Marla Dickerson / Los Angeles Times
PORTO NACIONAL, Brazil -- For the better part of his 64 years, Sebastian Luis de Sousa has scratched a meager living in the paprika-red soil of central Brazil.
So when offered a chance to grow castor beans to produce an alternative fuel called biodiesel, the rawboned father of nine reckoned he had nothing to lose. The $200 he earned this summer from his tiny harvest wasn't much. But rising demand for renewable fuels has de Sousa wanting to expand his 7 1/2 acre farm.
"I want to buy more land,'' he said, rolling a prickly castor bean seed pod in his calloused hand. "This is an important thing that Brazil is doing.''
Already the world's largest producer of ethanol, Brazil is now betting on biodiesel, with an eye to helping small farmers such as de Sousa capitalize on what some see as the next big thing in green energy. Derived from animal fats or vegetable oils, this substitute for petroleum diesel is generating ten of millions of dollars from investors.
Major companies, including U.S. agri-business behemoth Archer Daniels Midland Co., are building production plants, encouraged by a federal mandate requiring every liter of diesel fuel sold in Brazil to contain 2 percent biodiesel by 2008, rising to 5 percent by 2013.
Brazil's state-owned petroleum giant Petrobras is already selling a fuel blend with 2 percent biodiesel at hundreds of its retail gas stations. The company is investing in manufacturing facilities. It is also patenting a new fuel known as H-Bio that it says will save million of barrels of oil by using vegetable oil in the refining process to create a low polluting petroleum diesel.
Even McDonald's has collaborated with Brazilian researchers looking to power vehicles with recycled grease from its restaurants.
The involvement of big players is crucial if Brazil hopes to reach its goal of embracing biodiesel on a massive scale. Current production is modest, but is projected to jump to 840 million liters by 2008, which would put Brazil among the worlds' large producers. Still, officials are looking to involve more subsistence farmers such as de Sousa, who have yet to profit from the nation's biofuels bonanza.
No country on the planet has been more successful at displacing fossil fuels with green energy than Brazil. Hammered by the oil shocks of the 1970s, the nation committed itself to developing a domestic ethanol industry to reduce its dependence on imported petroleum.
Today, 40 percent of the fuel that powers passenger cars here is made from homegrown sugar cane. That's been a boon for Brazilian agriculture. But the economic fruits have been reaped by a small number of large farmers growing a single crop.
With biodiesel, officials see a chance to spread the wealth from a fast growing fuel whose demand in Brazil could top that of ethanol.
At present, petroleum diesel accounts for more than half of all the vehicle fuel consumed in Brazil, about 42 billion liters a year, thanks to its heavy dependence on truck and bus transport.
By promoting a cleaner-burning alternative made from Brazilian-grown castor beans, soybeans, palm oil and other crops, the government is looking to slash diesel imports and improve air quality in its cities, as well as to generate rural income and employment.
President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, who is currently running for re-election, has touted biodiesel production as a way to spark development in some of the poorest regions of the country, particularly the rural northeast.
Biodiesel producers who want to qualify for hefty federal tax breaks must purchase anywhere from 10 percent to 50 percent of their raw materials from small growers, depending on the region.
That requirement is how farmer de Sousa got connected with a company called Brasil Ecodiesel, which provided him with seed and technical advice in addition to purchasing his crop of castor beans.
Rodrigo Augusto Rodrigues, the federal government's biodiesel coordinator, said the effort could eventually involve 360,000 family farms nationwide, up from about 2,500 at present. He said the varied crops provided by small growers would keep small farmers on the land and provide them a reliable stream of income.
"We don't want to repeat the same mistakes we made with ethanol,'' Rodrigues said. "The social aspect is critical.''
But some energy experts are dubious that peasant farmers toiling on tiny plots will be more than bit players. Large-scale cultivation and ruthless efficiency were crucial to the nation's success with ethanol. Mass produced soybeans, while not the most efficient feedstock, are fast emerging as the crop with the greatest potential to help producers achieve economies of scale.
"There is a lack of focus in this biodiesel program,'' said Luiz Augusto Horta Nogueira, former director of the Brazil's National Agency of Petroleum, National Gas and Biofuels. "One group of stakeholders is looking to substitute large amounts of diesel. Others want rural development. ... It's a real problem.''
Some observers doubt the fuel can be cost competitive without fat government subsidies such as those that propped up Brazil's ethanol market for years. Others say the environmental benefits may be overblown.
Biofuels emit fewer greenhouse gases than fossil fuels when burned in combustion engines. But other factors must be considered when making the comparison, such as how much petroleum was needed to plant, harvest, produce and transport the renewable fuels, and how many native trees and plants were plowed under in the process.
