The most comprehensive online source of conservation news and events in Maine and beyond, edited by Jym St. Pierre
MAINE MONITOR • August 13, 2023
Last month, a group of more than 30 organizations, headed by the Department of Marine Resources’ Maine Coastal Program, released a 100-page long guide on how to make those tidal crossings more resilient. The document is aimed at municipal staff, engineers, road owners and anyone else who’s “interested in helping to replace tidal road culverts and bridges with safe, climate-resilient crossings.”
MAINE MONITOR • August 13, 2023
Environmentalists are decrying a year-long process meant to gather public feedback on where to build a deepwater offshore wind port, calling it a “charade.” They say state officials failed to adequately engage the public or tribal communities and effectively decided where to construct the port long before the process began. The Maine Department of Transportation has been making an internal case for Sears Island while “giving an illusion of an impartial analysis of port possibilities to the public,” said Matt Cannon, the state conservation and energy director for Sierra Club Maine.
SUN JOURNAL • August 12, 2023
A very misguided bill that almost passed in the state legislature, LD 814, would have set back a lot of work in this state to bring back Maine’s declining deer populations in the North Woods. The bill would have ended recreational coyote hunting and trapping as we know it. Why would the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife include two well-known anti-hunting activists on a technical subcommittee charged with evaluating wildlife management strategies? This seems more a political gesture, a bow to “inclusivity,” than it does a wildlife management priority. DIFW has no historical or constitutional obligation to get on bended knee for the anti-hunting activists. ~ V. Paul Reynolds
MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • August 13, 2023
Maine has at least 54,000 acres, or 84 square miles, of so-called blue carbon reservoirs: salt marsh, eelgrass beds and even phragmites that store at least 1.7 million tons of carbon in the soil and vegetation. That much carbon is equal to the annual carbon emissions of 1.25 million passenger cars. The Maine projections are part of a new first-of-its-kind inventory of New England’s coastal blue carbon reservoirs from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • August 13, 2023
The Kennebunk Land Trust, in partnership with others, has been pursuing their conservation work since 1972, protecting the town’s natural heritage and providing recreational opportunities aplenty. In a half-century, they’ve managed to conserve 1,570 acres across 28 preserves, 13 of which feature a total of 20 miles of well-marked hiking trails. ~ Carey Kish
MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • August 13, 2023
One of the great joys of spring in Maine is hearing the song of a newly arrived white-throated sparrow. It’s distinctive poor-sam-peabody-peabody-peabody (or as our northern neighbors prefer, my-sweet-Canada-Canada-Canada) evokes the Maine woods. We are treated to this song all summer long. I had to grin when I recently heard a song that sounded vaguely like a white-throated sparrow but with a certain hesitancy and missed notes. What I was hearing was a young male, born just a few months ago, learning to sing. ~ Herb Wilson
MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • August 13, 2023
Climate change is an existential threat to humanity; even if it doesn’t wipe us all out, it’s certainly going to cause an immeasurable amount of human suffering. Floods. Droughts. Wildfires. Ripple effects we can’t even imagine yet. I’ve been working in the medical field long enough to know that in order to stabilize the patient, the first thing to do is stop the bleeding. In this case, we – state, country, world – need to stop burning fossil fuels and throwing carbon dioxide into our overheated atmosphere. We can absolutely do this; we have the technology. Transitioning our economy to 100% renewable energy is humanly possible, but it’s going to take a big upfront investment. I will be voting for the creation of Pine Tree Power. Entropy is a powerful force. So is greed. The rich will not make sacrifices to help save the rest of us unless we make them. ~ Victoria Hugo-Vidal
MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • August 13, 2023
While L.D. 2004 would have augmented Wabanaki sovereignty, it would have continued to prevent the Wabanaki tribes from exercising sovereignty over environmental regulation on tribal lands and waters. While the Environmental Protection Agency continues to wield preeminent authority over pollution standards, its 1984 Indian Policy grants tribes agency in the design and implementation of air and water quality regulation. When EPA regulations are inadequate for tribal needs, federally recognized tribes retain the sovereign power to set stricter pollution standards than federal and state agencies. Preventing full Indigenous sovereignty over pollution regulation in Maine continues to foreclose potentially innovative tribal measures to counteract the disastrous effects of climate change. ~ David W. Everson, assistant professor of sociology, University of Southern Maine
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 13, 2023
Have you ever thought about the risk you are taking when you head out the door for your adventure? I have worked and lived on the West Branch of the Penobscot River since 2014. I never thought that this special place that has given me so much could also take something from me. In the past six years, I’ve lost two people I know to the river and both accidents have hit very close to home. I love hiking solo and I know that it comes with added risk. If something happens to me, I am responsible for myself. That’s intimidating. I have to be OK with that. ~ Sarah Sindo
MAINE MONITOR • August 12, 2023
The Maine Marine Patrol is bringing charges against four individuals in connection with alleged illegal rockweed harvesting in Washington County, in what a state official said are the first prosecutions for illegally extracting the hotly contested resource in recent memory. Rockweed, a brownish algae found close to shore throughout Maine, forms a veritable underwater forest. It’s “not only a foundational species, but a keystone species, and an ecosystem engineer,” said Dr. Robin Hadlock Seeley of the Maine Rockweed Coalition. It supports biodiversity, with over 100 animals feeding on it or using it as a nursery — including lobsters, scallops, and a host of fish like pollock, cod and herring.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • August 12, 2023
