Plans in the works to expand Augusta’s Howard Hill to universal access

KENNEBEC JOURNAL • February 7, 2024

After years of discussions, officials in Hallowell, Augusta and the Kennebec Land Trust are working to make the conservation and recreation area just west of the state capital complex more widely accessible to people with disabilities. Spanning 164 acres, Howard Hill offers forested open space with a stream and a ridgeline with cliffs, bordered by developed areas in Augusta and Hallowell. Residents often walk the network of old carriage roads through the hill to experience the scenic view of the Kennebec River or the State House building nestled amid an expansive shade of green. Enock Glidden, who lives in Bethel, is one of the many who is keeping an eye on the development. Glidden, now 45, was 4 when he got his first wheelchair. He has taken up wheelchair racing, skiing and rock climbing.

Editorial: Mining near Baxter State Park isn’t appropriate

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 7, 2024

The staff of the Land Use Planning Commission has recommended in a draft document rejecting a rezoning request that would open the door to a mining plan at Pickett Mountain. To protect the region’s waterways and its burgeoning tourism economy, this is the right decision. Commissioners are scheduled to meet next week to vote on a rezoning application from Wolfden Resources Corp., a Canadian mining company that wants the zoning change to allow a metallic mine at Pickett Mountain, which is near Baxter State Park and Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. This is the wrong project in the wrong place, and this rezoning request should be denied.

Maine, 8 other states sign agreement to boost production of heat pumps

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 7, 2024

In the latest push to expand heat pump use, officials of nine Northeast states, including Maine, announced Wednesday they will increase their installation targets to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions from buildings. Environmental officials in California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Rhode Island have signed an agreement to meet at least 65% of residential-scale heating, air conditioning and water heating shipments by 2030 and 90% by 2040. The states will collaborate to collect market data, track progress and develop a plan within a year to support electrification of residential buildings.

Opinion: Maine’s cannabis industry can boost agriculture, ease food insecurity

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 7, 2024

Last year, Maine’s medical cannabis market brought in more than $305 million, while recreational sales hit $200 million. But there is much more to cannabis than “getting high” or “serving potheads.” Traditional agriculture is in peril. Among other factors, climate change has heightened the unpredictability of outdoor farming. Consumers are increasingly concerned about pesticide use, with much of our fruit and produce coming from countries with questionable certifications and credentials. The cannabis industry has pioneered controlled environment agriculture farming, one of our most important potential solutions to the agriculture problem. Mainers can thank the cannabis industry for revolutionizing farming. ~ Dan Thayer, Lifespring Microclimates

Unity Environmental University donates $1M building to charter school

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 6, 2024

Unity Environmental University has donated one of the buildings on its original campus in Unity to a local charter school known as the Ecology Learning Center. The decision comes as the university is attempting to sell most of its Unity campus after making a few big changes during the COVID pandemic, including moving its headquarters to a campus in the southern Maine town of New Gloucester and shifting to a hybrid model with many classes offered remotely. The rest of the university campus is likely to remain for sale.

Opinion: What we don’t know about PFAS can, in fact, hurt us

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 6, 2024

So far, Maine’s reporting system has yielded valuable information on PFAS in cosmetics, cleaners, cookware, home appliances, pesticides, paper products, apparel and industrial products. But some in industry seek to repeal this PFAS reporting requirement, which would be an extreme rollback of Maine’s efforts to prevent future PFAS pollution and protect Mainers. Mainers have a right to know which hazardous chemicals are used by industry or added to consumer and commercial products. Protecting our drinking water, food supply and bodies from future PFAS pollution is worth the extra paperwork. The Maine Legislature should stand firm in defense of Maine’s PFAS reporting law, which is working and should be protected. ~ Gail Carlson, Buck Lab for Climate and Environment at Colby College

New bill could incentivize Maine utilities to invest in reliability and meeting climate goals

MAINE PUBLIC • February 6, 2024

A new measure would direct the PUC to create a framework to enhance the state's standards for utilities, which could be connected to goals such as cost-effectiveness and meeting the state's climate policies. The commission could then look at ways to tie utilities' performance in those standards in the rate-setting process. The approach, called "performance-based" ratemaking, received support from several of Maine's environmental advocacy groups. Advocates say 17 states have adopted some form of performance-based regulation. But Central Maine Power said that the company was already working on issues such as climate change. James Cote, speaking for Versant Power, said that if metrics aren't applied correctly, it could lead to utilities underinvesting in certain areas, and overinvesting in others.

