The most comprehensive online source of conservation news and events in Maine and beyond, edited by Jym St. Pierre
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Jym St. Pierre
Editor, Maine Environmental News
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 28, 2025
Nonprofit community organizations and research facilities across the state have seen federal grants canceled and are now facing a bigger challenge: how to come up with a large chunk of money that had previously seemed guaranteed. They’re also navigating an uncertain future and how to apply for new funding in the face of a slew of executive orders. The cancellation of federal grants has come fast and furious for Maine nonprofits, the vast majority of which are small organizations without deep pockets to cover the losses. “It’s happening in an arbitrary, capricious and likely unlawful way,” said Jennifer Hutchins, executive director of the Maine Association of Nonprofits. At the Shaw Institute in Blue Hill, executive director Charles Rolsky is unsure about the money he expects to receive through a $150,000 grant from NOAA to study the impact of PFAS on seals over a 30-year period.
NEWS CENTER MAINE • April 28, 2025
A farm in Freeport that had been working to support climate-friendly practices at hundreds of farms nationwide is regrouping after losing its federal grant funding. Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture and the Environment had secured a $35 million grant through the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program — an initiative launched under the Biden administration — but that funding has now been canceled. The U.S.D.A. ended the program, saying it was "...largely built to advance the Green New Scam.” The grant was meant to support farms by improving soil health, increasing biodiversity, and reducing environmental impact over five years. Although the grant cancellation was a setback, Wolfe’s Neck Center has been invited them to apply for a new program introduced under the Trump administration: Advancing Markets for Producers.
MAINE PUBLIC • April 28, 2025
Lawmakers are considering a bill that would require legislative approval for the state to renew a contract to operate the Juniper Ridge Landfill in Old Town. Monday's public hearing on the bill comes amid debate over a proposed expansion of the state-owned landfill and a contract extension for its operator, Casella Waste Management. State Sen. Mike Tipping said that bill would give the public more input into management of the site. "Ensuring that before any other decisions are made about this major state-owned facility, that the legislature, and through them, the people of Maine, would have a say," he said. But Anya Trundy, deputy commissioner of the Department of Administrative and Financial Services, said it is unlikely that another company would want to take on the contract.
MAINE PUBLIC • April 28, 2025
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst say they've discovered a new bacteria in rabbit ticks in Maine that's related to the spotted fever pathogen. Microbiology professor Stephen Rich, who is also executive director of the New England Center of Excellence in Vector-Borne Diseases, said the bacteria was discovered in rabbit ticks from a residential backyard. The finding prompted researchers, in collaboration with the University of Maine, to test more rabbit ticks. Out of nearly 300 collected from nine counties, 6% tested positive for the pathogen. "Our concern is that it stay that it stay rare and in rabbit ticks and that it not spill over into black-legged ticks or deer ticks or other things that more frequently feed on people," Rich says.
TIMES RECORD • April 28, 2025
Coastal Rivers’ Estuary Water Quality Monitoring Program is looking for volunteers to get out on the water and be part of an ongoing community science project to inform the broader community about the health of the Damariscotta River. A volunteer training session for this program is scheduled from 4 to 6 p.m. Friday, May 2, in Damariscotta. Twice a month during high tide, from mid-May through the middle of October, volunteers take water samples from seven locations.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 28, 2025
Voters will decide the future of the Mayo Mill Dam and its associated costs when they go to the polls on June 10 to cast ballots on the Dover-Foxcroft referendum ballot. Two articles concerning the dam were approved at the annual town meeting on Saturday in the first of a two-step process. The first article would authorize the select board to raise and appropriate $250,000 and have the authority to borrow up to $250,000 (for a total not to exceed $500,000) to begin consulting work to surrender the dam’s FERC license. The second dam article asks residents to authorize the select board to borrow up to $9 million for the retention and repair of the dam. Financing the $9 million over 25 years, with a 5 percent interest rate, would put the project cost at $14,107,600.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 28, 2025
In 1997, then-Rep. Henry Joy, R-Crystal, won funding for a task force that studied creating two states out of Maine. Joy’s secession plans never materialized, but renewed talks of secession tied to grievances are once again finding a platform. Aroostook has a greater need for public services and therefore benefits from its connection to the rest of Maine, noted James Myall, a policy analyst with the Maine Center for Economic Policy. Forming a new state out of Aroostook and other rural Maine counties is a tall task and one unlikely to succeed anytime soon, since both the Democratic-controlled Legislature and Congress would need to approve a secession.
SPECTRUM NEWS • April 28, 2025
A Bangor man said he and his family discovered roughly two dozen Easter eggs containing flyers with White Supremacist propaganda at Talbot Park on Easter Sunday. Woodman said the flyers contained false statistics, a link to a website with antisemitic messaging and a photo of a teenager who police say was fatally stabbed in Texas earlier this month. Woodman said, “Not only am I disgusted by what was on there, I’m disgusted at the fact that somebody took the time to roll these up and put them in tiny Easter eggs and leave them around for kids to find.”
