The most comprehensive online source of conservation news and events in Maine and beyond, edited by Jym St. Pierre
Thank you for reading Maine Environmental News. Each year, we post thousands of news summaries, notices, and links related to important environmental issues from across the state (and beyond). If you find this service useful, you can help us continue to provide it by making a donation. Just click on the button below and contribute whatever you can afford. Thanks again for your generous support!
Sincerely,
Jym St. Pierre
Editor, Maine Environmental News
MAINE AUDUBON • March 1, 2026
The third edition of Maine Amphibians and Reptiles explores the lives of 38 fascinating species—from tiny newts to rarely seen sea turtles—found across Maine and the Northeast. Built on 25 years of research, with expanded photos, regional studies, and engaging writing, it’s perfect for scientists and curious readers alike. Join some of the contributors to this fascinating book for a talk followed by a book sale and signing at the Falmouth Memorial Library. Light refreshments will be provided. At Falmouth Memorial Library, 5 Lunt Rd, Falmouth, ME, March 11, 5:30pm.
MAINE AUDUBON • April 1, 2026
Curious about what critters live in your local streams and freshwater marshes? Learn about Maine Marsh and Stream Explorers, a collaborative community science project between Maine Audubon and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). This program trains volunteers to survey for macroinvertebrates, or large aquatic insects, in streams and freshwater marshes statewide. April 22, 7 pm, online, preregister.
MAINE MORNING STAR • March 24, 2026
The U.S. government will pay a French energy firm nearly $1 billion to cancel its plans to build a pair of wind farms off the East Coast, the Trump administration announced Monday in its latest move to stymie offshore wind. The French firm TotalEnergies will forfeit its leases for the projects, with the United States paying $928 million to reimburse what the company initially spent on the leases. Under the deal, TotalEnergies will reinvest that money into oil and gas projects.
MAINE MORNING STAR • March 24, 2026
The clean energy sector in Maine grew in 2024 — employing more than 16,000 workers, making it New England’s fastest-growing clean energy workforce in recent years, according to a new state analysis. In 2024, the clean energy sector added 100 new businesses and 614 jobs. Those jobs represent a 4% increase from 2023, a higher rate than Maine’s overall job growth. The state’s clean energy economy contributed $3 billion in 2024. But since last January, the federal government has eliminated federal tax breaks for energy efficiency improvements to homes and businesses, and tax breaks for electric vehicles. There have been delays and court battles over changes to wind and solar programs — including the cancellation of $62 million to Maine as part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Solar For All Program.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • March 24, 2026
The bottle bill works because regular people take part in it. Which is why the current debate in Augusta about LD 2141 is worth paying attention to. The bill would direct a portion of unclaimed, or unredeemed, bottle deposits to two things Maine desperately needs: protecting lake water quality and helping preserve working farmland. The proposal would invest in the Lake Water Quality Restoration and Protection Fund and the Maine Working Farmland Access and Protection Program. Even after those investments, at least two-thirds of the unclaimed deposits would still stay in the redemption system. But if you listen to beverage distributors, you’d think the whole system might collapse if a portion of that money goes somewhere else. ~ Russell Voss, Gray
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • March 23, 2026
Amid concerns that a scenic blueberry barren could be turned into an RV resort, Northport’s Select Board voted Monday at an overflowing meeting to put to a town vote a 180-day moratorium on new commercial campgrounds and RV resorts. A Massachusetts couple, Michael Ruggiero and Ariel Savitz, want to build the resort on a piece of land on Beech Hill Road that is popular with hikers, stargazers and photographers. The resort could eventually include up to 80 sites, glamping domes and spaces for wellness retreats. The moratorium would give the town time to draft regulations, which would then need to be approved at a future town meeting.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • March 23, 2026
Maine regulators have once again cleared the way for an expansion of the state-owned landfill, the latest chapter in the legal tug of war that pits Maine’s waste disposal needs against the environmental rights of the Penobscot Nation. The Maine Department of Environmental Protection issued its revised public benefit determination Monday, approving a 61-acre expansion of the Old Town facility that is 2 miles from the Penobscot Reservation at Indian Island. The move follows a legal challenge that saw a Penobscot County Superior Court judge temporarily halt the project in January, ordering regulators to “more thoroughly” consider the cumulative environmental impacts on the tribe.
MAINE MORNING STAR • March 23, 2026
For the second time, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection has found that expanding the Juniper Ridge Landfill would benefit the public. The department issued a second positive public benefit determination Monday after a judge struck down the first determination earlier this year. “The court couldn’t have been clearer: look at the full picture – the pollution, the history, the cumulative harm,” Nora Bosworth, a staff attorney at Conservation Law Foundation, said in a press release after the decision. “Instead, DEP has once again treated environmental justice as a checkbox rather than a commitment to the people the law was meant to protect.”
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • March 23, 2026
The Juniper Ridge Landfill can expand, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection decided for a second time — but a judge must sign off first. A new public benefit determination allows the Old Town landfill to expand, the Conservation Law Foundation said Monday. The foundation and Penobscot Nation sued the Maine DEP in November 2024 over the proposed expansion. The department had to reconsider allowing the expansion after a judge ruled in January that the Maine DEP did not complete “critical” fact finding during the public benefit determination. The Maine DEP decided Oct. 2, 2024, there is a public benefit to the expansion and expanding the landfill is not inconsistent with environmental justice.
