The most comprehensive online source of conservation news and events in Maine and beyond, edited by Jym St. Pierre
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Sincerely,
Jym St. Pierre
Editor, Maine Environmental News
MAINE PUBLIC • February 20, 2026
Winter is a great time for birding in Maine. Plenty of species are still around, from sea birds to snowy owls. And they can often be easier to spot, with less foliage and more white snow to set off their colors. Learn which birds to look for and where, and find out how to prepare for spring migration. Also, hear about the newly completed Maine Bird Atlas.
PENOBSCOT BAY PILOT • February 15, 2026
Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust announces major improvements to La Verna Preserve in Bristol. In October, Coastal Rivers completed a new parking lot on the same side of Route 32 as the trailhead. This addresses previous parking challenges, enhancing safety and convenience by lessening the need for visitors to cross Route 32. The old parking lot now serves as overflow parking. Space for the new parking area was made possible by the sale of a 10-acre property next to the preserve by Steve and Vicki Nichols in 2022. And last year, a generous 13-acre donation of land from neighbor Rebecca Bell further expanded the preserve, creating new connections with other Coastal Rivers properties in the La Verna neighborhood. Planned additions to the preserve include a new kiosk and interpretive panel at the trailhead, set to be installed later this winter.
PENOBSCOT BAY PILOT • February 15, 2026
MaineHealth Pen Bay and Waldo Hospitals are making meaningful operational changes to reduce waste, lower greenhouse gas emissions and protect the environment in the communities they serve. In addition to eight energy conservation projects completed over the last 12 months, ranging from air handler efficiency upgrades to weatherization and building envelope improvements, the hospitals continue to expand sustainability efforts, including zero-sort recycling and composting, with plans underway for a community garden this spring. A key focus area in recent years has been food waste reduction. In 2024, the Food and Nutrition Services teams at both hospitals launched a composting initiative to divert food scraps from landfills. Composting reduces methane emissions while transforming food waste into nutrient-rich soil. Through a partnership with ScrapDogs Community Compost, a local composting service, Pen Bay and Waldo Hospitals composted more than 15,000 pounds of food waste in 2024.
PENOBSCOT BAY PILOT • February 15, 2026
Youth educational non-profit Sailing Ships Maine, based in Portland, has won two major national awards, according to Tall Ships America and the American Sail Training Association, in a news release. At Tall Ships America’s annual conference, Sailing Ships Maine Senior Captain Anna Maria Hansen was selected as US Young Sail Trainer of the Year, and Sailing Ships Maine, the program she leads, was named US Sea Education Program of the Year. “Thank you so much for the unexpected honor! I feel really touched by the recognition," she wrote in acknowledging the award. "I feel deeply fortunate to offer meaningful wilderness experiences and voyages of self- discovery for young people. I cannot imagine work more worth doing than to empower youth to develop problem-solving skills, communication, teamwork, and environmental awareness."
NATURAL RESOURCES COUNCIL OF MAINE • February 15, 2026
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a rule to limit the authority of state and tribal governments to ensure that federally permitted projects – like pipelines, dams, and data centers – do not pollute local rivers, lakes, and drinking water sources. This proposed rollback to the Clean Water Act is intended to fast track the development of new infrastructure like oil and gas pipelines and save developers money, giving industries an easier path to pollute while putting water quality at risk for millions of Americans. This attack on our health and environment simply to protect industry interests cannot stand. Submit a public comment today asking the EPA not to adopt this proposed rule.
SPECTRUM NEWS • February 15, 2026
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday that it plans to soon announce proposed new rules designed to "modernize" North Atlantic right whale protections. The proposal will be a "deregulatory-focused action" that will seek to "reduce unnecessary regulatory and economic burdens while ensuring responsible conservation practices for endangered North Atlantic right whales." Several environmental groups criticized the move away from vessel speed rules. Some cited the Feb. 10 confirmation of the death of a 3-year-old female whale. Right whales migrate every year from calving grounds off Florida and Georgia to feeding grounds off New England and Canada. Along the way, they are vulnerable to collisions with ships and entanglement in commercial fishing gear. They were once numerous off the East Coast but were decimated during the commercial whaling era and have been federally protected for decades.
MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • February 15, 2026
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, railroad companies marketed Maine to the wealthy of Boston, New York and Philadelphia. By 1936, Maine adopted the nickname Vacationland. Mainers received value in this exchange — employment, tax revenues and support for small businesses. But Mainers have lost access to the majority of the state’s natural beauty, privatized to the benefit of those to our south. For the most part, land privatizations have represented a small percentage of Maine’s actual land, and have not done much to change Maine’s physical landscape. This is about to change, as the other New England states look to Maine to decarbonize their economies. The vast majority of the wind and solar projects will be sited in Maine. New England must become “Nuclearland” or Maine must become “Generationland.” Maine’s renewable resources should be used first by Maine to meet its long-term decarbonization commitments. ~ Richard Silkman, Ph.D., former CEO of Competitive Energy consulting firm in Portland
SUN JOURNAL • February 15, 2026
Drew Ketterer’s Feb. 5 op-ed (“Climate superfund bill is an impractical choice for Maine”), concerning LD 1870, continues the petroleum industry’s history of misleading information (he is an attorney for petroleum companies, no surprise there). A 2025 report, endorsed by 12 national health organizations found 350,000 premature deaths each year in the U.S. due to the fossil fuel industry. The fossil fuel industry and its attorneys will continue to make the perfect the enemy of the good as they obfuscate and delay action to address the pollution and climate change impacts they are directly responsible for causing. ~ Mark Follansbee, Scarborough
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 15, 2026
There were 15 mourning doves huddling around my bird feeder. Whoops! Make that 14. In the blink of an eye, the birds exploded into the air and disappeared. Their instant panic could only mean one thing. They were under attack. I ran to the window just in time to spot the expected culprit — a Cooper’s hawk. Whenever we attract birds, we run the risk of attracting other birds that eat them. It’s inevitable that while we watch our birds, other critters are watching them, too. I’m aware I’m feeding more than just the birds. One odd set of footprints caught my eye this morning. I didn’t have to wait long before a snow-white ermine Squirrels are welcome to any seeds that reach the ground. I once thought I was merely feeding birds. Now I think I’m running a zoo. ~ Bob Duchesne
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 15, 2026
When I traveled to hike Little Bigelow Mountain, which rises 3,070 feet above sea level, I didn’t let the word “little” lull me into the false impression that the hike would be easy. After all, 3,000 feet is pretty big for a Maine mountain. Out in the state’s western wilderness, Little Bigelow is the sixth and easternmost prominent peak in the Bigelow Mountain Range. Years ago, I visited the range to hike to its highest peak, Avery, at 4,046 feet. That night, I tented out just below the peak, then rose in the morning to trek over to West Peak and the Horns. If I’d been looking for a longer hike, I could have continued another 1.4 miles along Little Bigelow’s lengthy top to its western edge, where a side trail leads to another viewpoint. From there, the AT continues, down to Safford Notch, then up to Avery Peak and onward, all the way to Georgia. ~ Aislinn Sarnacki
MAINE MONITOR • February 14, 2026
The Jay Select Board Monday heard plans for what would be the largest solar farm in Maine. Dale Knapp, head of development for Walden Renewables in Portland, said the company is “in the very early stages of developing a project in Jay” and looking for landowners willing to lease property for solar energy arrays. “We build, own and operate the farms,” he said. Walden Renewables is negotiating with the new owners of the former Androscoggin Mill property to lease undeveloped land on the mill site. An operation that size could generate up to 150 megawatts.
NEWS CENTER MAINE • February 14, 2026
The Trump administration has revoked the EPA’s long-standing “endangerment finding,” a scientific determination made during the Obama administration that concluded greenhouse gases pose a danger to human health and welfare. Supporters say the rollback could lower vehicle costs and boost energy independence, while critics warn of environmental and public health risks. "The findings were flawed so it's good to have them updated," State Representative Mike Soboleski, R-Phillips, said. “The repeal of this finding threatens the health of people and our environment immediately,” Kate Sinding Daly, who serves as Vice President for Law and Policy at the Conservation Law Foundation, said.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 14, 2026
Climate change concerns me greatly, yet it appears to have been put on the back burner. LD 2037 supports the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). RGGI supports decreasing the greenhouse gasses that add to global warming. LD 1870 would support some financial incentives for people to lower their carbon emissions. I believe these bills need support from everyone. My husband and I gave up buying toys, going out to dinner regularly, going to shows, and forfeited many vacations so that we could run our house with solar. Many of us could do this, and yes, like us, it means giving up something. Giving up something before we have famine, before fire burns us down, before rain floods us out, and before wind destroys our everything; before rebuilding becomes impossible. It is time to act and put our dreams aside for now. ~ Ann Pedreschi, Holden
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February x, 2026
Kayaks and kiddie pools, it turns out, work well as sleds. A laundry basket — not so much. That was the lesson learned among competitors in the “Anything But a Sled” downhill race Saturday at the west side of Lake George Regional Park, one of several activities going on as part of the first day of Somerset SnowFest. Among the other popular events Saturday was the fifth annual Ice Hole “World Championship,” which had dozens of competitors. The game is like cornhole, but players toss pucks into two shallow holes in the ice 33 feet apart. A long-running annual winter carnival at Lake George grew into Somerset SnowFest as the local economic revitalization nonprofit Main Street Skowhegan began hosting Skijor Skowhegan in 2019. The two organizations have now joined forces to coordinate the winter event.
