The U.S. Coast Guard urges the public to remove their ice fishing shacks as soon as safely possible from the Kennebec and Penobscot rivers, as the Coast Guard will begin its annual spring breakout Wednesday, Feb. 28.
Individuals should refrain from being on the river when the tugs are breaking ice.
The Maine Emergency Management Agency submitted an icebreaking request to the Coast Guard for both rivers to reduce the risk of flooding as snow and river ice melts with the warming regional temperatures.
The Coast Guard typically breaks out the rivers in late March or early April, but the recent warming trend has contributed to weakened ice conditions, driving the decision to move the traditional timeline up. The decision to break ice this week was made in consultation with the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Weather Service, the Maine Emergency Management Agency, and multiple local emergency management agencies.
Three 65-foot icebreaking tugs from Maine, the Shackle from South Portland, the Tackle from Rockland, and the Bridle from Southwest Harbor, are expected to begin breaking ice on the Kennebec River on Wednesday. They will be joined by the 140-foot icebreaking tug Penobscot Bay, based out of Bayonne, N.J. on Thursday, March 1.
The ice conditions will dictate how long the Coast Guard spends on the icebreaking effort on the Kennebec. Based on the water depth, the Penobscot Bay will break up to Richmond, while the three smaller tugs will operate as far north as Gardiner.
Once the Kennebec River is broken out, the Coast Guard will shift operations to the Penobscot River and break ice up to Bangor.
“It’s been a challenging winter so far. The frigid temperatures early in the season really made a lot of ice,” said Lt. Matthew Odom, chief of the Waterways Management Division for Coast Guard Sector Northern New England. “We’ve been talking to our stakeholders throughout the season and we agreed that now is the time to get that ice broken and flushed out to sea.”