Soybean farming has already destroyed large swaths of Brazil's Amazon forest. The long standing agricultural practice of burning sugar cane fields prior to harvest is a major pollutant.
Renewable fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel are "not as green as we like to think they are,'' said Joe Ryan, who manages air-quality projects in Brazil for the Menlo Park, Calif.-based William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
Still, with the government projecting more than three dozen manufacturing plants to be on line by 2008 with a capacity of 1.7 billion liters, producers here, and across the globe, are bullish on biodiesel.
Worldwide production is surging, led by the European Union, which has adopted a goal of substituting 5.75 percent of petroleum diesel with biodiesel by 2010 as part of its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The world's top producer is Germany, where biodiesel made from rapeseed is widely available in gas stations.
Asia is fast becoming a major player, with the cultivation of palm oil for use in biodiesel growing rapidly in Malaysia and Indonesia. In the United States, where soybeans are the primary feedstock, production is projected to more than triple this year to around 250 million gallons or almost 950 million liters. The U.S. already boasts 86 biodiesel plants, with another 62 under construction, according to the National Biodiesel Board.
Just like in the U.S. Midwest, soybeans are the principle feedstock for biodiesel refineries in Brazil's heartland. On a recent afternoon, near the city of Anapolis about two hours west of the nation's capital Brasilia, workers with hardhats and torches welded seams on the gleaming steel storage tanks of a $20 million biodiesel plant.
The plant, which will be produce up to 100 million liters of biodiesel annually, is one of three production facilities that Brazilian soybean processor Granol plans to have running by next year. Company executives see biodiesel as a lucrative new outlet for its soybeans, with domestic sales of its cooking oil and animal feed stagnating, and exports hurt by Brazil's strong currency, .
"Renewable fuels are the future,'' said manager Paulo Donato, explaining his employer's $45 million bet on biodiesel.
Hours to the north in Porto Nacional, farmer de Sousa said that he hoped that future would include small farmers like him.
"I'm just one man,'' he said, poking at the soil with his sandal. "But I'm proud to play a part in this.''
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Monday, October 02, 2006
State to educate on biofuels
By COLIN HICKEY
Staff Writer
Copyright © 2006 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
Biofuel is less toxic and more environmentally friendly than regular diesel fuel, but it is also a combustible liquid that needs to comply to regulations regarding its production, distribution and sale, according to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
What the DEP does not want to see, DEP environmental engineer Peter Moulton said, is backyard biofuel producers who disregard the necessary licensing.
He sees that potential given the rising awareness and interest in biofuels.
"From a concern point of view, we have been getting people calling up about what to do (to make biofuel legally)," Moulton said. "We are in the process of putting together a fact sheet, or something like that, to let people know the various regulations out there that affect the storage, making or selling of biofuels."
Peter Arnold, renewable energy expert at the Chewonki Foundation, an educational group in Wiscasset, stressed that biofuel should be held to the same safety standards as other fuels.
At the same time, he said biofuel is not nearly as toxic as diesel and naturally biodegrades much more quickly.
Dylan Voorhees, clean-energy director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine, said biofuel emissions don't pose a threat to the atmosphere.
"It is not 100 percent carbon neutral," he said, "but has much, much less carbon emission per gallon than regular diesel, so in terms of greenhouse emissions and global warming it has much less impact."
Through the process of converting waste fryolator oil into biofuel, a byproduct known as glycerin results.
While the glycerin contains methanol and can be used as an energy source, the temperature at which it bursts into flame is quite high, making it less a fire threat than most fuels, Arnold said.
"I don't think it is an environmental concern," he said. "It is more an economic concern. It is basically a benign product that is around a lot."
Randy Bean of Green Bean Bio-Fuel in Vassalboro said he gets about 22 gallons of glycerin for every 50 gallons of biofuel he makes.
Bean said he ships 90 percent of it to a composting facility in Rockland. The rest, he said, is burned either at his plant or by a Massachusetts company that uses it to produce heat for greenhouses.
Colin Hickey -- 861-9205
chickey@centralmaine.com
Staff Writer
Copyright © 2006 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
Biofuel is less toxic and more environmentally friendly than regular diesel fuel, but it is also a combustible liquid that needs to comply to regulations regarding its production, distribution and sale, according to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
What the DEP does not want to see, DEP environmental engineer Peter Moulton said, is backyard biofuel producers who disregard the necessary licensing.
He sees that potential given the rising awareness and interest in biofuels.
"From a concern point of view, we have been getting people calling up about what to do (to make biofuel legally)," Moulton said. "We are in the process of putting together a fact sheet, or something like that, to let people know the various regulations out there that affect the storage, making or selling of biofuels."
Peter Arnold, renewable energy expert at the Chewonki Foundation, an educational group in Wiscasset, stressed that biofuel should be held to the same safety standards as other fuels.
