Opinion: It’s not too late to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • September 3, 2020

The Trump administration on Aug. 17 finalized its plan to open up part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska to oil and gas development, a move that overturns six decades of protecting the largest remaining stretch of wilderness in the United States. Drilling in the Arctic Refuge impacts the delicate ecosystem that God created. It will not only devastate wildlife both in Alaska and the lower 48 states, but will decimate the Gwich’in people. Our commitment to protecting the Arctic Refuge is based on our commitment to defend all of God’s creation, including the fundamental rights of the Gwich’in people to ensure both their livelihoods and their religious liberties. ~ The Rev. Richard Killmer, Yarmouth, retired Presbyterian minister

With camp canceled, this 8-year-old spent the summer hiking every mountain in Acadia National Park

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • September 3, 2020

When 8-year-old Benjamin Ball found out that he wouldn’t be attending summer camp during the COVID-19 pandemic, he came up with a new plan. With a newfound love for hiking, Benjamin decided to climb to all of the named peaks in Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island. Over the course of the summer, the young hiker covered more than 200 miles in the park. To date, he’s climbed to 29 mountains, with just one more to tackle.

Electric vehicle charging stations increase in a county that barely uses them

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • September 3, 2020

Out of 66,641 registered vehicles in Aroostook County, only five are electric vehicles and 460 are hybrids, according to the Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles. But that isn’t stopping towns and dealerships in The County from preparing for a more electric future. In recent months, electric vehicle charging stations have begun popping up in newer locations all across The County.

Portland Fish Exchange looks to shore up its future with aquaculture

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • September 2, 2020

The Portland Fish Exchange is launching a new oyster sorting and bagging operation inside its cold, cavernous auction warehouse in hopes of growing the state’s aquaculture economy and diversifying a business plan that’s taken a beating since local ground fish landings collapsed. On Wednesday, the Exchange received the first of what it hopes will be many oyster deliveries. Two employees measured, sorted, bagged and tagged five 100-count bags of Eastern oysters harvested by Running Tide, a two-year-old aquaculture company that operates a hatchery in Harpswell and grows oysters, clams and scallops at three coastal Maine locations.

CMP kicks off incentives for car-charging stations

ASSOCIATED PRESS • September 2, 2020

Central Maine Power is launching a $4,000 incentive for installation of 240-volt charging stations for electric cars. So-called Level 2 chargers, which must be professionally installed, charge vehicles about five times faster than a typical 120-volt charger. Electric cars can help reduce greenhouse emissions in Maine since transportation accounts for half of those emissions, said Jason Rauch, energy, environmental and regulatory policy manager for CMP.

Controversial Popham Beach RV park proposal approved

TIMES RECORD • September 2, 2020

A recreational vehicle park could be headed to Popham Beach following a vote by the Phippsburg planning board Monday. David and Tracy Percy, prior owners of Percy’s General Store in Phippsburg, want to create a nine-unit RV park on the site of the store, which was demolished last year. A hearing drew a crowd of roughly 35 people, some of whom raised concerns about how the RV park and its fence might ruin their views.

Maine Seafood Businesses To Get $20 Million In CARES Act Funds

MAINE PUBLIC • September 1, 2020

Commercial fishing license holders, shellfish growers and fishing guides that lost at least 35 percent of sales due to the pandemic are in line for a lump sum payment of about $2,000 each under a plan being hammered out by federal and state regulators. Commissioner of Marine Resources Patrick Keliher says that after some frustrating delays, final agreement is close on exactly how to allocate $20 million the federal CARES Act made available for the state’s seafood industry.

Book Review: Reckoning With What Remains

NEW YORK TIMES • September 1, 2020

In “Mill Town: Reckoning With What Remains,” Kerri Arsenault documents passionate and largely fruitless attempts by a local doctor to expose the mill’s role in Rumford, Maine, in making his patients sick, along with the efforts of a handful of other residents and scientists who also tried, over the years, to hold the company to account, even as its owners denied responsibility. “Mill Town” is preoccupied with a poisonous irony: Rumford’s citizens live and work in a place that makes them unwell, yet they cling to their jobs with prideful obstinacy, ignoring patterns of illness, swallowing the mill’s denials and accepting their lot with a collective shrug that Arsenault, once she learns the extent of the cancer and the mill’s likely responsibility for it, finds mysterious and troubling.

Carolyn Shubert named Maine Lake Hero

BOOTHBAY REGISTER • August 26, 2020

Carolyn Shubert, land and water stewardship manager for Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust, was recognized recently by Maine Lakes for her work as a champion for water quality in the Pemaquid River system. As part of the organization’s 50th Anniversary celebration, Maine Lakes “is recognizing 50 Maine Lakes Heroes who have worked hard to keep our lakes and ponds clean and clear.” Shubert began working at Pemaquid Watershed Association in 2012, and stayed with the organization when it joined with Damariscotta River Association in 2019 to become Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust. Her responsibilities have included coordinating volunteers, providing outreach, overseeing trail stewardship, and managing water quality programs such as swim beach monitoring, Invasive Plants Patrol, LakeSmart, and Courtesy Boat Inspections.

Cobscook Shores features 13 miles of Downeast coastline

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • August 30, 2020

Signs went up three weeks ago welcoming the public to the 14 Cobscook Shores preserves in and around Lubec that were purchased four years ago by the Butler Conservation Fund – the philanthropic non-profit founded by Northeast Harbor summer resident Gilbert Butler. It’s an area already rich in conservation land. But while many Maine land trusts and state agencies have protected land in the region and build trails for public use – what makes Cobscook Shores unique is the parkland’s National-Park-quality kiosks, trail crossings, benches and gazebos – not to mention the collective 13 miles of coastline across the entire trail system.