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 28, 2025
After luxury campgrounds gained a foothold in Maine during the early part of the coronavirus pandemic, new proposals for “glampgrounds” — where guests can stay for hundreds of dollars a night — have run into growing headwinds in the state in recent years. But given the high demand for lodging to accommodate tourists along the coast, those developments may be here to stay or even expand in the coming years. While Maine has long relied on tourism as a major driver of its economy, the pushback against new glampgrounds has highlighted the state’s uneasy relationship with the industry and other types of development.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 28, 2025
Like too many things in the world today, turkey hunting has largely become commercialized. There’s far more emphasis on gear, camo, and looking the part, than the actual nuts and bolts of it all. There’s no invisible camo pattern or magic call that can guarantee you’ll sling a bird over your shoulder. Turkey hunting is about trial and error, honing your skills and hoping a little luck will tip the scales in your favor. It’s about woodsmanship, persistence and patience.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 28, 2025
State environmental officials are investigating the recent demolition of an asbestos-containing building in Patten, which may have skirted state regulations and also came as a shock to many locals. But residents weren’t the only ones caught off-guard. The demolition also apparently violated state regulations governing the demolition of asbestos-containing structures. According to state rules, municipalities that are tearing down an asbestos-contaminated structure must notify residents and state environmental officials five business days in advance of demolition.
MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • April 27, 2025
On Sunday morning through a gray drizzle, two dozen volunteers in bright raincoats scanned the slopes and paths of Portland’s Eastern Promenade. With trash pickers and garbage bags in hand, the group — half of whom were young children — picked up litter during an Earth Day cleanup. “We only get one planet, and I love it,” said Katherine McDowell, who attended the cleanup with her 2-year-old son, Rowan, who was bundled in a blue rain suit. “It’s little thing, teaching the kids that this is really an important, key part of being a good steward of the Earth.”
MAINE MONITOR • April 27, 2025
Last year, Old Crow Ranch in Durham was awarded a $34,000 grant through the Rural Energy for America Program, which Seren and Steve Sinisi planned to use to install a solar array. But the Trump administration has paused the funding, leaving the Sinisis to cover the costs of the project at a higher interest rate than the initial agreement would have required, which they said will be a challenge. The Rural Energy for America Program is just one of several USDA. initiatives that have been paused or cancelled by the Trump administration. In addition, more than $12 million in Maine contracts that were approved are in limbo. “Prior to this administration, the USDA has long been viewed as a partner in helping support farm viability, access to markets, creation of markets, and the trust has really been broken,” said Sarah Alexander, executive director of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association.
MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • April 27, 2025
In many instances, municipalities have applied suburban building standards to their traditional town centers. Requiring a half-acre lot in the center of a town or village doesn’t just prevent the “warehousing” of people, it prevents the building of anything at all. Not only are most towns not adding housing to their historic centers but, as housing is lost, it’s not being replaced. This is bad and we should address the problem: outdated zoning regulations. ~ Brian Banton, Topsham
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 27, 2025
Growing numbers of people are leaving their yards unmowed for “No Mow May,” the same month when Maine’s tick season goes into full swing. No Mow May is a voluntary pledge to provide habitat and pollen for early-season pollinators by mowing their lawns less or not at all for the month. The practice also provides habitat for ticks, which like to live in long grass. Deer ticks have been active and multiplying since early March, and American dog ticks are waking up now, according to Griffin Dill, tick lab coordinator at the UMaine Cooperative Extension. How many of them you’ll see this year will depend on the weather. Letting your yard grow can provide them more habitat and may lead to more risk.
MAINE MONITOR • April 26, 2025
Between 2014 and 2024, the average retail price for electricity in Maine increased by the third highest rate in the country, according to an analysis by The Maine Monitor, surpassed only by California and Massachusetts. The average retail price of electricity in Maine during the 10-year period rose from 12.65 cents/kWh to 19.62 cents, according to data collected by the federal Energy Information Administration. That’s an increase of 55 percent. At the same time, the average retail price of electricity in the US rose from 10.44 cents/kWh to 12.99, or 24 percent.
ASSOCIATED PRESS • April 25, 2025
Trump’s attacks on Canada’s economy and threats to make it the 51st state have infuriated Canadians, who are canceling trips to the U.S. in big numbers. The U.S. gets more visitors from Canada each year than from any other country. The 20.4 million visits from Canada last year generated $20.5 billion in spending. But there has been a big drop in foreigners traveling to the U.S. since Trump took office, and Canadians are no exception. There were more than 910,000 fewer land border crossings from Canada into the U.S. last month than in March of 2024 — a more than 22 percent drop. Trump brushed aside the decline in tourism to the United States on Wednesday, saying, “It’s not a big deal.”
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 26, 2025
One of the most fun aspects of spring migration is you can step outside almost every day and see or hear some new bird species arriving for the summer. Keeping track of the arrival timing of migrants, or other phenological indicators like crocuses blooming, has been a major interest and area of study for naturalists for centuries. Download Merlin Bird ID. a free mobile app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology that can identify birds in several ways. ~ Doug Hitchcox
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 25, 2025
After eight months of planning, designing, researching and building, a Belfast native is getting ready to open a new museum for Maine’s most famous crustacean. The Maine Lobster Museum will feature colorful, wide-ranging exhibits on everything from how lobsters have been caught over the years, to their biology, to their role in American pop culture. And it will be open to visitors anywhere in the world, at any time. That’s because the museum isn’t a brick-and-mortar space, but rather, a virtual resource available to anyone online.
