Maine officials reveal plan to permanently remove road between two of the state's beauty spots

Plans to remove a prominent road between two beauty spots are moving forward due to flooding and environmental concerns in Maine. 

The saga is occurring in southern Maine, where the towns of Scarborough and Cape Elizabeth have decided to forgo the frequently flooded stretch of Sawyer Road.

The part in question is a quarter-mile segment that crosses the Spurwink River. 

Without it, drivers will have to use alternate routes to travel between the two communities.

Removal of the marshy road is slated to start in December 2026, officials from both towns confirmed.

Scroll down for video: 

'How long do you continue to fight Mother Nature?' Maine Department of Transportation Deputy Commissioner Dale Doughty told The Bangor Daily News Friday of the decision. 

'It comes down to a value judgment. We need to take a hard look at how we fund road repairs and improvements.'

'I think that is in our future,' Joyce Taylor, chief engineer for the agency, added, as it now mulls abandoning other flood-prone roads that get less traffic.

But that's not the case with Sawyer, locals say - despite often having to take a detour anyway due to flooding, adding a few minutes to their drive.

'Shutting that road is probably gonna increase traffic through the town of Cape Elizabeth quite significantly,' Scarborough resident Mark Coleman told Fox 23 earlier this year.

'I think a lot of people are gonna be disturbed or upset that they'd even consider closing it,' he added.

He and others who live near Sawyer have aired those concerns about how a permanent closure could impact traffic.

However, because of the costs of addressing ongoing water damage, along with the writing on the wall involving climate change, officials like Scarborough Sustainability Manager Jami Fitch say repairing the low-lying road is no longer worth it.

'It's a trade-off that we have to make in the face of rising sea levels,' she told the station when officials came up with the plan in February.

'The road is blocking tidal flow,' she added, motioning to how the road splits the Spurwink Marsh in two.

'The culvert is not allowing enough water to pass through,' she explained.

 'So, we're really affecting the function of the marsh in this area.'

At another point in the interview, after some characteristic heavy rains hit the area, he pointed out a portion of the street just off the road was filled with water.

'We have this large pool here next to the road,' she said, a month after the road was completely flooded following a storm in January.

'That's not supposed to be there.'

He and other officials in both Scarborough and Elizabeth received a $1.6million grant from the state to remove the road and restore the marsh to preserve the surrounding environment.

But with scenes from that recent storm that forced residents to commandeer boats and kayaks to stay above the surge fresh in his memory, residents say it's more than that.

'There's been a lot of flooding,' said Paul Hayes, who lives near the marsh and the street. 'We saw a car float away in the storm in mid-January.'

Now set to more forward, the plan will now require both towns to fork over a further $185,000 - a cost incurred by building a dead-end on each side.

Once gone, travelers between the two towns will only need to drive about five minutes away to other connecting roads - something some have said they are already used to when the road floods and closes to traffic.

Meanwhile, other parts of Maine - notorious for its rains and wetlands - are confronting similar problems, with riverfront communities ranging from Bangor, Hallowell, Skowhegan, Lincoln, Gardiner, Augusta to Lewiston regularly contending with rising water. 

Communities along the coast in particular bear the brunt of the weather events, which cause dangerous storm surge and flooding.

'Communities were literally cut off [from the rest of the state],' Taylor said of the Rumford area during a storm this past December.

'Our job is to convey people safely, especially in storms,' he continued, as officials commit to keeping repeatedly affected roads like the mountainous Route 2 corridor despite the cost.

'Emergency access is something we have to consider if we go in and spend money.'

The road will be removed in two phases, between December 2026 and April 2027.