The science and wonder of fireflies and how to protect them

MAINE PUBLIC • June 16, 2023

It’s the magical time of year when fireflies light up the night in Maine. Did you know there are some 2,000 different species of fireflies? We learn about these native beetles, also known as lightning bugs, and their many interesting and unique traits—as well as how they inspire wonder and a love of nature. Panelists: Don Salvatore, retired science educator, Museum of Science in Boston; started Firefly Watch community science project; Deborah Perkins, wildlife ecologist, educator; owner First Light Wildlife Habitats.

Explore the new Seboeis Riverside Trail!

PENOBSCOT RIVER TRAILS • June 16, 2023

Officially open to the public, Seboeis Riverside Trail is a 7.2 mile trail that begins at the Grand Pitch Trailhead and ends at the Philpott Bridge Trailhead. This trail is equipped with one warming hut, and a first-come-first-served campsite at Grand Pitch. A Visitor Parking Lot is located across the road from the Grand Pitch Trailhead sign. There is one vault toilet located in the lower parking lot. Snowshoe Hut is located 2 miles from the Grand Pitch Trailhead and is equipped with a wood-burning stove, one table with chairs, and four cots. The first-come-first-served campsite is located approximately 1 mile in at Grand Pitch. The campsite is equipped with a picnic table and bench.

Get some scenic exercise with these southern Maine hikes

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • June 16, 2022

Southern Maine isn’t known as a hiking hot spot, especially compared to the destinations that surround it, from the Western Mountains and the Whites in New Hampshire to the Bigelow Range and Baxter State Park. But you don’t need to bag a 4,000-foot peak to enjoy the serenity of the woods, get some exercise and take in a scenic view. Here’s a sampling of rewarding uphill routes, some more of a workout than others, where you can get your nature fix.

Opinion: Mass timber makes sense for new building in Maine

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • June 16, 2022

Last week, the Portland Museum of Art was awarded $300,000 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the PMA Blueprint, our sustainable campus expansion and unification project in collaboration with LEVER Architecture. The investment – part of a larger $43 million allocated by the USDA to organizations that expand innovative uses of wood – acknowledges the PMA’s commitment to using mass timber as the primary building material throughout our project, and is the latest validation of mass timber’s immense potential here in Maine. ~ Mark Bessire, Portland Museum of Art

Letter: Maine students press for climate justice at D.C. conference

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • June 16, 2023

Thirty-six Mainers, including 13 high school students from Kennebunk, Portland and Baxter Academy, went to Washington, D.C., to a nonpartisan Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) conference and lobby day from June 11-13. The technology exists to save our planet but we need to create political will. Please consider joining some environmental groups. Also contact Sens. King and Collins as well as Reps. Pingree and Golden and tell them you expect them to act to slow climate change. ~ Nancy Hasenfus, Brunswick

Ravenous Baxter State Park brook trout provide a memorable day of fishing

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • June 16, 2023

Bill Bell of Saco, who last week took a video of a cow moose and its calf crossing Nesowadnehunk Stream in Baxter State Park on his way home, returned with a tale of some amazing fish activity at a pond where he and his cousin, Neil Fitch, were fishing. Bell said the surprising absence of black flies and mosquitoes was notable, welcome and beneficial. But then, Bell said, it’s almost impossible not to enjoy a trip to the park. “The fishing was great, because there were no bugs and there had been no bugs all week,” Bell said. “The fish were ravenous and would strike at anything that looked like it might be food.”

Opinion: Continue Maine’s momentum on solar energy

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • June 15, 2023

Solar energy in Maine has grown sevenfold in the last few years. This tremendous growth has saved towns, school districts and local businesses money on their electric bills and added hundreds of jobs to Maine’s economy. The solar industry has also shouldered tens of millions of dollars in upgrades to Maine’s electric grid. This enormous success hasn’t happened without growing pains, but going backward on solar energy is not a solution to high electricity costs. First, the utilities commission needs to continue to scrutinize the numbers that the utilities put forth to justify rate increases. Second, we need more low-cost, home-grown, large-scale solar. Third, we need to build a better, smarter program for small- and medium-sized solar projects. LD 1986 and LD 1591 will help us continue momentum toward a clean energy transition for Maine. ~ Rebecca Schultz, Natural Resources Council of Maine

Former Gouldsboro sardine cannery sells for $975K at auction

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • June 15, 2023

Two Schoodic-area businessmen with a background in the building trades were the winning bidders Thursday morning in an auction of a defunct seafood processing plant in Gouldsboro. Tim Ring, founder of Ring Paving, and Kevin Barbee of Barbee Construction won the auction for the sprawling former sardine cannery with a bid of $975,000, but don’t yet know how it will be used. The building was the last sardine cannery in the United States when Bumblebee shut it down 13 years ago. It was revived as a lobster processing plant, first by Live Lobster and then by Maine Fair Trade Lobster. The latest owner, before Thursday’s auction, was American Aquafarms, which said it wanted to use the plant to process salmon that it planned to farm in Frenchman Bay. That proposal met stiff opposition from residents on both sides of the bay.