Gov. Mills: ‘Please take advantage of help’ from FEMA storm recovery centers

MORNING SENTINEL • February 6, 2024

Mainers in five counties looking for federal funds to assist their recovery efforts after December’s historic storm can seek help at Federal Emergency Management Agency centers in each of those counties opening this week. Gov. Janet Mills, along with federal, state and county emergency management officials, marked the opening of the Disaster Recovery Center for Somerset County in Skowhegan on Tuesday. They urged anyone affected by the storm to apply for assistance.

Maine Calling: Wild Atlantic Salmon

MAINE PUBLIC • February 6, 2024

Atlantic salmon were once prevalent in the eastern United States, but now Maine is home to the last remaining wild Atlantic salmon in the country. Learn about the challenges facing this endangered species, and what is being done to protect and restore these fish in Maine waters. Panelists: John Burrows, Atlantic Salmon Federation; Danielle Frechette, Maine Department of Marine Resources. VIP Callers: Sharri Venno, environmental planner, Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians; Don Sprangers, Downeast Salmon Federation; Josh Royte, The Nature Conservancy in Maine.

Opinion: Now is the time for a down payment on our coastal communities

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 6, 2024

January’s back-to-back coastal storms eroded our coastlines, destroyed family homes and wharves, and swept years of hopes and dreams out to sea. We need to imagine a different future coast, one where our infrastructure, businesses and homes can withstand storms like these and the forces of climate change. Gov. Janet Mills recently announced two important investments that can help us build back higher, stronger and greener. The first is an additional $5 million for the state’s Community Resilience Partnership (CRP) which will allow 100 communities from across all Maine to receive $50,000 each in grants to implement community priorities developed through a climate resilience planning process. Gov. Mills called for another $50 million for the climate change adaptation fund that will provide critical infrastructure across the state – both coast and inland – that can better withstand a changing climate. ~ Nick Battista, Island Institute

Major solar projects in Maine are being delayed by lengthy reviews

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 5, 2024

Multimillion-dollar solar projects intended to help Maine reach its targets for reduced greenhouse gas emissions are stalled in lengthy studies, causing developers to worry they’ll miss a deadline to qualify for ratepayer subsidies. Several solar developers have asked the Maine Public Utilities Commission to exempt them from a state law that set a Dec. 31, 2024, deadline to meet eligibility requirements in the state’s net energy billing program. The program, established in state law in 2019 and revised two years later, awards credits to generators for renewable power that is produced and sent to the electric grid.

Fishing regulators say no to catching more elvers, a most valuable species

ASSOCIATED PRESS • February 5, 2024

Fishermen who harvest one of the most valuable marine species in the U.S. hoped for permission to catch more baby eels next year, but regulators said Monday the tight restrictions that have been in place for several years are likely to stay the same. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is only considering one option for next year’s limit and that is a little less than 10,000 pounds, the same level fishermen have been allowed to catch for several years. The commission is under pressure from fishermen who want the quota raised and from environmentalists who would like to see it reduced.

State regulators asked for opinions on proposal to expand electric vehicle sales. They got 1,700 comments.

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 5, 2024

Maine environmental officials have received more than 1,700 comments from the public – just since December – about a state proposal to limit the sale of new gas-powered cars and expand sales of electric vehicles. The BEP will consider the plan March 20 at the Augusta Civic Center. The “Advanced Clean Cars II” plan would require zero-emission vehicles to make up 43% of new car sales for 2028 models and 82% of new sales by model year 2032. Those include electric and fuel-cell vehicles, along with a partial credit for plug-in hybrids. Many Mainers already had trashed the idea in written comments to the BEP last year.