MAINE MORNING STAR • February 14, 2026
It may be the most enduring love story in the shorebird world, two birds coming together from different parts of the hemisphere. Hudsonian Whimbrels are famously faithful, often mating for life and returning each May and June to the same stretch of Arctic tundra to breed. What is also noteworthy is that the love story pairs with one of the most astonishing migrations in the natural world. The whimbrel is a striking, long-legged shorebird with a graceful down-curved bill, traveling up to 9,000 miles each year from the high Arctic to the coasts of South America. What makes this story urgent is that the whimbrel is disappearing. Once numbering in the hundreds of thousands, populations have declined by as much as 70% over the past two decades due to habitat loss, climate change and disruptions along the very migratory routes they have followed for millennia.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 14, 2026
Imagine purchasing a device, taking it home, setting it outside on a deck or a wall on a bright afternoon, plugging it in to an approved socket, and tapping into energy emitting photons from a star 91.53 million miles away. Within minutes your dishwasher, your lights will be powered not by costly fossil fuel energy but by the free energy of the sun. Imagine being able to reduce your utility bill by 20 to 40 percent! This scenario isn’t magic. Up to 4 million households in Germany have purchased that device, called plug-in-solar, and are using it, successfully offsetting their utility bills. Mainers could have access to plug-in-solar within the year if legislation is approved. LD 1730 would allow residents to use these devices without the burdensome and expensive interconnection requirements designed for large rooftop arrays. Tell your local representatives that you want them to support LD 1730, the plug-in solar bill. Twenty environmental organizations support this game-changing bill to make clean renewable energy accessible and affordable for all Mainers. ~ Kathleen Sullivan, Freeport
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 13, 2026
Scientific surveys show an uptick in the number of baby lobsters, hinting at a possible rebound coming for one of the nation’s most valuable fisheries. A long-running scientific survey shows the number of young-of-year lobsters found in Maine’s most valuable lobster fishing territory — which includes the state’s top five grossing lobster ports — has been above average for the past two years. The resurgence in baby lobsters off Maine’s central coast, from Friendship to Corea, will not “save the day” for the lobster industry. The young-of-year count is still 44% lower than it was two decades ago, he said, and the warming oceans suggest a long-term downward trend. But the uptick of the past two years is good news for the $528.4 million-a-year Maine industry, even if it only represents the stabilization of a population in a part of the state that depends on lobstering.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 13, 2026
A large data center is in the works in southern Maine, Sen. Matt Harrington, R-York, told fellow state lawmakers Thursday, but the details of the project are unclear. Harrington brought up the project as he and other members of the Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee discussed a potential moratorium on new data center development in the state. But Harrington said such a moratorium “would harm” a data center proposed in his district “that’s well along in the planning process.” Data centers — facilities that house computers to store data and run online applications and services — require significant amounts of power to operate. As they rise in prevalence, they could consume up to 12% of the country’s total electricity usage by 2028, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 13, 2026
A project approved last year would place two buildings on a 1.5-acre strip of land on Forest Avenue and between the driveway to Talbot Community School and properties on Belfort Street. Since the project was pitched, a group of neighbors — organized as Friends of Belfort — have been rallying against a development that they argue will be disruptive and out of place in an area that already has infrastructure challenges. After the Portland Planning Board approved the project in July 2025, the neighbors filed an appeal, as well as several civil claims against the city and developer Acre Properties, challenging the zoning and the developer’s ownership rights to build the project as designed. The developer threatened to start work regardless of the outcome of the case, leading the group to ask the court for a preliminary injunction that would pause the project until the case is decided.
