The most comprehensive online source of conservation news and events in Maine and beyond, edited by Jym St. Pierre
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • November 7, 2023
Maine’s historic treaty obligations to tribes will be printed alongside other parts of the state Constitution after voters backed Question 6 in Tuesday’s election. The yes side of Question 6 had 73 percent of votes to 27 percent for the no side when the Bangor Daily News and Decision Desk HQ called the race at 9:18 p.m. Tuesday.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • November 7, 2023
Voters soundly rejected a proposal to replace Maine’s two utilities with a publicly owned power company. With 50% of the vote counted, support for Question 3, to buy the assets of Central Maine Power and Versant Power, had garnered about 29% of votes statewide. “No” votes accounted for 71% of the ballots. The Associated Press called the race about 9:45 p.m.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • November 7, 2023
Maine voters have passed a referendum to ban foreign governments and affiliated organizations from spending money on state and local referendum campaigns. Ballots were still being counted at 9:30 p.m. when the race was called by The Associated Press. With 224 of the state’s 571 precincts reporting, 86% of those voters supported the proposal with 119,312 in favor and 18,955 opposed, as of 10 p.m.
MAINE PUBLIC • November 7, 2023
The Downeast Salmon Federation was forced to kill about 170,000 young salmon last month, after a virus was discovered in a fish hatchery in East Machias. Executive Director Dwayne Shaw said that in routine testing of the Peter Gray Hatchery, the group discovered fish infected with pancreatic necrosis, a virus that's endemic in both fresh and salt water. Shaw said that while all the fish appeared healthy, the presence of the virus forced them to kill all 170,000 salmon and bury them, then perform a deep clean of the facility. The Federation has never had to kill so many fish before.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • November 7, 2023
The state has abandoned its preferred plan to replace the Machias dike bridge. The deteriorating structure, which dates to the Civil War era, carries Route 1 over the Middle River in Machias, according to the Maine Department of Transportation. The state originally planned to replace the Machias dike with a 1,000-foot-long bridge with a middle span allowing the Middle River to flow through. That plan concerned nearby landowners, who worried that would expose their waterfront property to tidal flooding. Instead, the Department of Transportation will continue to use a fully gated dike.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • November 7, 2023
LS Power’s “Aroostook Renewable Gateway” would carve a 150-foot-wide corridor through 41 municipalities over 140-160 miles. It would negatively impact hundreds of landowners who would face significantly diminished property values, the marring of generational land, and the prospect of eminent domain. The route would entail clear-cutting around 2,000 acres of forest sequestering nearly 12 million pounds less carbon annually. It will mean inviting more out-of-state firms to construct a massive “gateway grid” that gouges new corridors into the landscape, wrecking ecosystems and tourism alike. Running lines within existing corridors would all but eliminate the cost of clearing new ones; save millions of dollars in environmental impact assessments and mitigation; reduce maintenance and weather-related costs over the system lifetime; curb the threat of expensive lawsuits; offer scalable transmission for future King Pine Wind equivalents with a corridor that’s only 5 feet wide and 5 feet deep; potentially attract millions in federal grant money available for innovative transmission projects; and capitalize on the ability to run fiber-optic cable within the system, helping Maine reach its goal of delivering high-speed internet to rural areas. ~ Joshua Abram Kercsmar, associate professor of Environmental Humanities at Unity Environmental University and vice president of Preserve Rural Maine
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • November 7, 2023
Wolfden Resources’ mining proposal, reported in this paper, should be rejected. However, it raises global issues of human health, environmental degradation, quality of life and cultural and environmental practices of Indigenous people. Companies will go to the least restrictive places to mine. These places are likely to be low income and marginalized. An inclusive and transparent global conversation should begin now. ~ Jo Myers, Waldoboro
MAINE PUBLIC • November 6, 2023
Lobster fishermen are watching closely as regulators continue to refine an area in the Gulf of Maine that could be used for offshore wind development, and they're looking for more reassurances that the federal government will avoid popular fishing grounds. The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has identified a 3.5 million acre draft area off the coast of Maine that could be used for commercial offshore wind development. That proposed area excludes most of Lobster Management Area 1, a popular offshore fishing area in Maine. But Zach Jylkka of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said some fishing grounds near or part of LMA 1 are still being studied, because they would be less expensive to develop.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • November 6, 2023
A fire ignited at the Orrington trash incinerator on Friday night. The fire at the Penobscot Energy Recovery Co., or PERC, started before 7:45 p.m., Orrington Fire Chief Scott Stewart said. The fire in the tipping floor area likely started through spontaneous combustion, Stewart said. There were thousands of pounds of trash in the plant.
ASSOCIATED PRESS • November 5, 2023
U.S. regulators say they will review the use of a chemical found in almost every tire after a petition from West Coast Native American tribes that want it banned because it kills salmon as they return from the ocean to their natal streams to spawn. The tribes asked the Environmental Protection Agency to prohibit the rubber preservative 6PPD earlier this year, saying it kills fish when rains wash it from roadways into rivers. Other states, including Vermont, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, also wrote the EPA, citing the chemical’s “unreasonable threat” to their waters and fisheries.
MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • November 5, 2023
The 8-Mile Wilderness. What, you’ve never heard of it? You’re familiar with the 100-Mile Wilderness, that 750,000-acre swath of forestland threaded by the Appalachian Trail between Monson and Abol Bridge. The 8-Mile Wilderness, in contrast, is an imaginary place of sorts where hikers go to escape, bond and have fun for a precious few days. The term “8-Mile Wilderness” was coined several years ago, when our group ended up backpacking just 8 miles over three days in the Little Moose Public Land near Greenville. We had a complete blast in the backcountry beauty just the same and the name for these hikes stuck. Each day we walked slowly and looked around a lot, stopping to enjoy every viewpoint. Where is your 8-Mile Wilderness and who are your special trail friends? ~ Carey Kish
KENNEBEC JOURNAL • November 5, 2023
Puerto Rico and Long Island are the only government-owned electricity grids in the country that are operated by a third-party, for-profit contractor. Both are rife with mismanagement and corruption. There are no case studies to support the claim that a politician-controlled utility will increase reliability. I have spent my career working at CMP. Pine Tree Power leaves politicians in control of our electricity grid. We cannot afford to roll the dice on politician-controlled electricity. ~ Jared Epperson, West Gardiner
CENTRAL MAINE • November 5, 2023
How can you trust a business that didn’t have the sense to not screw up having a monopoly? As someone who has decades of business experience I understand what a gift it is to own a monopoly. Avangrid had a golden goose and fed it french fries until it puked. Now the goose is fat and in trouble. If any for profit company had such a low level of customer service they would lose their customers and go bankrupt. CMP owners have not valued or cherished the monopoly they have and don’t deserve it. ~ Mark Scribner, Kingfield
SUN JOURNAL • November 5, 2023
Doug Hitchcox, the staff naturalist at Maine Audubon, said lots of birds migrate in the fall, making it one of the more fun times to be out birding. Birdcast detected 11 million birds passing over Maine on the evening of Sept. 20, he said. The website tracks nocturnal bird migration in real time. In all, Maine has 290 species of birds, according to the state’s official count, and many can be found throughout the state, while some occur only in portions of the state. Hitchcox encourages everyone to give birding a try. “I joke that if I could go out and see a bobcat or lynx every day, I’d be much more into mammals than birds. But almost anywhere you go, any time of the year, you can find a bird within minutes of looking.”
SUN JOURNAL • November 4, 2023
Many sportsmen count the November deer hunt as the highlight of all of their outdoor passions. If you can figure out what time of the month the rut is at its peak, you stand the best chance of catching a buck when he is distracted with his guard down and his focus is not on danger. ~ V. Paul Reynolds
TRIBAL BUSINESS NEWS • November 4, 2023
National nonprofit Trust for Public Land (TPL) has secured more than 31,000 acres in the Katahdin region of Maine with designs on returning the land to the Penobscot people who originally occupied it. Trust for Public Land bought the land in 2022 from timber management organization Conservation Resources, LLC, for $29.5 million. Now, the organization is hoping to raise $32 million in financing to pay back loans taken out in pursuit of the land and return the acreage to the Penobscot Nation. At the same time, the deal will create “much needed access” to Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument.
ASSOCIATED PRESS • November 4, 2023
The cancellation of two large offshore wind projects is the latest in a series of setbacks for the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry, jeopardizing the Biden administration’s goals of powering 10 million homes from towering ocean-based turbines by 2030 and establishing a carbon-free electric grid five years later.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • November 4, 2023
In my long career in electric utility regulation, I have participated in the formation of six different public power utilities. Public ownership of electric utilities, difficult at first, pays huge benefits to consumers within a few years. The people of Maine should be courageous, not frightened, of taking their electricity future into their own hands. Nobody will work harder for a community than the people who live in it. ~ Jim Lazar
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • November 4, 2023
I’ve served Portland as mayor, city councilor and a member of the Maine Legislature. A critical part of those jobs is asking questions and getting answers from proponents about their proposed new laws, particularly on complex initiatives. We cannot learn what Pine Tree Power will cost, nor how many years it will take to determine the price. We’ve seen nothing documenting the impact it would have on our utility bills, on reliability or, importantly, on the clean-energy progress Maine is making. No one really knows what would happen if it were to pass. If proponents cannot or will not provide this information, a “no” vote is the right choice. ~ David Brenerman, Gorham
MAINE PUBLIC • November 3, 2023
Four birds, one bat, one bee and a beetle have all been added to the list of Maine's endangered and threatened species. 57 species are labelled as threatened or endangered in Maine. The labels provide them with additional protections and prioritization in conservation efforts.