Maine may join rest of New England in banning food scraps from landfills

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 5, 2024

State lawmakers say it’s time for Maine pass a law to keep food scraps out of the trash – an act supporters claim would reduce food insecurity, save towns and cities money, and slow climate change. In 2022, almost 60,000 tons of food waste was sent to rot in Maine landfills, producing more than 2,000 tons of methane, a greenhouse gas that is more than 28 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. A bill, which was endorsed by a legislative committee earlier this month, would phase in a limited ban on the landfilling or incinerating of food waste. It would require non-agricultural commercial producers in populated areas to donate edible leftovers and recycle their food scraps.

Storm-battered Maine communities look to state funding to prepare for warmer, wetter future

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • February 4, 2024

Communities across the state, from Kittery to Fort Kent and from the shoreline to the western mountains, are looking to the government to help them prepare for Maine’s warmer, wetter future, including more frequent and ferocious storms and a fast-warming, continually rising Gulf of Maine. Gov. Janet Mills wants to invest $50 million into a state climate change adaptation fund that is already helping communities across the state prepare for more storms fueled by climate change.

Maine DEP moves to fast-track recovery permits after destructive winter storms

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • February 4, 2024

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection is trying to fast-track efforts to recover from a string of devastating winter storms while giving impacted property owners the flexibility to adapt to changing climate conditions. The state is trying to make it easier to build back better, with infrastructure that can withstand a wetter, warmer future with rising, stormier seas, but that can also be finished before piping plovers return in March, lobstermen start setting traps in April and the summer tourist season kicks off in July.

Letter: Has Maine’s plastic bag ban backfired?

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • February 4, 2024

It would be nice if Maine would revisit the plastic bag ban. Why can’t the Legislature review these mandates and make changes based on fact-finding? There seems to be little interest in making Mainers’ lives easier. Instead, the Legislature is plowing ahead with more controls with plans to restrict gas-powered vehicles (even though EV battery mining is environmentally destructive and EVs don’t work well in cold weather.) There are also plans to restrict gas appliances, gas furnaces and gas supply to the state. Freedom is slowly but steadily being replaced by tyrannical rule; the end result of such rule is usually abject poverty, as totalitarian societies have demonstrated across history. ~ Timothy Michalak, Cumberland

This Maine town wants to save its waterfront for generations of fishermen

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 3, 2024

The town of St. George, like many communities along Maine’s coast, has lost much of its working space for fishing and other water-dependent industries. Its once-thriving seafood processing factories have closed, and the number of working docks has fallen from six to two. But now, the midcoast town is close to finishing a nearly-decade long project that should help to preserve what remains of the town’s accessible waterfront. It has been expanding and improving the public landing in the village of Port Clyde that has been in use since the 1960s. When the project is done — likely in June — it will nearly double the existing wharf space and give the landing an expected lifespan of 75 years.

December floods expose weaknesses in county notification systems

MAINE MONITOR • February 3, 2024

Franklin County officials are strategizing how to streamline resources and more quickly warn residents of impending flood hazards. “Locally, we don’t have any real instant notification to the public at all. We don’t have a software, (nor) social media page,” Farmington Town Manager Erica LaCroix said. “We have a website but it’s not updated in real time. So we were pretty much only able to notify people as they called in.’” Absent an emergency alert system, Farmington police officers and firefighters went door to door, warning businesses they should close and evacuate. “Those are things we can definitely improve on, because we don’t have that type of (notification system),” Fire Department Chief Tim Hardy said.

Washington County mitigation plans being eyed after storms

MAINE MONITOR • February 3, 2024

It’s not just a matter of sea level rise, although that is happening in the Gulf of Maine “faster than 99% of all the rest of the world’s oceans,” said said Tora Johnson, geographic researcher and codirector of the Sustainable Prosperity Initiative at the Sunrise County Economic Council. It’s the increasing frequency and intensity of the storms fueled by human-caused climate change that are the problem. It’s the type of storm, too. Whereas Maine is accustomed to northeasters, which travel along the coast carrying high winds and precipitation, the recent storms came from the southeast and pushed coastal waters inland.