The Gulf of Maine is an international watershed in the North Atlantic stretching north from Provincetown at the tip of Massachusetts Bay in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to Cape Sable on the Bay of Fundy in the province of Nova Scotia in Canada. For over 13,000 years, the Gulf has been developed around access to the coast for fishing, trading, and recreation. Today, these coastal development patterns put the cultural landscapes, economies, communities, and aging infrastructure systems along the Gulf at risk.
Climate Futures on the Gulf of Maine uses place-based scenario planning to illustrate the risks, vulnerabilities, and plausible futures for ten infrastructure systems along the rim of the Gulf. Place-based scenario planning is a method of long-term strategic planning that creates representations of multiple, plausible futures that are used to inform decision-making in the present. While complementary to probabilistic models used to forecast future vulnerabilities, scenario-based planning shifts emphasis from statistical probability to ways of thinking about the future. The goal of place-based scenario planning is not to predict the most likely outcome, but to reveal biases and blind spots in complex and non-linear situations.
Climate Futures uses the medium of landscape representation to surface the cultural value systems embedded in existing infrastructural systems, and position landscape as a driver when evaluating design from individual infrastructures to the Gulf of Maine watershed.
Infrastructure > Internet
ISLE AU HAUT BROADBAND INTERNET CABLE
Isle au Haut, ME 04645
The Isle au Haut 1 subsea communications cable 2 was laid in 2024 to bring broadband internet to the island, which is the unceded land of the Penobscot Abenaki People. The year-round islanders depend on the internet cable and subsea electrical cable laid next to I to communicate across 7 miles (10 kilometers) of the seafloor in Penobscot Bay. 3
Isle au Haut is a 12.5 square mile (32.5 square kilometer) island whose ownership is split between year-round residents, summer home owners, and the federal government. 4 In 1983, a 7-mile undersea cable was installed across the seafloor to bring electricity from Stonington to Isle au Haut. The cable was laid out by resident Parker Waite, who personally surveyed the bathymetry of the Bay on a series of dives to determine a serpentine pathway for the cable that avoided gullies, sharp ledges and unnecessary tension. 5 The Isle au Haut Electric Power Company, a private non-profit cooperative founded in 1969, owns the cable and negotiates electric rates for its 140 members. The life expectancy of the cable was 15-20 years, and, after 42 years, the Power Company expects that cable failure is likely imminent. 6
In 2024, a broadband internet cable was installed, following the same pathway from a conduit in Stonington, under the intertidal zone, across the subtidal zone, and emerging out of a trench across the intertidal zone on Isle au Haut where it is connected to a fiber optic cable. 7 The broadband internet connection is part of a larger effort on Isle au Haut to encourage remote workers to live on the island year-round, and in the state of Maine to connect rural communities to the internet, much like the initiative to connect the island to the electrical grid in the 1970s.
Whether the island will maintain its connection to the grid is an open question. Beginning in 2015 with a series of community meetings, the Power Company explored installing a microgrid inland on a south-facing slope known as Coombs Mountain. 8 9 Despite purchasing 896 panels, the Company never installed them due to concerns about reliability. Instead, the Power Company is applying for funding to install a second set of underwater cables to replace the electric cable. 10
The skepticism around new technology and the uncertainty around the lifespan of the cable present an opportunity to consider adopting a solar microgrid or laying a redundant second set of internet and electric cables to ensure that Isle au Haut remains connected to the mainland during even the harshest storms on the Gulf of Maine.
Scenario 0: Storm of the Century 2030
The electric and broadband cables snap during the storm, leaving residents without electricity or internet. The Isle au Haut Electric Power Company begins to clear debris and cut trees from the proposed microgrid site, expecting that the panels will be fully operational within six months.
Scenario 1: Fortified Systems
The electric cable is cut after the Isle au Haut Electric Power Company installs 1,440 solar panels in a microgrid cut into the forest. A backup diesel generator is available to provide electricity in emergency situations. Internet is provided by private satellite internet service.
Scenario 2: Catchment Commons
Two redundant cables: one broadband internet and one electric, are laid over the seabed from Stonington to Isle au Haut. The electric cable delivers solar energy installed over parking lots to the island, while the microgrid site is stewarded by the Isle au Haut Electric Power Company Land Trust.
