BIDDEFORD – Residents packed a public hearing in Biddeford Wednesday on the University of New England’s proposed 80-foot research pier on the Saco River, arguing it would lead to displacing boat owners who moor there.

“The location is unavailable,” said John Shafer, a Biddeford resident and former chairman of Biddeford’s Harbor Commission. “Those people should not have to move their moorings.” 

It is not the first time the city has considered the proposed pier. The university has been working on the concept as part of a plan to expand its research work, for more than 10 years.

“The planned pier will allow students and faculty to be on the water throughout the year, thereby greatly enhancing UNE’s groundbreaking research into critical problems facing Maine,” UNE officials wrote in the proposal. 

The proposed pier would be almost directly across the river from the public pier in Saco’s Camp Ellis neighborhood. Since 2015, the university has been fielding a counterproposal from harbormasters in Saco and Biddeford to build the pier in an alternative location just downriver.

Proponents say the alternative location is not just better for boat owners, who would not be impacted, but it would be better for the university too – it would still be on university property, would not be any more difficult to build or access once complete, and is even in deeper water, which would be more accommodating to research vessels. 

But the university has declined. At his presentation to the planning board Wednesday, UNE Vice President of Operations Al Thibeault described a process going back to 2009 to evaluate multiple locations along the river for the pier.

Thibeault said consultants evaluated all potential locations using “a myriad of evaluation criteria,” including water depth, susceptibility to icing, and access for research vessels. 

Thibeault said the university determined the location they are proposing to build at now was the best for all concerned. He said it had been discussed with the planning board as part of a broader master plan discussion in both 2016 and 2023.

“There were no comments about the location of the pier being inappropriate,” he said. 

Thibeault said the university only first heard concerns about the location in October of 2023, and even then “we’ve never seen anything in writing.”

The issue led to some controversy in 2024. Then-Harbormaster Paul Lariviere protested UNE’s plans publicly in 2024, going as far as to say that he would not approve a pier proposal from UNE at its chosen location under any circumstances.  

He has since been fired from his position, but city officials have said his firing had nothing to do with his protests.

Residents continue to maintain that the UNE proposal is bad for local boaters. It is unclear just how many boaters would be affected, but in a letter to the board in advance of Monday’s meeting a group of seven boat owners indicated that their moorings could not be “seized” without their consent. They warned that if UNE forces the city to remove the moorings to make way for the pier, “a complex and multi-year legal saga will begin.” 

At the hearing, former Saco Harbormaster Dan Chadbourne, who also signed the moorers’ letter, said he understood that UNE needed to build a pier. Still, he advocated against approving it in the proposed location, and not just because it would disrupt local boaters. It could “catch ice” and be difficult to work with for a number of reasons.

“The location of this is really an issue,” he said.  

Schafer made a plea on behalf of the mooring holders. 

“It’s presumptuous of UNE to think that they have the right to move those moorings,” he said. “Only a harbormaster can reassign location and actually move the moorings. UNE can’t build there, period.” 

Kyle Noble, of 56 Hills Beach Road, said the alternative location is better, and urged the board to press UNE to consider it.

“If that site were developed as it could be, it would accommodate everything that they have proposed,” he said, referring to the alternative suggested location. 

The board told the audience that Wednesday’s meeting was only for the introduction of UNE’s application and the public hearing. The board was not planning to make any decisions yet and would do so at a future meeting.