Coastal Resiliency Strategies

PROJECT SUMMARY

SMPDC, with support from the Wells Reserve and Maine Sea Grant, is leading a two-year project, Climate Ready Coast – Southern Maine, aimed at enhancing the region's resilience to coastal hazards. The goal of the project is to advance coastal resilience planning and action within Maine's ten southern-most coastal communities through development of the state's first regional coastal resilience plan. The plan will address municipal and regional needs and focus on coordinated conservation efforts, sound land use planning, tailored yet transferable adaptation strategies, and nature-based solutions to coastal hazard impacts. Funding for the project is provided through the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) National Coastal Resilience Fund.

The project, which began in summer 2021, has engaged municipalities, local land trusts, regional conservation organizations, and federal and state natural resource entities to collaboratively identify regional and local resilience needs assess the impacts of climate change on coastal communities, and develop priority adaptation strategies, hazard mitigation measures, and nature-based solutions for making the region more resilient to coastal hazards. An Advisory Committee of local and state experts and a Working Group consisting of representatives of key stakeholder groups guide and participate in the project. To-date, the project team, with support from the Advisory Committee and Working Group, have evaluated regional and local coastal resilience needs, challenges, barriers, and successes; worked with a consultant to undertake a regional coastal hazard exposure analysis and vulnerability assessment; and identified priority vulnerable locations within the study region. The next phases of the project will entail developing strategies and solutions for addressing vulnerabilities at those priority locations to protect people, infrastructure and natural resources from coastal climate hazards; planning for on-the-ground projects and policies to enhance coastal resilience; advancing the use of nature-based approaches for coastal resilience; and garnering regional support from and collaboration among municipalities, land trusts, and natural resource organizations for coastal resilience action.

Additional information about the project can be found on the project website: https://smpdc.mysocialpinpoint.com/climatereadycoastsouthernmaine

CONSULTANT SCOPE OF WORK

The selected consultant will work closely with the project team, as well as the Advisory Committee, and carry out a subset of the overall project tasks. The total budget for the consultant services is not to exceed $19,500. Proposals for completing the scope of work for less than $19,500 are preferred. Anticipated tasks, deliverables, and timeframes for the consultant's work are outlined below.

Locally Appropriate Coastal Resilience Strategies and Solutions

The consultant, with support from the project team, will identify a suite of coastal resilience strategies and solutions that address a range of coastal vulnerabilities within the project region and account for local conditions and characteristics. Strategies and solutions should include, but not be limited to, nature-based solutions. Further, identified strategies should be representative of the diverse types of exposure, vulnerabilities, and conditions across the study region, as determined and summarized in profile sheets created for areas of elevated coastal vulnerabilities. This will support transferability of adaptation strategies across the project region and beyond. The regional coastal vulnerability decision support tool that was developed in a previous phase of the project will be used by the consultant and team to inform this work.

In addition to identifying resilience and adaptation strategies and solutions that are appropriate for the southern Maine coastline, the consultants will develop, with support from the project team, a matrix document (or similar) summarizing information about each strategy, including the site conditions under which each is appropriate, benefits and co-benefits, limitations, challenges, key considerations, cost information when available, and tradeoffs associated with each strategy. The project team envisions that the work product will be similar to the Cape Cod Commission Adaptation Strategies Matrix , but is open to exploring other types of work products to present this information in a user-friendly way that can be embedded in the project's final regional coastal resilience plan.

Develop Visual Renderings of Select Strategies for 15 Priority Sites

The consultant will develop visual renderings of a select set of coastal resilience strategies that could be appropriate to address site-specific vulnerabilities and conditions for 15 locations (listed below) within the study area that have been deemed by the Working Group as high-priority and reflective of a range of vulnerabilities and within the region. These visual renderings are meant to aid with stakeholder engagement and communication and also serve as illustrative examples of what coastal resilience and adaptation projects might look like 'on the ground'. In addition to the visual renderings, the consultant should develop supporting information that summarizes each strategy, the site conditions and characteristics under which it is appropriate, regulatory considerations associated with implementation/construction, benefits, limitations, cost information, and other pertinent information.

List of 15 High-Priority Vulnerable Areas (& links to site profile sheets)

Camp Ellis – Ferry Beach (Saco)

Lower Village – Dock Square (Kennebunk/Kennebunkport)

Route 1 – Dunstan River (Scarborough)

Jones Creek – Pine Point Road (Scarborough)

Mile Road Neighborhood (Wells)

Upper York River – Smelt Brook (York)

Perkins Cove (Ogunquit)

East Grand Avenue & Beaches (Scarborough/Old Orchard Beach)

Long Sands Beach - Neighborhood – Route 1 (York)

Ogunquit Beach (Main Beach) & Parking Area (Ogunquit)

Ocean Park – Goosefare Brook – Kinney Shores Beach (Old Orchard Beach/Saco)

Fortunes Rocks Beach – Biddeford Pool (Biddeford)

Seavey Island – Naval Shipyard Gate 2 Entrance – Route 103 Connection (Kittery)

Biddeford - Saco Downtown (Biddeford/Saco)

Branch Brook – Little River Habitat (Wells)

Project Management

The selected consultant will participate in regular meetings as necessary with the project team to collaborate on efforts being undertaken jointly, discuss progress on the scope of work, and resolve questions and issues that may arise. It is expected that the consultant will provide regular written and/or verbal updates about work progress. The consultant will participate in and present at one in-person or virtual workshop with the Working Group and Advisory Committee.

BID SUBMISSION

Please submit proposals via email to Abbie Sherwin, Senior Planner and Coastal Resilience Coordinator at asherwin@smpdc.org no later than 3:00 pm (ET) on Thursday, December 15, 2022. Email subject lines must include "Proposal for Climate Ready Coast – Southern Maine Consultant Services". Proposals should be submitted as a single PDF file. Please limit submissions to five pages.

Bids should be limited to 5 (five) pages and include the following information:

• Brief outline of proposed work, specific tasks, deliverables, timeline, and budget, based on the information contained in the Project Summary and Scope of Work sections above.
• Suggestions and creative ideas for modifying and/or expanding the scope of work to improve the process, outcomes, and outputs of the project.
• Brief explanation of how you will interact with the project team throughout this phase of the project and communicate results and findings to the project team, advisory committee, and working group.
• Brief summary of relevant experience.
• List of personnel who will be completing each portion of project work and their qualifications.

SMPDC welcomes questions and requests for more information. Questions should be submitted via email to Abbie Sherwin ( asherwin@smpdc.org ) by December 8, 2022. A list of questions/comments received and responses to them will be posted to SMPDC's website by 5:00 pm ET on December 12, 2022.

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