At the same time, he said biofuel is not nearly as toxic as diesel and naturally biodegrades much more quickly.
Dylan Voorhees, clean-energy director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine, said biofuel emissions don't pose a threat to the atmosphere.
"It is not 100 percent carbon neutral," he said, "but has much, much less carbon emission per gallon than regular diesel, so in terms of greenhouse emissions and global warming it has much less impact."
Through the process of converting waste fryolator oil into biofuel, a byproduct known as glycerin results.
While the glycerin contains methanol and can be used as an energy source, the temperature at which it bursts into flame is quite high, making it less a fire threat than most fuels, Arnold said.
"I don't think it is an environmental concern," he said. "It is more an economic concern. It is basically a benign product that is around a lot."
Randy Bean of Green Bean Bio-Fuel in Vassalboro said he gets about 22 gallons of glycerin for every 50 gallons of biofuel he makes.
Bean said he ships 90 percent of it to a composting facility in Rockland. The rest, he said, is burned either at his plant or by a Massachusetts company that uses it to produce heat for greenhouses.
Colin Hickey -- 861-9205
chickey@centralmaine.com
Fueled by Food
By COLIN HICKEY
Staff Writer
Copyright © 2006 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc
VASSALBORO -- Randy Bean wants your grease, the more the better, and it won't cost you a cent, but it might bring you a cleaner, safer and more affordable world.
That's the potential of Green Bean Bio-Fuel, the startup biofuel production company that Bean started inside an old steel warehouse about a mile and a half off U.S. Route 201.
Green Bean Bio-Fuel is the only company in the state producing biofuel for commercial sale, processing each week about 2,000 gallons of biofuel from the waste fryolator oil -- collected from about 200 restaurants and food preparation businesses in Maine and New Hampshire.
That biofuel is then sold chiefly to businesses operating trucks that used to be powered by diesel fuel.
Beth Nagusky, who heads the state's Office of Energy Independence and Security, confirms Bean's exclusive status.
"Randy is unique for now," she said. "There isn't anybody else (in the state) doing what he is doing right now."
Put 100 percent pure biofuel in your truck and your compression-ignition engine should work just fine.
Waterville resident Craig Lefebvre, who owns a mobile paper-shredding business, is one of Bean's happy customers.
He has run his three trucks on biofuel for the last two months without a single hiccup, and when his shredders on wheels are on site chewing away, their emissions are customer friendly: instead of noxious fumes, you get a sweet fragrance.
"It is clean burning," Lefebvre. "It is a barbecue grill."
Made from renewable sources, biofuel -- methyl esters is the chemical name -- has lower emissions than petroleum, is less toxic than table salt and biodegrades as fast as sugar, according to the National Biodiesel Board.
Switching to biofuel also makes the United States less dependent on foreign oil, a goal the U.S. government is increasingly touting given the instability in the Middle East and the concern caused over the skyrocketing price increases in oil in recent years.
For a time this summer, Bean's selling price of $2.63 a gallon for biofuel was more than 40 cents cheaper than the price for diesel. That price advantage has since closed significantly, but biofuel, especially if its production increases significantly, could at the very least serve as a control on oil prices by providing competition.
"I'm not a greenie, per se," Bean said, "but when you read about all the benefits of this fuel to the atmosphere as far as the greenhouse effect and everything, this stuff is awesome."
Bean will be upping his biofuel production dramatically before year's end. He plans to have a replacement factory open in about two months that should boost his annual yield from about 100,000 gallons to about 835,000 gallons.
"Our big thing the next four or five years is to introduce biofuel in a good manner," Bean said, "and let people choose whether they want to buy it. If we make a good product at a good price, I think they will (buy it)."
RESTAURANT WINDFALL
Liberty Square Restaurant in Winslow, like most eateries that fry food, ends up with a lot of grease to get rid of at the end of the day.
Disposal used to be an expense. Then Bean's Commercial Grease appeared.
Nowadays Liberty Square uses the collection side of Randy Bean's biofuel operation exclusively, and the expense has disappeared -- Bean picks up at no charge. Owners, Dan and Missy Hussey, couldn't be happier.
"It is an awesome program," Missy Hussey said. "It used to cost us $100 a month (to get rid of the waste oil)."
Bean figures he saves the food industry he serves -- he has about 200 customers -- about $200,000 a year, ranging from $80 to $100 a month for the small independent restaurant, to $10,000 or more for a company that has a chain of restaurants.
Yet more exciting is the potential Bean's operation could have for both the environmental and economic health of Maine as a whole.
Peter Arnold, a renewable energy expert with the Chewonki Foundation, a Wiscasset-based educational group, has been making biofuel for several years, although not for commercial sale. In fact, he is the one who helped teach Bean the process.