Column: Maine’s abundance of these birds might be the best anywhere

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • June 15, 2023

It’s easy to find warblers in the guidebooks. It’s a little harder to find them in the field. The key is knowing where to look. Maine is an impressive place to bird with so many different habitats. On a lark, I ranked all 26 nesting warbler species from most to least commonly reported. Common yellowthroats are the number one reported species. Ovenbirds are the second-most reported. Tied for third place: northern parula and black-throated green warbler. The yellow warbler is the seventh-most reported warbler in Maine. Chestnut-sided warblers are apt to keep the yellow warblers company. Yellow-rumped warbler is number nine. Pine warblers are 10th. The 11th-most reported is the Magnolia warbler. The remaining 15 are more difficult. Maine has a lot of warblers. Some are easy to find. Locating others requires an understanding of habits and habitats. But let’s see another state match our abundance! ~ Bob Duchesne

Never underestimate the risk of rabies exposure, even in your own home

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • June 15, 2023

It was one of the greatest instances of ironic timing I’ve experienced. On Wednesday while a Maine-based radio show was talking about rabies in the state, I was sitting in a St. Joseph Hospital’s emergency room in Bangor waiting to get a rabies vaccine. All because I wanted to save a bat. Rabies in humans is nothing to joke about. While human cases are 100 percent treatable, they are also near 100 percent fatal when that treatment is delayed or ignored. Which is why I ended up in the St. Joe’s ER for the first two of a course of five shots. ~ Julia Bayly

Northeast vineyards, orchards seek federal aid in wake of devastating late frost

ASSOCIATED PRESS • June 15, 2023

Vineyards and apple orchards across the Northeast are still gauging damage from a late-season frost in May that wiped out a third to most of the crop for some growers who say it’s the worst frost damage they have ever seen.

Readfield residents approve use of grants to build athletic field

KENNEBEC JOURNAL • June 15, 2023

Voters have authorized the town to move forward with the development of an athletic field at the Readfield Fairgrounds. Residents voted down a plan last year to raise $500,000 to build a softball field, basketball court, trail system and other recreational features at the town-owned site. This year, however, voters were more amenable to a revised proposal that finances the project without using any taxpayer dollars.

Letter: High Peaks Alliance supports recreation bond

KENNEBEC JOURNAL • June 14, 2023

At the High Peaks Alliance, we work to enhance public access and opportunities for recreation in Maine’s High Peaks region. To accomplish this, we bring together volunteers from all outdoor user groups to better our region and our state. Trails provide critical access and recreational opportunities for our region, so we strongly support L.D. 1156, the outdoor recreation trails bond that would ask voters if they support a $30 million bond for non-motorized and motorized recreation. ~ Brent West, High Peaks Alliance, Farmington

Letter: The EPA is a monolith that is not serving ‘the people’

SUN JOURNAL • June 14, 2023

Why can’t Maine farmers sue the Environmental Protection Agency for its lack of action regarding PFAS? We read all too often of farmers being wiped out because of their land, water, animals and even themselves being poisoned by a chemical that is supposedly overseen and regulated by this government agency. Our government has failed miserably to protect its citizens? ~ George A. Fogg, Auburn

Maine’s solar policies drive another big electric rate increase

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • June 13, 2023

Maine regulators approved another big hike to electricity bills Tuesday for customers of the state’s major utilities, driven by solar subsidies that have been criticized by the state’s ratepayer advocate in recent weeks. The Maine Public Utilities Commission said the $135.7 million in new increases it approved from July 1 through mid-2024 cover so-called stranded costs, which are the impacts of long-term contracts for renewable power and net energy billing programs on Central Maine Power and Versant Power.

Predatory beetles unleashed to fight tree-killing invasive insect in Brunswick

TIMES RECORD • June 13, 2023

Maine forestry officials launched another offensive in an ongoing bug battle to slow the spread of an invasive insect that has been attacking hemlock trees for the past 20 years. The hemlock woolly adelgid, which is native to Asia, was introduced to southern Maine in 2003 and has been slowly spreading up the coast and farther inland. The insect was recently detected as far north as Acadia National Park. One way to slow the spread of the woolly adelgid is “biocontrol,” or deploying a predatory insect. Since 2004, the state has planted colonies of Sasajiscymnus tsugae beetles, another Asian insect that feeds on woolly adelgids but doesn’t harm trees.

Editorial: The effects of the global climate crisis will be local

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • June 12, 2023

The climate crisis is global. The effects, however, will be overwhelmingly local. We won’t always be so lucky. As humans struggle to reduce, much less eliminate, the use of fossil fuels, every additional bit of carbon pollution put into the atmosphere makes it more likely life in Maine will be made worse – by events both near and far. The fires in eastern Canada are just the latest example. Maine has broken records for wildfires in recent years, and is on pace for another big season in 2023. That is the new normal. The damage caused in Atlantic Canada last year by Hurricane Fiona, the most costly extreme weather event ever recorded in the region, should also make Mainers reconsider what’s possible here. Every bit of carbon pollution that is kept out makes things just a little bit better.

Letter: Consumers can force change on use of plastic

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • June 12, 2023

Plastic is everywhere. It has infiltrated our land, waters and all living things. Plastic poison is in our bloodstream. We know it is bad. Yet societies throughout the world seem unable to create a plan to end the plastic age. Consumers have the power to make change. We can vote and make change in our government, and we can make change to industry and businesses by changing what we buy. Don’t buy anything in plastic. If enough consumers stop buying plastic-wrapped food, business will follow your lead. ~ Christine Force, Yarmouth

Here’s a list of Farmers markets to visit around central and western Maine

SUN JOURNAL • June 11, 2023

Many of the markets offer an array of goods, from fresh, seasonal fruits and vegetables to naturally raised meats, milk, eggs, cheeses, baked goods, coffee, maple syrup, honey, soaps and salves. And do not forget the seedlings, cut flowers, crafts and other items often for sale. Many vendors accept credit cards, but it is best to be prepared by also bringing cash and a checkbook. Here is a partial list of area markets open on designated days.