone else's experience on these matters! Unfortunately, the erosion at Popham is very severe, and having allowed the permit, the DEP will again have no recourse but to allow whatever the applicant wishes to do to implement it, since it has, by accepting the application and allowed it to be automatically be approved also accepted all of the information contained in it as truth and fact. since the only available information at the time of the application was the applicant's information, the developer again gives and the State takes! I have seen this same process now with two projects next to my house. In both cases the DEP has permitted housing in areas which flood, the water also flodding onto my property from the applicant's property. Sewage systems have been installed which have failed, but the information was what the applicant gave and thats been good enough for the DEP. Wetlands, Dunes and critically imperiled natural environments (see the Depof Conservation mappings of S1 areas-including this one at Popham-here) are being destroyed and continue to be permitted for destruction by permits like these which will allow more parking lots in the sand dunes. Sand dunes are a protected resource, and fall under the control of the standards of the Natural resource protection Act, which means they are supposed to be protected for you, not for development.

(These are PDF files and require Acrobat Reader, available free on the web)

Maptech Map of project site with location on a nautical chart dated 11/9/2005, with line item; Caption:Location Map, Dirigo Holdings, LLC

Project site is circled and located on map as Poliquin lot at Popham Beach

Aerial Photo from 1986, marked as "Beach and Dune Geology, Hunnewell Beach, Phippsburg Maine - by Steven M. Dickson, Open File No. 01-456, 2001"

This is not a current mapping of the beach though it may be what is used by the DEP.

Close up photo of the project site with shoreland and Eha (erosion hazard area?) designations drawn through it, the latest of which is from 2003, the earliest from 1986. It is captioned as; "From an e-mail letter to Robert Green, Project Manager, Division of land Resource Regulation, Bureau of land and Water Quality, maine Department of Environmental Protection, from Peter Slovinsky, Coastal Geologist, Maine Geological Survey, dated August 24, 2005.

Mr. Poliquin has managed to include with his application internal memos between DEP and MGS staff with assessments of the project site made in August of 2005.