Arnold said if Maine were to make use of its used fryolator oil, vegetable crop and considerable wood resources, the state would have the potential to produce slightly more than 200 million gallons of biofuel annually, or about one third of Maine's current diesel need.
"What Randy is doing is the initiation of Maine jumping into the fuel business in a way we have never been able to do before," he said, "because we can make biofuel in Maine. This is the beginning of it."
How quickly -- if ever -- the state gets to peak biofuel production depends on the value placed on biofuel and the price for traditional fossil fuels, Arnold said.
Another key, he said, is making the public aware that biofuel is an option and that it can have clear economic benefits for the state, as well as environmental benefits global in scope.
Biofuel simply recycles carbon dioxide that already is present in the vegetable source, Arnold said, and thus, unlike fossil fuels, places no additional strain on the environment.
Replace diesel with biofuel, he said, and you reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and thereby help combat global warming.
"I think the easy answer (for creating a larger demand for biofuel) is more education and ready availability (of biofuel)," he said, "and they kind of go together. Fuel stations will want to carry this fuel when they are assured that people will buy it."
PRODUCTION PROCESS
Bean had heard about Arnold's biofuel operation at the Chewonki Foundation, so he was quick to seek out Arnold for help when he began to explore being a producer himself.
Arnold was happy to oblige.
"He came out and took us through what they had been doing," Bean said, "and he has followed us in everything that we have done from that day on."
The process of turning waste fryolator oil into biofuel -- called transesterification -- actually is less complicated than you might suspect.
At Bean's facility, the first step is to heat 1,000 gallons of waste fryolator oil. Once heated, the oil is transferred to a second tank, where a catalyst -- made in a third tank from methanol and caustic soda -- is gravity-fed into and blended with the oil using an industrial-strength mixer.
This mixture is then transferred into one of three holding tanks and left to settle for at least 24 hours. During that process, a largely benign byproduct called glycerin settles to the bottom, while the nearly pure biofuel floats above.
This biofuel then goes through a few more filters and, finally, through a centrifuge, which essentially is a high powered spin cycle, that filters out any remaining particles.
In his new factory, Bean will follow the same process, just on a much larger scale.
Nagusky, of the Office of Energy Independence and Security, applauds Bean's progress but adds a note of caution.
"The point I'd like to make," she said, "it that it will be very hard to meet all our energy needs from in-state resources unless we reduce demand. So the first thing we need to pursue is conservation and efficiency. Those are always going to be the first priority, and renewable energy sources will be second."
Colin Hickey -- 861-9205
chickey@centralmaine.com
Staff Writer
Copyright © 2006 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc
VASSALBORO -- Randy Bean wants your grease, the more the better, and it won't cost you a cent, but it might bring you a cleaner, safer and more affordable world.
That's the potential of Green Bean Bio-Fuel, the startup biofuel production company that Bean started inside an old steel warehouse about a mile and a half off U.S. Route 201.
Green Bean Bio-Fuel is the only company in the state producing biofuel for commercial sale, processing each week about 2,000 gallons of biofuel from the waste fryolator oil -- collected from about 200 restaurants and food preparation businesses in Maine and New Hampshire.
That biofuel is then sold chiefly to businesses operating trucks that used to be powered by diesel fuel.
Beth Nagusky, who heads the state's Office of Energy Independence and Security, confirms Bean's exclusive status.
"Randy is unique for now," she said. "There isn't anybody else (in the state) doing what he is doing right now."
Put 100 percent pure biofuel in your truck and your compression-ignition engine should work just fine.
Waterville resident Craig Lefebvre, who owns a mobile paper-shredding business, is one of Bean's happy customers.
He has run his three trucks on biofuel for the last two months without a single hiccup, and when his shredders on wheels are on site chewing away, their emissions are customer friendly: instead of noxious fumes, you get a sweet fragrance.
"It is clean burning," Lefebvre. "It is a barbecue grill."
Made from renewable sources, biofuel -- methyl esters is the chemical name -- has lower emissions than petroleum, is less toxic than table salt and biodegrades as fast as sugar, according to the National Biodiesel Board.
Switching to biofuel also makes the United States less dependent on foreign oil, a goal the U.S. government is increasingly touting given the instability in the Middle East and the concern caused over the skyrocketing price increases in oil in recent years.
For a time this summer, Bean's selling price of $2.63 a gallon for biofuel was more than 40 cents cheaper than the price for diesel. That price advantage has since closed significantly, but biofuel, especially if its production increases significantly, could at the very least serve as a control on oil prices by providing competition.
"I'm not a greenie, per se," Bean said, "but when you read about all the benefits of this fuel to the atmosphere as far as the greenhouse effect and everything, this stuff is awesome."