Our state has an opportunity to address the biggest source of climate-damaging pollution: gas-guzzling cars and trucks. It is imperative that Maine adopt the rule known as the Advanced Clean Cars II this year if we are to hit our climate targets. However, the rule currently pending before the state Board of Environmental Protection deviates from all other versions adopted throughout the country: It stops in 2032, when only 80% of new vehicles sold would be required to be electric. Maine should adopt the full Advanced Clean Cars II rule, which would require that all new cars sold in the state be clean by 2035. ~ Ruth Hennig, board vice chair of Defend Our Health, and a member of Conservation Law Foundation’s Maine State Advisory Board, Portland
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • August 12, 2023
Unity College campus on Quaker Hill Road is being put on the market. It is a devastating feeling for someone who had the opportunity to truly experience all that Unity College was intended to be. It is clear that the wrong leadership is in place to rescue, rebuild or grow Unity College. When the sale of the Quaker Hill campus happens, Unity College will be wiped off the face of this earth. How fitting for Unity Environmental University to be responsible for the extinction of such a unique institution, which served a student body that was so passionate about the environment and outdoors that they felt no other place than Unity College would help them go out into the world and make a difference. “America’s Environmental College” rest in peace. ~ Wayne Stump, Hazleton, Pa.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 12, 2023
A lesser-known type of winter storm is occurring with greater intensity, threatening Maine’s coast, experts say. Though winter storms known as nor’easters are commonly forecasted and experienced around the Northeast, a sister storm known as southeasters can bring nearly hurricane-level winds and storm surges that have been less common in the winter — until now. The wind from southeasters can be stronger than nor’easters. The best thing Mainers can do is to be prepared.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 11, 2023
Climate issues are a factor in the debate over a November referendum to put Maine’s electric infrastructure under the control of an elected board, but major environmental groups have stayed out of it so far. The referendum will ask voters to decide whether to buy out Central Maine Power Co. and Versant Power’s infrastructure. Sierra Club and Maine Youth for Climate Justice, are backing Pine Tree Power. Neither the Natural Resources Council of Maine nor the Nature Conservancy have weighed in. Following a lengthy debate process, the board of Maine Conservation Voters and the intertwined Maine Conservation Alliance voted in late May to stay neutral on the referendum. The Natural Resources Council of Maine was not able to comment Thursday.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 11, 2023
Three minke whales have been found dead in Maine waters over a six-day period in what marine researchers call an unusual spate of deaths. Marine mammal researchers from Allied Whale at the College of the Atlantic, which tracks whale strandings and deaths in Maine, responded to the three reports of carcasses between July 30 and Aug. 4. That’s more than they’d typically expect in an entire summer, said Rosemary Seton, Allied Whale’s mammal stranding coordinator. The most recent minke whale carcass washed ashore on Tuesday on Flye Point in Brooklin in Hancock County. The whale likely died from being hit by a boat.
SUN JOURNAL • August 11, 2023
The Select Board voted unanimously Friday to accept a settlement agreement with Pixelle Specialty Solutions for a tax abatement of $12.2 million in valuation and $250,100 in tax dollars. The paper mill and associated properties were valued at $108.5 million in 2022-23. The abatement agreement reduces the valuation to $96.3 million.
ASSOCIATED PRESS • August 11, 2023
Maine is converting an inactive set of rail tracks into a new recreational trail that will run from the southern part of the state to close to the New Hampshire border. Democratic Gov. Janet Mills has signed a bill to create the new walking and biking trail, which will stretch 40 miles from Standish to Fryeburg along the Mountain Division Rail Line. The new trail is designed to eventually connect with Portland at its eastern edge and New Hampshire in the west.
KENNEBEC JOURNAL • August 11, 2023
Martin Spahn died doing what he loved — being in the outdoors on one of his adventures. His final challenge was an attempt to kayak from Lubec to Grand Manan Island in New Brunswick — a roughly 11-mile trip — but he did not make it. Spahn, who was 57, lived in Hallowell and was a prominent member of the community. Following the news of his death, tributes poured in.
MAINE PUBLIC • August 11, 2023
A seal attack is being blamed for the loss of 50,000 juvenile Atlantic salmon at two fish farming sites near Cutler. Cooke Aquaculture spokesperson Joel Richardson said that divers discovered on Aug. 7 that seals had chewed through two cage nets near Cross Island. Each normally holds about 25,000 juvenile salmon, but were empty when workers found them. "DMR concluded that it is highly likely that one or more seals were able to get past the predator netting and create a hole in the net pen, allowing fish to escape. DMR staff also witnessed as many as 100 seals on a half tide haul out near the lease site. Others have indicated there are 300 to 400 seals in the area," Nichols said.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 11, 2023
A hiker was hospitalized after being rescued from a section of trail nearly 2 miles into the system at Blackstrap Hill Preserve on Friday. After hiking into where the injured hiker was located, the patient had to be carried to a waiting utility terrain vehicle that was unable to travel through the flood conditions. Despite multiple challenges, including an overflowing stream, the emergency team was able to get the patient to an ambulance.
