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Here is another case where the United States Coast Guard is their own worst enemy. Every time the United States Coast Guard takes two steps foreward in saving lighthouses, someone, in their infinite wisdom, makes them take a step back.
For some months now, the Coast Guard has been pressuring The Friends of Seguin Island to have their First Order Fresnel Lens removed from their lighthouse and put into a museum.
The Coast Guard claims that it will cost them, or the Friends group $600,000 over the next 25 years to maintain the lens. The real problem is the under-water cable that supplies electricity to the remote island lighthouse. The Coast Guard claims that the cable, which could last another 10 years, could also be broken or stop working tomorrow, and then it would be too expensive to replace. They want to take precautions now, to make sure that the beacon in the tower always remains lit.
Seguin Island, the highest lighthouse above water in Maine, is also the only First Order lens in the state and the last first order lens functioning north of Rhode Island.
The Coast Guard wants to take the lens out of the tower, dismantle it, remove it from the island, and re-assemble in on shore and put it into a museum. They want to replace the lens with a modern strobe-type optic, which would be solarized and allow them to abandon the under-water cable.
Removing the lens from the island would be risky in itself, and there is the large possibility that the historic and priceless lens could be damaged or totally destroyed while moving it from the island.
Seguin Island Light is on the National Register of Historic Places and the Friends of Seguin recently were given ownership of the lighthouse under the Maine Lights Program.
The Friends group is fighting to keep the lens on the island, but so far the Coast Guard is not listening. We will keep you posted.
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