Bean will be upping his biofuel production dramatically before year's end. He plans to have a replacement factory open in about two months that should boost his annual yield from about 100,000 gallons to about 835,000 gallons.
"Our big thing the next four or five years is to introduce biofuel in a good manner," Bean said, "and let people choose whether they want to buy it. If we make a good product at a good price, I think they will (buy it)."
RESTAURANT WINDFALL
Liberty Square Restaurant in Winslow, like most eateries that fry food, ends up with a lot of grease to get rid of at the end of the day.
Disposal used to be an expense. Then Bean's Commercial Grease appeared.
Nowadays Liberty Square uses the collection side of Randy Bean's biofuel operation exclusively, and the expense has disappeared -- Bean picks up at no charge. Owners, Dan and Missy Hussey, couldn't be happier.
"It is an awesome program," Missy Hussey said. "It used to cost us $100 a month (to get rid of the waste oil)."
Bean figures he saves the food industry he serves -- he has about 200 customers -- about $200,000 a year, ranging from $80 to $100 a month for the small independent restaurant, to $10,000 or more for a company that has a chain of restaurants.
Yet more exciting is the potential Bean's operation could have for both the environmental and economic health of Maine as a whole.
Peter Arnold, a renewable energy expert with the Chewonki Foundation, a Wiscasset-based educational group, has been making biofuel for several years, although not for commercial sale. In fact, he is the one who helped teach Bean the process.
Arnold said if Maine were to make use of its used fryolator oil, vegetable crop and considerable wood resources, the state would have the potential to produce slightly more than 200 million gallons of biofuel annually, or about one third of Maine's current diesel need.
"What Randy is doing is the initiation of Maine jumping into the fuel business in a way we have never been able to do before," he said, "because we can make biofuel in Maine. This is the beginning of it."
How quickly -- if ever -- the state gets to peak biofuel production depends on the value placed on biofuel and the price for traditional fossil fuels, Arnold said.
Another key, he said, is making the public aware that biofuel is an option and that it can have clear economic benefits for the state, as well as environmental benefits global in scope.
Biofuel simply recycles carbon dioxide that already is present in the vegetable source, Arnold said, and thus, unlike fossil fuels, places no additional strain on the environment.
Replace diesel with biofuel, he said, and you reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and thereby help combat global warming.
"I think the easy answer (for creating a larger demand for biofuel) is more education and ready availability (of biofuel)," he said, "and they kind of go together. Fuel stations will want to carry this fuel when they are assured that people will buy it."
PRODUCTION PROCESS
Bean had heard about Arnold's biofuel operation at the Chewonki Foundation, so he was quick to seek out Arnold for help when he began to explore being a producer himself.
Arnold was happy to oblige.
"He came out and took us through what they had been doing," Bean said, "and he has followed us in everything that we have done from that day on."
The process of turning waste fryolator oil into biofuel -- called transesterification -- actually is less complicated than you might suspect.
At Bean's facility, the first step is to heat 1,000 gallons of waste fryolator oil. Once heated, the oil is transferred to a second tank, where a catalyst -- made in a third tank from methanol and caustic soda -- is gravity-fed into and blended with the oil using an industrial-strength mixer.
This mixture is then transferred into one of three holding tanks and left to settle for at least 24 hours. During that process, a largely benign byproduct called glycerin settles to the bottom, while the nearly pure biofuel floats above.
This biofuel then goes through a few more filters and, finally, through a centrifuge, which essentially is a high powered spin cycle, that filters out any remaining particles.
In his new factory, Bean will follow the same process, just on a much larger scale.
Nagusky, of the Office of Energy Independence and Security, applauds Bean's progress but adds a note of caution.
"The point I'd like to make," she said, "it that it will be very hard to meet all our energy needs from in-state resources unless we reduce demand. So the first thing we need to pursue is conservation and efficiency. Those are always going to be the first priority, and renewable energy sources will be second."
Colin Hickey -- 861-9205
chickey@centralmaine.com
Bluffs take a beating
By TUX TURKEL, Staff Writer Maine Sunday Telegram Sunday, October 1, 2006
PEAKS ISLAND ‹ Jim Gilson went outside to fill his bird feeder one morning last November and discovered that a big chunk of his backyard was gone.
"There was a huge pile of trees the size of our house on the beach," he said last week, standing in what's left of his yard and motioning to the ocean, 80 feet below.
Gilson lives in a 90-year-old cottage built on a steep bluff looking west to Portland Harbor. The view from his deck is incredible.
But the bluff, as Gilson has come to learn, is made of glacial-marine mud. It is being eroded by the sea, part of a natural cycle that triggers periodic landslides.