International Watershed | Gulf of Maine | Hydrologic Unit Code |
Region (HUC-2) | New England | HUC 01 |
Subregion (HUC-4) | Maine Coastal | HUC 0105 |
Basin (HUC-6) | Maine Coastal | HUC 010500 |
Subbasin (HUC-8) | Maine Coastal | HUC 01050002 |
Watershed (HUC-10) | Penobscot Bay-Frontal Atlantic Ocean | HUC 0105000219 |
Subwatershed (HUC-12) | Islands of Penobscot Bay | HUC 010500021908 |
Islanders pronounce the island’s name “Aisle ah Hoe” and use the pronunciation of the island’s name to differentiate between those who are “from here” or “from away.” Philip W. Conkling, Islands in Time: A Natural and Cultural History of the Islands of Maine, 3rd ed. (Rockland, ME: Island Institute, 2011), 204.
Submarine cables are laid directly on the seabed between two land-based stations to carry electricity, telecommunication signals, or other information across the ocean. Nearshore cables are routinely buried below the seabed, while offshore cables are placed directly on the seabed. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) maintains a map of existing submarine cables in North America. See National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “Submarine Cables,” Shapefile, January 23, 2025, hub.marinecadastre.gov/datasets/92482906ec41411cbe07da3d4d2a381b_0/explore?location=39.954018%2C-71.012361%2C6.82.
“Isle au Haut receives broadband with new sub-sea cable,” Island Institute, November 14, 2024, www.islandinstitute.org/working-waterfront/isle-au-haut-receives-broadband-with-new-sub-sea-cable.
In a contested decision, in 1943, families on Isle au Haut decided to donate half of the island to Acadia National Park. See “Isle au Haut,” National Park Service, accessed June 5, 2025, www.nps.gov/acad/planyourvisit/isle-au-haut.htm.
Tom Groening, “The DIY Approach that linked Isle au Haut to the Grid,” Island Journal, 2017, www.islandinstitute.org/island-journal/the-diy-approach-that-linked-isle-au-haut-to-the-grid.
Isle au Haut Electric Power Company, “Request for Proposals Isle Au Haut Solar + Storage Islanding Minigrid” (Isle au Haut, ME: Isle au Haut Electric Power Company, February 17, 2021), www.isleauhautmaine.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/IAH_islanding_minigrid_RFP-opportunity.pdf.
The broadband cable is collocated with the electric cable to minimize disturbance across benthic habitats and minimize impacts to the floodplains and wetlands in both Stonington and Isle au Haut. The entire project is constructed in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Flood Zone. Isle au Haut Electric Power Company, “8-Step Decision Making Process,” August 16, 2024, www.isleauhautmaine.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Isle-au-Haut_8-Step-Process_Final-Notice.pdf.
The Isle au Haut Electric Power Company described this project as a “minigrid” installation with 300kW of solar photovoltaics, 100 kW of battery energy storage, and diesel generation. The project would work off-grid but remain connected to the mainland as long as the electric cable remained viable. The Coombs Mountain site is owned by the Power Company and was selected for solar installation because it is south-facing on an exposed ledge without wetlands or vernal pools, and was already connected to the island’s electrical distribution system. Isle au Haut Electric Power Company, “Request for Proposals Isle Au Haut Solar + Storage Islanding Minigrid” (Isle au Haut, ME: Isle au Haut Electric Power Company, February 17, 2021), www.isleauhautmaine.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/IAH_islanding_minigrid_RFP-opportunity.pdf.
The microgrid project brings up larger questions of land use in a net-zero transition to renewable energy. Ground-mount solar projects are frequently sited on forest and farmland, which sequester carbon dioxide. See Michelle Manion et al., “Growing Solar, Protecting Nature” (Petersham, MA: Mass Audubon and Harvard Forest, 2023), https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/932be293f1af43c8b776fdad24d9f071.
The Power Company first proposed installing a custom-built combined power cable and Broadband cable as part of the subsea telecommunications project bringing internet to the island. This proposal was found to be more expensive than laying the cables side by side, and would increase the risk of electricity and internet both failing if the cable was damaged. Isle au Haut Electric Power Company, “The Joint Cable Replacement Project” (Isle au Haut, ME: Isle au Haut Electric Power Company, 2024), www.isleauhautmaine.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/021524-Update-on-Joint-Cable-project.pdf.
