The most comprehensive online source of conservation news and events in Maine and beyond, edited by Jym St. Pierre
MAINE MONITOR • December 5, 2023
The Midcoast Forum on Foreign Relations recently hosted professor John Deutch, who spoke about the challenges to future climate policy. Deutch is an emeritus institute professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where has held various roles since 1970 including chemistry department chair, Dean of Science, and Provost.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • December 5, 2023
I’ve observed more than 120 species of birds on the Sears Island. The island is a very special place to me and to the other birders, hikers, dog-walkers and others who have memories connected to the island. And it’s not just a nice place for a walk; it is one of the best areas to go birding in the area, as it serves as a stopover point for migrating birds and monarch butterflies in the spring and fall. I believe this place is far too precious to lose to offshore wind development. ~ Wesley Hutchins, Swanville
SUN JOURNAL • December 5, 2023
Councilors conducted second readings Monday night on several highly debated ordinance changes in the Lake Auburn watershed, including the rezoning of 60 acres along the lake to a General Business zone, updated septic design standards and an increase in minimum lot size for developments in the watershed. Councilors approved the ordinance rezoning some 60 acres off Gracelawn Road to a General Business zone, shifting southerly boundaries. Fred Hollar, a 47-year resident at his West Auburn Road home, spoke out against the move. “It’s pretty obvious that the citizens of Auburn regard this as a threat to the lake, a threat to their drinking water.”
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • December 5, 2023
Last year, I asked the sustainability lead for one of the world’s biggest oil companies, “You have two young kids. How do you sleep at night?” “The best would be if we all die in some sort of crash before they are old enough to understand my job,” he replied. How is it that, in 2023, with everything we know about climate science, corporations are still headstrong on convincing the world’s population that petroleum not only has nothing to do with environmental change but is even a net positive? Leaked documents show that the United Arab Emirates intended to use its COP28 presidency to broker deals supporting its oil industry with 20 countries, including the U.S.. On Nov. 17, the world topped +2°C for the first time. And it did again the next day. Will the COP28 presidency keep the foot on the gas (literally), plowing through any phaseout of fossil fuels? ~ Susana Hancock, an international climate scientist and polar explorer living in Maine
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • December 5, 2023
Here’s a suggested version of a Maine Climate Restoration Resolution that you could copy and send to your senator and/or representative in the Maine Legislature. “…Resolved…that the Senate formally recognizes the obligation to future generations to restore a safe climate, and declares climate restoration, along with achieving net-zero and net-negative CO2 emissions, a climate policy priority…” If each of you cut out this article and passed it on to your legislators, whether or not you voted for them in the 2022 election, it could make a big difference. ~ Peter Garrett, PhD
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • December 5, 2023
The accounting firm that audited a Canadian company seeking to develop a mineral mine in northern Penobscot County said Wolfden’s consolidated financial statements cast “significant doubt” about its ability to stay in business. During October public hearings, the Maine Land Use Planning Commission asked Wolfden officials for an audited financial statement, which was subsequently filed with the commission by the Nov. 2 deadline. The Toronto auditor, Grant Thornton, said that Wolfden has no source of operating cash flows, has not yet achieved profitable production and had accumulated losses of $40,834,518 as of Dec. 31, 2022.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • December 4, 2023
Versant Power customers in northern Maine will not benefit from a transmission line connecting wind power generated there to the New England grid, yet will still be required to pay for it, the utility told state regulators in the only public comments on the closed-door negotiations for the project. In a filing Friday with the Maine Public Utilities Commission, Versant said it is not “fair or reasonable” to require the utility’s more than 35,000 Maine Public District customers in Aroostook County to pay the costs associated with the Aroostook Renewable Gateway project and Longroad wind farm northwest of Houlton. The 140- to 160-mile transmission line proposed by New York-based LS Power would not interconnect Versant’s Maine Public District with the New England grid, the utility said.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • December 4, 2023
Proposed state regulations would allow any commercial farm with elevated levels of harmful forever chemicals – regardless of the source of the contamination – to apply for financial assistance from Maine’s first-in-the-country PFAS relief fund. In the past, Maine has focused its time and money on PFAS contamination caused by a now-defunct state Department of Environmental Protection program that used wastewater sludge as fertilizer on hundreds of farms across Maine dating to the 1970s. The new rules would allow commercial farms tainted by other sources of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances to tap into the state’s $60 million PFAS Fund, including the PFAS-laced foam used by firefighters, airports and the military to douse high-intensity fires.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • December 4, 2023
The agricultural industry must learn whether “forever” chemicals contaminate pesticide containers, an expert warned during a Monday conference in Presque Isle. “We have to get our hands around contaminated containers,” said Pam Bryer, a toxicologist with the Maine Board of Pesticides Control, part of the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry. “It was such a surprise, this container issue. Nobody saw this coming.”
TIMES RECORD • December 4, 2023
While Merrymeeting Bay is considered an estuary by oceanographers because technically it does have a very small presence of salt, biologists generally consider it tidal riverine because it is primarily freshwater and tidal. Geologists, on the other hand consider the bay, at the junction of six rivers, an inland delta, Friends of Merrymeeting Bay’s latest presentation in its 27th annual Winter Speaker Series will cover the geologic history of Merrymeeting Bay, highlighted by marine geologist Joe Kelley. The presentation is set for 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 13, via Zoom. The link can be found at the top of the group’s website, fomb.org.