Late last month, the Natural Resources Council of Maine released a study that estimated how much coastal property would be submerged over the next 50 years by rising sea level. The study, which attracted plenty of media coverage, was meant to draw attention to global climate change and steps that people could take to slow the impact.
Largely overlooked by the report, however, is what rising sea level is already doing to coastal real estate, notably through bluff erosion. Roughly 17 percent of Maine's shoreline is made of bluffs that geologists have labeled as unstable or highly unstable. These bluffs are being undermined by the ocean, threatening homes like the Gilson cottage. To the extent that global warming increases the height of the sea, the problem will only become worse with time.
Bluff erosion doesn't rate the headlines that climate change does. Many people who live on the coast aren't aware of it, experts say, and real estate agents aren't specifically required to note the presence of unstable bluffs for prospective buyers.
But bluff erosion is already starting to chew away at some of the state's most prized properties, where homes are perched to take advantage of million-dollar water views. Periodically, something dramatic happens.
In 1973, a landslide covering three acres came close to a couple of houses on Waldo Avenue in Rockland. That event preceded a larger, nearby slide in 1996, which destroyed two homes off Samoset Road.
A year later, a bluff in the Bunganuc area of Brunswick gave way, coming within 100 feet of a house. Last year, a landslide on the banks of the Merriland River in Wells left part of a home's foundation exposed and made the building unsafe to inhabit.
State officials know of other instances in southern and midcoast Maine. Notable hazard areas exist all around Casco Bay, which is peppered with clay bluffs from Falmouth to Brunswick and along the islands.
"As time goes by, more and more shoreline is creeping inland and getting closer to houses," said Stephen Dickson, the state's marine geologist. "We've got problems now. Sea level rise is going to make matters worse."
Media coverage of climate change often portrays rising sea level as a future event, but the ocean already has risen a foot over the past 100 years, Dickson said. Scientists now are debating how much higher the sea will rise over the next century. The study by the Natural Resources Council of Maine suggested the water could go up more than three feet in the next 50 years.
These estimates matter because of the way bluff erosion works.
Storm-driven waves, especially during extremely high tides, eat away the base of the bluff and carry clay and other sediment out to sea. That process steepens the face of the bluff. Continued erosion and "lubrication" from groundwater and heavy rain eventually allow the bluff to give way a landslide.
The landslide creates a more gentle profile on the bluff face and puts the bluff back in balance. Over time, though, erosion will undercut the base and the cycle begins again.
That's essentially what happened at Jim Gilson's house on Peaks Island, according to Joe Kelley, who chairs the department of geological sciences at the University of Maine. Kelley is one of the state's leading experts on bluff erosion. Along with Dickson and others, he has helped map Maine's coastal landslide hazard areas, which include a stretch of Island Avenue where Gilson lives.
"It was coming," Kelley said. "It's just that his time had come and rain triggered it."
Gilson remembers the rain, days of it. But he wasn't prepared to walk outside and find five feet of his yard, covered in a tangle of bittersweet and small maple trees, on the beach below. The landslide left his cottage 25 feet from the bluff edge. Gilson contacted the state for help and made another discouraging discovery: There's no government assistance for landslides.
Gilson had to take matters into his own hands. Last March, crews from a neighboring construction company on the island, Lionel Plante Associates, set out to save Gilson's cottage. They installed drainage pipes and special geotextile to stablize the bank and release groundwater. They built a 50-foot-long wall of large boulders at the bluff base and terraced a section midway up the banking. Then Gilson had roses, perennial flowers and other vegetation planted to hold the soil. The project cost him $55,000.
Some of Gilson's neighbors recognize this ongoing threat and have taken steps to protect their seaside properties.
Jack Soley lives in a 19th-century home a few doors from Gilson. He has driven a corrugated steel buttress 12 feet into the ground between the house and the bluff face. He also has installed drain pipes. At the base of the bluff, a 20-year-old concrete seawall helps fend off angry waves.
Other landowners have armored the shoreline over the years. These efforts are easy to see, at a now-sagging wall of rock and concrete farther up the beach.
These measures might tip off homebuyers to the potential for trouble. But Kurt Goodhue, who owns Port Island Realty on Peaks Island, said these warning signs are often ignored. Look at the ongoing development on hurricane-ravaged beaches in the southern United States, he said. "It seems that people will do silly things with their money to get closer to the water," Goodhue said.
If judgments are clouded by the water view, disclosure laws don't offer much clarity. Real estate agents must note if a property is in a flood plain, for instance, but there's no check-off for coastal bluffs.
Goodhue said that might be a good idea. He sold a small cottage last year on a steep bluff, but not until a geologist looked it over. The consultant's conclusion: The house should be fine for 10 years, but there's no way to know after that.
