Storms, flooding heighten concerns about Maine’s stormwater pollution

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 11, 2024

Last year’s heavy rains flushed nearly 374 million gallons of raw storm and sewer water into Casco Bay, including from the devastating Dec. 18 storm that flooded western Maine communities at the upper edge of the watershed. It was the highest annual overflow into the 200-square-mile bay in five years – and that total does not even include the back-to-back January storms that inundated coastal communities with heavy rains, storm surge and damaging waves. Runoff and wastewater already contain high amounts of phosphorous, nitrogen, soot, pesticides and heat – not to mention sewage – that can harm water quality, aquatic life and the local economy. Heavy rains drive up the volume of the overflow, as well as the volume of pollutants.

Portland set to start ripping up parking to make way for waterfront park

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 12, 2024

Portland plans to start construction on a new waterfront park along Commercial Street within the year, bringing a green space to the area that many say the waterfront has been missing for too long.Ethan Hipple, the city’s director of parks, recreation and facilities, presented detailed plans for the park to the City Council last week. The design features a new, wider section of the Eastern Promenade trail stretching in a half-moon shape around a grassy open space. There will be shade trees, benches, native plants, a performance space and an area for food trucks to park.

Waterville Planning Board to consider solar ordinance revisions

MORNING SENTINEL • February 11, 2024

The Planning Board is scheduled Tuesday to consider revisions to the city’s zoning ordinance dealing with solar farms. There are five solar farms in the city and two informal solar farm requests. The City Council requested the Planning Board study the negative visual impacts of large-scale solar arrays and possible methods of mitigation, impacts to wildlife habitats, neighborhoods and outdoor recreational opportunities and runoff and erosion issues.

Monmouth mulls limiting access to town beach for nonresidents, nontaxpayers

KENNEBEC JOURNAL • February 11, 2024

Town officials are discussing restricting access to the town beach off Beach Road for people who do not reside or pay taxes in Monmouth. The proposed town beach ordinance, the details of which are not yet finalized, would bar nonresidents and nontaxpayers from going to the beach at Cochnewagon Lake unless they purchase a daily or weekly beach pass from the town office.

January storms leave many working waterfronts in Maine adrift

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • February 11, 2024

Jan. 10 and Jan. 13 storms battered Maine’s coastline with heavy rain, flooding, ocean swells, high tides and wind gusts of up to 60 mph. State and federal officials have been trying to get a better grasp of damage up and down the coast. The Maine Emergency Management Agency spent two weeks collecting details of the damage, and the state is now reviewing to understand the full scope. Nearly 1,200 businesses submitted damage reports from both January storms to MEMA that could help the state qualify for federal disaster relief. The Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association said its preliminary reporting suggests 60% of Maine’s working waterfront was either severely damaged or destroyed.

Tensions on Peaks Island: A road that never existed leads to fear about public access

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • February 11, 2024

A strip of land off Ryefield Street – a so-called paper street – has been the site of weddings, afternoon picnics and play dates for decades. But one island family has filed an ownership claim that others worry could cut the public off. The owners of 1 Ryefield say they have never tried to block anyone from the land and want to create a permanent public easement. They say they filed an ownership claim to the paper street next to their home as part of an agreement with the city to settle a problem with an unpermitted deck.Maine cities and towns were supposed to decide by 1997 whether they would accept paper roads that were recorded in subdivision plans before 1987, but the law allowed them to delay these decisions for a staggering 40 years. As a result, many municipalities, including Portland, have yet to take action on all of them.

Granite? Aluminum? Wood? Rethinking coastal infrastructure in the wake of January’s storms

MAINE MONITOR • February 11, 2024

Navigating the world of shoreland zoning is complicated on a good day. Now, engineers are trying to draft designs for new wharves, docks and piers that will make the infrastructure less vulnerable to rising seas and stronger storms while still meeting regulations set by communities, the Maine DEP and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. There also are practical constraints, like lobster fishermen who need docks to be at a certain level to be able to unload or load their traps. Many wharfs today are built at six feet above mean high tide, said Kenneth Knauer, a project manager with Prock Marine, but he is recommending upping that to eight feet, given the historic high tides seen in much of the state last month, which topped 14.5 feet in some places. 