Maine Sea Grant Pitch Competition

FREE PRESS • September 1, 2020

Maine Sea Grant, a federal-state partnership based at the University of Maine, has launched Buoy Maine, a pitch competition to fund projects and ideas to help coastal businesses better address the challenges of operating during the COVID-19 pandemic. The competition consists of two phases — a short, written proposal and a five-minute verbal pitch — and will conclude with a virtual public celebration. Applications are due by Monday, September 14.

Glass won’t be recyclable in Brunswick in two weeks

TIMES RECORD • August 31, 2020

Brunswick will stop accepting glass in recycling Sept. 14 in a temporary measure while officials grapple with a crumbling recycling market and mounting costs. Brunswick was one of the first Maine towns to initiate a recycling program, Town Manager John Eldridge said, but with the current “dire” economic conditions, he could not ignore the potential in savings. In the past year, residents in the curbside collection program recycled almost 1,200 tons of material, 135 tons of which were glass containers. Due to “unfavorable market conditions” glass that is sent by the town for recycling is currently being used as a sand substitute, and as daily cover at landfills, rather than as a raw material for new glass products. 

Trade Minister Responds To Trump Administration's Probe Of Canadian Lobster Exports

ASSOCIATED PRESS • September 1, 2020

Canadian Trade Minister Mary Ng says she's keeping a close watch on a U.S. trade investigation into the Canadian lobster industry requested by the administration of President Trump. The Canadian industry gained most of the Chinese market that the Americans lost after China slapped a 35% tariff on U.S. lobster exports, and also has made gains in Europe.

On this date in Maine history: Sept. 1

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • September 1, 2020

Sept. 1, 1846: Transcendentalist author Henry David Thoreau, later the writer of the 1854 book “Walden; or, Life in the Woods,” departs northward from Bangor on the first of his three wilderness expeditions into Maine’s North Woods. The second occurs in 1853 and the third in 1857. During those visits, Thoreau explores Moosehead Lake and climbs most of Mount Katahdin in an age when no clearly marked mountain trails exist and the nearest settlement is dozens of miles away.

Column: COVID civic corrective?

FORECASTER • September 1, 2020

Could COVID-19 provide a civic corrective for Portland, a happening little city by the sea that is overrun with tourists, hipsters, retirees, in-migrants, foodies, condo dwellers and people from away? If nothing else, the pandemic should put a halt to the 100-plus cruise ships a year that pull into Portland discharging thousands of lost souls onto the streets of the Old Port. Whether it’s 800 climbers a year summiting Mt. Everest or 35,000 hikers a year filing up Mt. Katahdin, the land has a carrying capacity. The enforced self-quarantining and crowd control of the coronavirus pandemic gives us a chance to think about how best to keep from being overrun by folks from away, at least until the real estate market gets overrun with people fleeing the viral cities to the south. ~ Edgar Allen Beem

Letter: Corinna, Oakland landfills causing harm

MORNING SENTINEL • September 1, 2020

Food packaging isn’t the only risk we face from PFAS. These toxic “forever” chemicals are also being disposed of in landfills around the state, where they can leak out into drinking water. Drinking water tests around the Corinna and the Oakland landfills show high levels of these dangerous chemicals. More needs to be done to protect our communities’ health. ~ Divya Gudur, Community Action Works, Portland

Author reveals treasures in Maine’s national monument worth preserving

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • September 1, 2020

Deep in the heart of Maine’s wilderness, Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument covers 87,563 acres of mountains, rivers and forest. But what’s really there? Why was it worth conserving? Author, educator and explorer Eric E. Hendrickson of Presque Isle tackles these challenging questions in his new book, “Katahdin Woods & Waters National Monument,” published in July by The History Press. In 192 pages, Eric Hendrickson reveals many of the monument’s natural and historic features, from old logging camp ruins to rare plants.

Letter: Corridor project handled poorly

SUN JOURNAL • September 1, 2020

Maine is celebrating the 200th year of statehood; shouldn’t Mainers be proud? It’s extremely hard to be when foreign entities can challenge Maine residents, blocking a vote on the CMP corridor project. The Constitution should allow the people of Maine to at least have a voice on this. Maine is “Vacationland.” Losing areas such as the proposed corridor path would be removing one of Maine’s assets that has supported the right to be a vacationland. Is the governor’s title to be now known as the assistant governor of Massachusetts? Or adviser to the prime minister of Quebec? ~ Debbie Collins, Litchfield

Feds shut down Gulf of Maine herring fishery to protect fish population

ASSOCIATED PRESS • August 31, 2020

A major fishery off New England will be slowed down considerably in September in an attempt to protect the fish’s population. Atlantic herring are used for food as well as bait. NOAA said the inshore Gulf of Maine’s fishery for herring will be effectively shut down until Sept. 30 because fishermen are approaching a quota limit.

How wild blueberry wine could save Maine’s iconic, struggling agricultural product

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 31, 2020

The old saying is that when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade. When life gives you wild blueberries, though, making wine not only tastes delicious — it may help save Maine’s iconic crop. Though Maine is the United States’s only producer of wild blueberries, the industry has struggled over the past few years with dwindling harvests, disease, falling prices and increased international competition. There have been a number of attempts to creatively address the issue. Nothing has stuck, but the latest effort is showing some promise: wild blueberry wine.