Goodhue said he didn't realize that the Maine Geological Survey had mapped the state's landslide hazard areas, and those maps are available on the Internet. He said he would tell brokers in his office about the maps.
"When people invest in a property that may not be there in 10 years, they should have that information," he said.
Of course, hundreds of Maine homes, like the Gilson cottage, were built long before the dynamics of bluff erosion were fully appreciated. Now that it's understood, officials want to prevent new structures from being built where they're at risk from collapsing into the sea.
Earlier this year, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection amended the state's shoreland zoning ordinances, which are administered by communities. A key change requires a 75-foot minimum setback from the top of coastal bluffs identified as hazardous by the state. Previously, the setback was measured from the edge of the coastal wetland.
Setbacks have emerged as an issue in Rockland, where a 48-home subdivision has been proposed next to the Samoset Resort's golf course. Last spring, the town's planning board asked for an independent study to learn whether parts of the project will be threatened by an eroding bluff on the property.
William Peterlein, an engineer with Summit Geoengineering Services in Lewiston, found little risk of a landslide on the site, but said ongoing erosion could erase 50 to 100 feet of shoreline and make some homes uninhabitable within the century.
In an interview last week, Peterlein said the development meets required codes and steps can be taken to reduce the risk, such as extending building foundations to bedrock and placing boulders along the eroding shoreline.
"The risk is relative to how it's handled, how it's mitigated," he said.
State experts such as Kelley and Dickson say coastal land buyers should have a greater awareness of rising sea level. They suggest looking at the hazard maps and checking with a town's building code enforcement officer.
That might help property owners avoid the expense and anxiety that Jim Gilson has been dealing with.
Standing on the beach below his cottage last week, Gilson looked up at the erosion control measures on his bluff and admired the work. "We'll see what happens this winter," he said.
Gilson has spent 21 summers at the cottage. He didn't realize the bluff is mapped and labeled unstable by the state. But in retrospect, he said, he's not surprised. "Some of the old hands said this bank has been coming down over the years," he said. "This was our year."
Staff Writer Tux Turkel can be contacted at 791-6462 or tturkel@pressherald.com
PEAKS ISLAND ‹ Jim Gilson went outside to fill his bird feeder one morning last November and discovered that a big chunk of his backyard was gone.
"There was a huge pile of trees the size of our house on the beach," he said last week, standing in what's left of his yard and motioning to the ocean, 80 feet below.
Gilson lives in a 90-year-old cottage built on a steep bluff looking west to Portland Harbor. The view from his deck is incredible.
But the bluff, as Gilson has come to learn, is made of glacial-marine mud. It is being eroded by the sea, part of a natural cycle that triggers periodic landslides.
Late last month, the Natural Resources Council of Maine released a study that estimated how much coastal property would be submerged over the next 50 years by rising sea level. The study, which attracted plenty of media coverage, was meant to draw attention to global climate change and steps that people could take to slow the impact.
Largely overlooked by the report, however, is what rising sea level is already doing to coastal real estate, notably through bluff erosion. Roughly 17 percent of Maine's shoreline is made of bluffs that geologists have labeled as unstable or highly unstable. These bluffs are being undermined by the ocean, threatening homes like the Gilson cottage. To the extent that global warming increases the height of the sea, the problem will only become worse with time.
Bluff erosion doesn't rate the headlines that climate change does. Many people who live on the coast aren't aware of it, experts say, and real estate agents aren't specifically required to note the presence of unstable bluffs for prospective buyers.
But bluff erosion is already starting to chew away at some of the state's most prized properties, where homes are perched to take advantage of million-dollar water views. Periodically, something dramatic happens.
In 1973, a landslide covering three acres came close to a couple of houses on Waldo Avenue in Rockland. That event preceded a larger, nearby slide in 1996, which destroyed two homes off Samoset Road.
A year later, a bluff in the Bunganuc area of Brunswick gave way, coming within 100 feet of a house. Last year, a landslide on the banks of the Merriland River in Wells left part of a home's foundation exposed and made the building unsafe to inhabit.
State officials know of other instances in southern and midcoast Maine. Notable hazard areas exist all around Casco Bay, which is peppered with clay bluffs from Falmouth to Brunswick and along the islands.
"As time goes by, more and more shoreline is creeping inland and getting closer to houses," said Stephen Dickson, the state's marine geologist. "We've got problems now. Sea level rise is going to make matters worse."
Media coverage of climate change often portrays rising sea level as a future event, but the ocean already has risen a foot over the past 100 years, Dickson said. Scientists now are debating how much higher the sea will rise over the next century. The study by the Natural Resources Council of Maine suggested the water could go up more than three feet in the next 50 years.
These estimates matter because of the way bluff erosion works.