NEWS CENTER MAINE • December 4, 2023
The fight against climate change never stops in Maine, especially when it comes to the Pine Tree State’s waterways that are being polluted by increased storm runoff. Levels have been running high the last few years, according to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. Levels are so high that the Kennebunk River has been formally classified as impaired for bacteria by Maine’s DEP. "If we’re having higher frequency storms, it’s really important then to enhance your vegetative buffer," Alex Brown, a conservation technician with York County Soil and Water Conservation District, said. But the climate change fight isn't just about action; it’s about education, too. "This area here, it does serve a purpose for a vegetative buffer, but it’s also serving an educational purpose, too, for golfers that came out here today to help educate the public how to manage their waterfront properties," Brown said.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • December 5, 2023
The population of a beloved Maine bird, the common loon, dipped for the second straight year, but wildlife surveyors said they are heartened by an increased number of the bird’s chicks. Maine has the largest number of common loons in the eastern U.S., and the state is critical to the species’ breeding population. The loons are listed as endangered or threatened in some other New England states and beyond. Maine Audubon, which conducts a loon count every year, said Monday it projects a population of 2,892 of the birds based on this year’s results. That is down slightly from a year ago and about 16% lower than the 2021 total. However, Maine Audubon’s biologists said they aren’t worried, in part because the number of loon chicks climbed from 298 in 2022 to 411 this year.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • December 4, 2023
Jim Hansen, the climate scientist who delivered the original wake-up message to the U.S. Congress in 1988, has used new data to work out the “equilibrium climate sensitivity.” The news is bad. The ECS — how much warming we will get in the long run from doubling the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — is much higher than we thought. We were expecting an extra 3 degrees; we will get five. Hensen also reckons that all the visible pollution we put into the sky was cooling the planet by reflecting incoming sunlight back into space. But we are rapidly cleaning it up, because it’s bad for people’s lungs. That means we are rapidly losing our protective global sunscreen. Hansen suspects these changes have lost us 1 degree’s worth of cooling — and in terms of average global temperature a degree of lost cooling is just as bad as a degree of extra warming. It may be time to start taking this climate stuff seriously. ~ Gwynne Dyer
MAINE PUBLIC • December 4, 2023
Fourteen of Maine's 16 counties now have quarantines to try to limit the spread of the emerald ash borer into more ash trees. The expansion of the quarantine includes part of northern Aroostook County and portions of counties in southern Maine. State horticulturist Gary Fish says the destructive pest is likely being spread by people taking infested firewood to their camps. “If you're going to buy firewood, buy it within 10 miles of where you're going. If there's plenty of ash around, emerald ash borer only moves about a mile or two on its own. If there's not a lot of ash around, it has been known to fly as far as 10 miles to get to another ash tree."
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • December 3, 2023
The U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development announced last week that five Maine farms had won the competitive Value-Added Producer Grant funding. Along with Balfour and Ledgeway farms, Fields Fields Blueberries in Dresden, Herbal Revolution Farm & Apothecary in Union, and the William H. Jordan Farm in Cape Elizabeth secured funding totaling more than $1 million to support and expand their agriculture-based businesses.
MAINE MONITOR • December 3, 2023
The state will begin a rulemaking process next week aimed at clarifying what counts as a metallic mineral, changes prompted by the discovery of a massive lithium deposit in Newry that the Monitor has been reporting on for the past two years. The changes, which will have to be approved by the citizen Board of Environmental Protection as well as the state Legislature, would allow the mining of certain metallic minerals to be exempt from the state’s stringent mining regulations so long as a mining operation could prove that it wouldn’t pollute the environment around it. A mining operation that’s exempt from the metallic mineral rules would still be regulated under another law, such as the state’s quarrying standards. Those standards are far less stringent, and meeting them is also less costly for developers
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • December 3, 2023
With climate change consistently bringing warmer temperatures to the Gulf of Maine, there is another unfamiliar species making its way north along the coast, and it might not bode well for Maine’s salt marshes. Fiddler crabs, small crabs that get their name by having one claw that is noticeably bigger than the other, have spread up the coast as far as Maine’s midcoast, according to a recent scientific study. And they appear to be harming the growth of grasses in the marshes where they can be found.
MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • December 3, 2023
Maine is getting wetter across all seasons, but it is the increasing intensity of the precipitation – and the flooded basements, crop disease, and washed-out culverts and roads that can come with it – that has climate planners, farmers, and engineers scrambling to prepare. While the future impact of sea level rise is a top concern in Maine and other coastal states as the climate warms, the increasing frequency of extreme weather events here is already having statewide impacts.
SUN JOURNAL • December 3, 2023
Wood indisputably boasts the best carbon footprint of any widely available heating energy source. This undeniable truth stems from the fact that wood pellets are composed of biogenic carbon (unlike geologic carbon) assembled as sawmill residues, low grade forest products, and arboricultural waste wood. ~ Leslie B. Otten, founder, owner and CEO of Maine Energy Systems, the largest wood pellet central heating system manufacturer in North America
MAINE MONITOR • December 2, 2023
A state tax exemption benefits industrial companies for cutting down on pollution but also draws millions of dollars away from small-town tax revenue, and never expires. The state statute that outlines the exemption provides an incentive for industrial companies in Maine to abide by environmental regulations: Install equipment that reduces your facility’s air or water pollution, and you’ll pay less in property or sales and use taxes. Unlike other tax exemptions that fall under the auspices of the state tax agency, Maine Revenue Services, this “pollution control” exemption is administered by DEP. It requires no approval from the municipality that may be affected by it and lasts as long as the facility operates.