SUN JOURNAL • March 22, 2026
A water main break Sunday morning in Lewiston on Orange Street has caused flooding of the streets and residential homes and prompted the city to issue a boil water order. As city officials worked to address the break, school in Lewiston on Monday has been canceled. The main was fixed and service restored, according to a city press release sent around 8 a.m. Monday. Water quality was tested Sunday night, and more information should be released Monday afternoon, the city said.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • March 23, 2026
Hannah Holmes once wrote a book about her South Portland backyard. “Suburban Safari: A Year on the Lawn” was a study in urban ecology — very close to home. A science writer-turned-real estate agent, Holmes understands why so many of her clients want to live there. She recommended things to do in South Portland. “Spring Point is such a cool spot. It’s so atmospheric. There’s these huge granite block fortifications right on the water, and you can peek out the little gun slips and look right into the ocean. It just takes you back in time. There’s a little beach there where dogs can jump in the water to cool off in the summer, and there’s the breakwater that goes all the way out to Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse, so without a boat, you can really get right out into Casco Bay.”
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • March 23, 2026
While it’s well known that our publicly accessible lands and waters are a proven ingredient in building healthy lives, healthy communities and a healthy economy, our state’s most effective tool for bringing more of these benefits to more Mainers has run dry. Launched in 1987, Land for Maine’s Future has been a truly nonpartisan success story, protecting more than 300 places for their natural and recreational values in all 16 of Maine’s counties. Land for Maine’s Future was last funded in 2021 after nearly a decade of inactivity and all the funding from 2021 has already been allocated to a backlog of projects. While there are multiple proposals currently in our Legislature that will fund Land for Maine’s Future at some level, none of them will come to fruition without our broad and vocal support. ~ Betsy Cook, Trust for Public Land, and Jenny Kordick, Maine Outdoor Brands
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • March 23, 2026
Stable prices and dependable service help people plan their lives, allow businesses to operate with confidence and give communities a sense of security. But today, families, towns and local businesses are facing rising costs and more frequent severe weather. That makes it even more important for the electric grid, a system we all rely on every day, to strike the right balance between keeping electricity affordable and ensuring the power stays on. Maine needs timely decisions and a clear electricity rate plan that allow necessary work to move forward without long delays, while also keeping costs stable for Mainers. Predictable planning keeps costs steadier, improves reliability and helps ensure the electric system is safe, dependable and ready for the future. ~ Alexander C. MacPhail, Biddeford Saco Chamber of Commerce and Industry
CENTRAL MAINE • March 23, 2026
Leo St. Peter says the city’s rules for keeping chickens are too restrictive and voters should be able to decide whether to loosen them. He’s trying to collect enough petition signatures from residents to put the matter to a referendum. “I’m bringing 20 dozen eggs with me every time I go out,” he said. “Everybody who signs the petition will get a free egg.” St. Peter, 57, acknowledged he was speaking tongue-in-cheek about giving away eggs while collecting signatures (he knows doing so could be illegal), but he is trying to make a point. The City Council took an initial vote Tuesday to maintain the city’s required lot size for keeping six chickens at 8,000 square feet, which is about a fifth of an acre. St. Peter had asked it to be reduced to 5,000 square feet, or a little more than a tenth of an acre. Councilors must take a second vote to finalize the matter.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • March 23, 2026
My family’s company, Treeline, Inc. was founded in 1981 and is a diversified, second-generation logging and forest trucking business that supports over 100 families. Businesses like Treeline, Inc., depend on reliable local markets for wood. When mills close or reduce capacity, the impact is felt by loggers and their families immediately, in rural parts of the state, which aren’t blessed with diversity of opportunity. Like all other logging businesses, we are facing rising costs. Markets have also been reduced and we are being paid less for the products that we produce. Economics are simply not in our favor, but a $40 million bond being considered at the Legislature will help companies like ours reinvest for the future in face of strong headwinds. I urge all Maine Legislators to please support the agriculture, forestry, and food producers bond. ~ Whitney Goodman, Lincoln
MAINE PUBLIC • March 22, 2026
Maine's clean energy sector employed nearly 16,200 workers in 2024 according to a new state report, adding to the thousands of jobs created in energy efficiency, renewable energy and other industries in recent years. The sector grew faster in Maine between 2020-2024 than any other New England state. The report reflects Maine's industry before President Donald Trump's second term during which the administration has tried to block renewable energy development and stripped federal tax breaks to make homes and businesses more energy efficient.
MAINE PUBLIC • March 22, 2026
Almost a quarter of the schools in Maine tested for harmful radon gas had at least one room above the Environmental Protection Agency's action level, according to a new report. Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States, and Maine ranks third worst in the nation for estimated radon-induced lung cancer. At the current funding level, testing rate, and fee structure, the report says it will take 37 years and cost $3,500,000 million dollars to complete initial radon testing on all the schools in the state.
MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • March 22, 2026
Louis Wolfson, a Needham, Massachusetts-based realtor, is trying to orchestrate the development of an underwater artificial intelligence data center — all powered by the energy of the tides and cooled by the surrounding seawater. Both elements of the project, if realized, are poised to be among the first of their kind. Taken together, they represent a new approach to powering the AI tech boom. He filed a preliminary permit application last month to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission requesting approval to study a 400-acre site. Some in the Passamaquoddy community at Sipayik, which lies just over two miles to the west from the project site, have their doubts. The new project could threaten tribal fishing access — Passamaquoddy culture — and bring about significant economic consequences for the local community.