Storm-driven waves, especially during extremely high tides, eat away the base of the bluff and carry clay and other sediment out to sea. That process steepens the face of the bluff. Continued erosion and "lubrication" from groundwater and heavy rain eventually allow the bluff to give way a landslide.
The landslide creates a more gentle profile on the bluff face and puts the bluff back in balance. Over time, though, erosion will undercut the base and the cycle begins again.
That's essentially what happened at Jim Gilson's house on Peaks Island, according to Joe Kelley, who chairs the department of geological sciences at the University of Maine. Kelley is one of the state's leading experts on bluff erosion. Along with Dickson and others, he has helped map Maine's coastal landslide hazard areas, which include a stretch of Island Avenue where Gilson lives.
"It was coming," Kelley said. "It's just that his time had come and rain triggered it."
Gilson remembers the rain, days of it. But he wasn't prepared to walk outside and find five feet of his yard, covered in a tangle of bittersweet and small maple trees, on the beach below. The landslide left his cottage 25 feet from the bluff edge. Gilson contacted the state for help and made another discouraging discovery: There's no government assistance for landslides.
Gilson had to take matters into his own hands. Last March, crews from a neighboring construction company on the island, Lionel Plante Associates, set out to save Gilson's cottage. They installed drainage pipes and special geotextile to stablize the bank and release groundwater. They built a 50-foot-long wall of large boulders at the bluff base and terraced a section midway up the banking. Then Gilson had roses, perennial flowers and other vegetation planted to hold the soil. The project cost him $55,000.
Some of Gilson's neighbors recognize this ongoing threat and have taken steps to protect their seaside properties.
Jack Soley lives in a 19th-century home a few doors from Gilson. He has driven a corrugated steel buttress 12 feet into the ground between the house and the bluff face. He also has installed drain pipes. At the base of the bluff, a 20-year-old concrete seawall helps fend off angry waves.
Other landowners have armored the shoreline over the years. These efforts are easy to see, at a now-sagging wall of rock and concrete farther up the beach.
These measures might tip off homebuyers to the potential for trouble. But Kurt Goodhue, who owns Port Island Realty on Peaks Island, said these warning signs are often ignored. Look at the ongoing development on hurricane-ravaged beaches in the southern United States, he said. "It seems that people will do silly things with their money to get closer to the water," Goodhue said.
If judgments are clouded by the water view, disclosure laws don't offer much clarity. Real estate agents must note if a property is in a flood plain, for instance, but there's no check-off for coastal bluffs.
Goodhue said that might be a good idea. He sold a small cottage last year on a steep bluff, but not until a geologist looked it over. The consultant's conclusion: The house should be fine for 10 years, but there's no way to know after that.
Goodhue said he didn't realize that the Maine Geological Survey had mapped the state's landslide hazard areas, and those maps are available on the Internet. He said he would tell brokers in his office about the maps.
"When people invest in a property that may not be there in 10 years, they should have that information," he said.
Of course, hundreds of Maine homes, like the Gilson cottage, were built long before the dynamics of bluff erosion were fully appreciated. Now that it's understood, officials want to prevent new structures from being built where they're at risk from collapsing into the sea.
Earlier this year, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection amended the state's shoreland zoning ordinances, which are administered by communities. A key change requires a 75-foot minimum setback from the top of coastal bluffs identified as hazardous by the state. Previously, the setback was measured from the edge of the coastal wetland.
Setbacks have emerged as an issue in Rockland, where a 48-home subdivision has been proposed next to the Samoset Resort's golf course. Last spring, the town's planning board asked for an independent study to learn whether parts of the project will be threatened by an eroding bluff on the property.
William Peterlein, an engineer with Summit Geoengineering Services in Lewiston, found little risk of a landslide on the site, but said ongoing erosion could erase 50 to 100 feet of shoreline and make some homes uninhabitable within the century.
In an interview last week, Peterlein said the development meets required codes and steps can be taken to reduce the risk, such as extending building foundations to bedrock and placing boulders along the eroding shoreline.
"The risk is relative to how it's handled, how it's mitigated," he said.
State experts such as Kelley and Dickson say coastal land buyers should have a greater awareness of rising sea level. They suggest looking at the hazard maps and checking with a town's building code enforcement officer.
That might help property owners avoid the expense and anxiety that Jim Gilson has been dealing with.
Standing on the beach below his cottage last week, Gilson looked up at the erosion control measures on his bluff and admired the work. "We'll see what happens this winter," he said.
Gilson has spent 21 summers at the cottage. He didn't realize the bluff is mapped and labeled unstable by the state. But in retrospect, he said, he's not surprised. "Some of the old hands said this bank has been coming down over the years," he said. "This was our year."
Staff Writer Tux Turkel can be contacted at 791-6462 or tturkel@pressherald.com
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