Blue Hill Country Club must file plan to replace trees cut along shore

Club cut trees to create better growing conditions for club’s seventh green

The country club will have to replant the trees they cut down. Photo courtesy of the Town of Blue Hill.

Sept. 9, 2026

By John Boit

BLUE HILL – The Blue Hill Country Club won’t be fined after illegally cutting down trees along its shorefront, but will instead have to submit a mitigation plan of new tree plantings, town officials say.

The town’s code enforcement officer, Zavier Alvarez, said a member of the public contacted him in July after seeing about a dozen pine trees had been cut down along the shoreline.

Cutting trees within 75 feet of the high-water mark is strictly regulated in Maine. Trees in that buffer zone may only be cut using a detailed point system. The system uses the number of trees and their diameters to inform landowners how many trees must be left within that buffer zone. [Read Blue Hill’s Shoreland Zoning Ordinance, starting on page 23.]

“Selective culling of trees within the buffer strip is allowed provided that a well-distributed stand of trees and other natural vegetation is maintained,” says Blue Hill’s ordinance, which is modeled closely on rules set by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. 

Trees were cut down along the Blue Hill Country Club’s shorelines. Photo courtesy of the Town of Blue Hill.

Alvarez contacted the club, which quickly said they would mitigate the cutting by filing a plan to plant new trees along the shore. Alvarez said he has also been in close coordination with Maine’s DEP on the issue.

Ben Wooten, the country club’s co-chair for its buildings and grounds committee, said the trees were taken down based on a report from a US Golf Association consultant’s recommendation that the club’s seventh green was having trouble growing healthy grass due to shade. Wooten said the trees had a “screening effect” on the green.

Wooten said he initially thought the club had followed the rules when it took the trees down.

“Turns out, the state has some pretty interesting restrictions on it,” Wooten told The Rising Tide. He said the club will file a plan with the town to replant the area.

“We’re probably going to plant four or five cedar trees in that area that won’t grow as high,” Wooten said.

The town has the option of fining the club $100 a day “at a minimum,” said Alvarez, who verified the tree cutting by visiting the site himself on July 27. Since it appears the club is willing to file and then implement a mitigation plan to replace some of the trees, Alvarez said the fines would be waived. He said there is no hard deadline for the club to file that plan, but said he expects it to be submitted within the next two months.