Why this is one of the planetary shifts scientists are most worried about

WASHINGTON POST • February 10, 2024

A study, published Friday in the journal Science Advances, is the latest attempt to understand what scientists call the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC. Evidence from Earth’s past shows that this crucial and complex ocean system has shut down before, and modeling studies such as Van Westen’s suggest that it could happen again as human greenhouse gas emissions cause the planet to warm. The ocean might be on course for a “tipping point” ending in abrupt and irreversible change.

Milford man drowns after ATV breaks through ice on Spring River Lake

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 10, 2024

Floyd Hardison, 88, drowned after he spent Friday ice fishing with his son and two grandsons on Spring River Lake in Hancock County. After packing their gear, the group was riding back to their parked vehicles about 6 p.m. when the side-by-side ATV that Hardison was riding in broke through the ice. A grandson, who was driving, was able to free himself from the sinking ATV and get onto the ice, but Hardison was unable to get himself out.

Mills plans to accelerate $50 million relief proposal for storm-damaged Maine communities

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 10, 2024

Gov. Janet Mills hopes to accelerate her $50 million proposal to help Maine communities rebuild infrastructure and enhance climate resiliency in the wake of devastating, back-to-back-to-back winter rainstorms. Mills announced Friday that she plans to introduce legislation soon – separate from and in advance of the forthcoming supplemental budget – that will invest $50 million in the Maine Infrastructure Adaptation Fund.

Towns ask Legislature to give them ‘teeth’ to deal with violators of shoreland laws

SUN JOURNAL • February 10, 2024

Municipalities and environmental groups lined up behind a bill last week that would give towns more powers to handle landowners who flout state shoreland laws. The bill, L.D. 2101 sponsored by state Sen. Tim Nangle, D-Cumberland, would allow municipalities the authority to restrict, suspend or revoke any municipally issued permit to the owner of real estate who violates the state mandated Shoreland Zoning Ordinance. It would also allow municipalities and the Maine Land Use Planning Commission (LUPC) to place a lien against the real estate for all costs related to the ordinance violation incurred by the municipality. LUPC does the job of municipalities too small or remote to have employees or code enforcement.

Legislation that boosts access to railroad data leaves out the public

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 10, 2024

Maine lawmakers soon will vote on a bill that would require freight railroad companies to better inform state officials about hazardous materials that they are transporting through the state. The bill’s intent is to expand the types of information railroads are required to provide to the state so that emergency management and public safety agencies can better prepare for potential rail disasters. But the bill, L.D. 1937, has moved away from its original aim, which was to allow members of the public to access information about what hazardous materials are moving through their backyards.

Smiling Hill Farm could be a roadblock for preferred Gorham Connector route

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 9, 2024

The 500-acre, 13th-generation family operation in Westbrook wants to preserve the farmland and forest it has cultivated and harvested since 1720, but some of its woodland lies in the path of the Maine Turnpike Authority's proposed 4-lane highway. “Smiling Hill Farm has not agreed to sell any land to any entity,” Warren Knight said. “We’re not interested in making our farm smaller.”

Opinion: Maine must continue battling PFAS

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 10, 2024

In 2021, the Legislature passed groundbreaking, bipartisan legislation to ban all nonessential uses of PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” in products used in Maine, with the goal of preventing further contamination across the state and protecting the health and environment of all Mainers. L.D. 1503, which had unanimous support in committee and passed nearly unanimously in both the House and Senate, banned all nonessential uses of PFAS in Maine by 2030 and required companies that use PFAS in their products to report that information to the Maine DEP. Unfortunately, key provisions of that law are under attack by businesses and aligned opposition groups. Maine people have a right to know which companies are using these toxic chemicals in their products. ~ Rep. Lori Gramlich and Sen. Rick Bennett

