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Maine expert warns of potential landslides

E-mail|Link|Comments () June 27, 2009 03:14 PM

By Marc Larocque, Globe Correspondent

With unusually heavy June rains soaking into the earth and making it unstable, some coastal areas in Maine may be in danger of sliding into the water, a geologist working for Maine’s Department of Conservation warned today.

Stephen Dickson of the Maine Geological Survey issued the warning after about 200 feet on the shore of the Penobscot River shifted and slid into the water Thursday in Stockton Springs, a town about 180 miles northeast of Boston. No one was hurt, but two summer houses and a rail line near the landslide were still at risk, he said.

“The triggering mechanism here is the long period of heavy rains throughout June that have led to high water levels underground and saturation of the mud, which reduces its strength,” Dickson said by phone. He said slope failures could occur near any body of water where there is a bluff that is 20 feet higher than the high-water mark.

With showers and thunderstorms predicted into early next week, he warned that similar landslides could be a possibility. "There may be places that are threatened over the weekend," he said.

He said such landslides typically occur during the spring, when water tables are high and the thawing ground is not being held together by frost.

He advised bluff-dwellers to be on the lookout for warnings: open bare ground, cracks in the lawn, slumping on the face of slopes, and tilting or teetering trees. People should also be on the lookout for gusty winds that can move trees and destabilize slopes, he said.

Dickson said many landslides go unreported when they are not a threat to private property. But he encouraged residents to report all landslides at the Maine Geological Survey’s landslide inventory questionnaire on the Internet.