Letter: Acid Ore Mines are Bad for Maine

DAILY BULLDOG • January 10, 2024

The Land Use Planning Commission (LUPC) is about to rule on whether an area on Pickett Mountain should be rezoned to allow mining by Wolfden Resources, a Canadian mining company. Wolfden has no experience operating a mine and their finances are unsure. Allowing such a company to mine in Maine could set a precedent that would allow other similar mining companies here. The zinc mine they are proposing is in a massive sulfide deposit. The sulfides in the ore form sulfuric acid when it gets wet causing highly toxic heavy metals, arsenic, antimony, etc. to be released as acid mine drainage. Why would we want to put our environment at risk just so foreign owned mining companies can set up here and make a lot of money? ~ Lindy Moceus, Vienna

Gov. Mills aims to fast-track storm relief funding

MAINE PUBLIC • February 9, 2024

The Mills administration hopes to fast-track a bill that would provide $50 million to communities to repair infrastructure damaged during recent storms. Gov. Janet Mills told lawmakers last weekduring her State of the State address that she would include the $50 million allocation in a larger budget bill. But lawmakers likely won't finalize that budget until spring. So on Friday, Mills' office said she would introduce a stand-alone bill that could move faster through the legislative process.

Maine will use $4.4 million in federal funds to strengthen electric grid vulnerable to extreme storms

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 9, 2024

Utilities, power generators and others can apply for funding to strengthen the state’s electric grid, which has been vulnerable to recent destructive storms, Gov. Janet Mills said Friday. The $4.4 million in federal funds awarded to Maine under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will pay for resilience projects. The goals are to increase resilience of the electric grid and reduce the frequency and duration of power outages. The grants also aim to improve clean energy workforce opportunities and meet electric grid modernization and state climate policy objectives.

Maine Calling: Snowshoeing

MAINE PUBLIC • February 9, 2024

Norway, Maine, was once known as The Snowshoe Capital of America. Learn about the history of the snowshoe, how they’re made, where to go snowshoeing in Maine – and why this remains such a beloved wintertime activity in Maine. Panelists: Lee Dassler, Western Foothills Land Trust, which hold the annual Snowshoe Festival in Norway, Maine; Erika Johnson, Maine Huts & Trails; Brian J. Theriault, master snowshoe maker, Theriault’s Snowshoes, in Fort Kent.

Learn How to Be a Better Birder with Maine Expert Derek Lovitch

DOWN EAST magazine • February 2024

Derek Lovitch has made a career out of his lifelong passion for birds. After graduating with a degree in environmental policy from Rutgers University, he worked in avian research and education projects in nine states, from New Jersey to Hawaii, Florida to Michigan. He also spent three summers as a tour guide on Alaska’s Pribilof Islands, serving as tour director in 2003 and conducting the first comprehensive Fall Avian Survey in the islands’ history. Derek and his wife, Jeannette, live in Durham, where they own and operate Freeport Wild Bird Supply, a retail store that caters to birders of all levels. The store serves as a vehicle for Derek to continue sharing his enthusiasm for birding, birds, and bird conservation. We talked with Derek to get more insight into his birding background and some of his favorite spots to go bird-watching.

Opinion: The Katahdin region is sacred and is no place for a mine

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 8, 2024

Our homelands are at risk. The lands of our ancestors — where our people have been stewards for thousands of years — face an urgent threat from Wolfden Resources’ proposed mine. The company is seeking to rezone lands near Pickett Mountain in the Katahdin region and move forward with its controversial mining operation. Wolfden has shown blatant disrespect for the Wabanaki Nations. Do we really want to risk a place as special as this on an unproven company making grandiose promises? The Penobscot Nation, alongside our brothers and sisters in the Wabanaki Confederacy, continues to stand in firm opposition to this unproven mining company’s proposal. ~ Maulian Bryant, Penobscot Nation tribal ambassador