More young moose will likely survive this Maine winter

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 19, 2024

Winter ticks that plague juvenile moose are at one of the lowest levels researchers have seen in 11 years. It’s the second year in a row that the tick counts on moose have been relatively low. Animals with a high tick load can lose from 25-30 percent of their body weight during the winter months, because they spend their time scratching, trying to get rid of the biting beasts. The moose use energy rather than conserve it in the cold months, jeopardizing their overall health. Lee Kantar, Maine’s moose biologist, expects the moose population to increase, though the higher population of moose means more winter ticks. In 2023, 3,555 regular season permittees killed 2,279 moose. Adding in the adaptive hunt, the totals were 4,105 permittees who killed 2,440 moose, making the success 59 percent overall.

The stink is gone, but contamination questions plague Maine town

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 19, 2024

Soil Preparation Inc., a private Plymouth-based company, was bringing in out-of-state sludge and local waste to process into farmland fertilizer. In addition to spraying wastewater onto its property, the company also spread sludge on some 200 farm fields across Maine. Testing has shown it contained harmful chemicals and heavy metals in addition to organic nutrients. Today the plant is no longer accepting sludge. But residents of the small town of 1,300 people are left wondering about the possible contamination of the soil, wells and waterways, and frustrated that the state has not done more to investigate. They believe the town’s environment will suffer in the long run.

Why there are no dinosaur fossils in Maine

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 19, 2024

There aren’t any dinosaur fossils and almost no giant mammal fossils to be found in Maine. In fact, there aren’t any fossils to be found in Maine at all, dating from a period of about 360 million years ago until around 1 million years ago. Why? Almost all the fossils were scoured away by glaciers. Prior to that, Maine was subject to near-constant erosion for hundreds of millions of years. The “newer” fossils found in Maine tend to date from the last 12,000 years. They largely consist of shells of marine invertebrates, though a handful of whale, seal and walrus fossils have also been found — as well as a  wooly mammoth tooth found off the coast of Scarborough in 1959, and a mastodon tusk found off of Cushing in 2006. There probably were dinosaurs roaming what is now Maine, but all the evidence was scoured away by the slow march of geologic time.

Letter: Misguided economic policies

DAILY BULLDOG • February 19, 2024

Regarding the recent $4 million grant issued by Janet T. Mills to Kingfish Maine, is our governor really supporting yet another foreign company to siphon profits from Mainers? This grant reflects a fundamental problem with Maine’s economic development ‘strategy’. Kingfish Zeeland, located in the Netherlands, is the financially-troubled parent company being supported by Maine’s leaders to invade Downeast Maine. The proposed site in Jonesport will ‘recirculate’ 28 million gallons of Chandler Bay water per day, adding a one-ton splash of nitrogen and phosphorous per day along with an occasional dab of formalin. And this industrial complex will extract 43,200 gallons of fresh water per day from the aquifer. I am at a loss to understand the logic of this grant. ~ Richard Aishton, Steuben

Maine Forest Service offers $1 million in grants to expand urban tree canopy

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 18, 2024

The Maine Forest Service is offering $1 million in grants for projects that will help establish sustainable urban woodlands, increase awareness of the benefits of trees and enhance community health and livability. Funded through the federal Inflation Reduction Act, the service is offering $250,000 in Project Canopy grants and $750,000 in federal Urban and Community Forestry Program grants, according to the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry. Application deadline is May 15, 11:59 p.m.

Brunswick planning officials propose pause on fast-tracking major developments

TIMES RECORD • February 18, 2024

Brunswick planning officials have recommended the town pause fast-tracking large development projects amid a flurry of activity. Currently, developers of large projects in growth zones can apply to have their plans approved in a streamlined review process, a mechanism that was rarely used until late last year. Now, seven such projects have been approved, overwhelming staff and increasing the possibility of regulations being overlooked, according to planning officials.

State urges Winthrop, other school districts to take electric buses off the road due to defects

KENNEBEC JOURNAL • February 18, 2024

Electric school buses from Lion Electric Co. arrived with problems, reports say, and the Maine Department of Education is advising school districts take the buses off the road until the state can inspect them.  Inspection reports from the Maine Department of Public Safety, which routinely inspects school buses, indicate the buses in Winthrop and Vinalhaven show the kind of wear that’s consistent with older buses with higher mileage, not new buses that have yet to be driven 1,000 miles.

Letter: Focus on getting energy supply prices under control

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 18, 2024

I’m concerned about LD 2172, new legislation calling for the Maine Public Utilities Commission to use “performance based metrics and rate adjustment mechanisms.” To me, this disrupts a process to make utilities more accountable that began last legislative session and is barely underway. The PUC would also need to reconsider how the utilities are advancing the state’s climate goals at a time when so much of this work is already being done. The supply price of electricity is through the roof. Legislators should focus on how to get those costs under control. ~ Scott McIntire, Alna

Trump BLM chief: Let’s do away with Antiquities Act

E&E NEWS • February 6, 2024

A former Trump administration Interior Department official says the next Republican president should slash the footprint of national monuments from Maine to California, and press to bar future presidents from wielding executive power to protect federal lands. That proposal from William Perry Pendley — who led former President Donald Trump’s Bureau of Land Management despite never being confirmed to the post— could end up tested in the courts perhaps even before the next president takes office. “This is a full scale assault on America’s national monuments and all of our common natural heritage,” said Taylor McKinnon, with the Center Action Fund.

Letter: Maine should adopt clean car standards

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 18, 2024

It is time for Maine to step up and adopt stronger clean cars standards. We’ve always had strong emission standards, and we can’t afford to shy away from the EV transition while other states are moving forward. My family’s vehicles are fully electric. My wife commutes 25 miles each way to and from work and I drive in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York state for work. We have been able to get everywhere we need to go while saving money on fuel and maintenance costs. Charging at home is easy, and with no oil changes or engine problems. ~ Stefan Bergill, Woolwich

Column: Where is the Steller’s sea eagle?

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • February 18, 2024

We are passing through the time of the year when, in the last two years, the greater birding world was all aflutter because a Steller’s sea eagle was seen in Georgetown. Many people have been asking us this winter, and increasingly so as we pass through the anniversary of its sightings: Do we think it will come back, or where exactly it is now. We can assume the largest factor that determines where it decides to go is food availability. ~ Maine Audubon Staff Naturalist Doug Hitchcox

Putting a February weather rollercoaster in context

MAINE MONITOR • February 18, 2024

“Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get,” as some scientists have put it in the past. Maine has always seen a wide range of day-to-day conditions throughout its seasons. But if we zoom out and look at the trends among those anomalies and deviations, we see a clear pattern of warming, especially in winter.

Could a revamped Franklin Street once again anchor a lively Portland neighborhood?

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • February 18, 2024

The Franklin Street four-lane road that divides Portland’s peninsula once was part of a vibrant neighborhood populated by Scandinavian, Armenian and Jewish immigrants. Business owners lived above corner stores, kids played in the street, people walked and biked to work. Then, in the ’60s, as the nationwide push for urban renewal aimed to clear cities of their so-called decaying areas, the neighborhood was decimated to make room for the modern-day arterial and the large grassy median. In a few years, Franklin Street could become the center of a lively residential neighborhood again instead of just a wide urban thoroughfare people take to get in and out of the city. The street could be bustling with pedestrians and bikes instead of cars. New housing could rise over busy storefronts near the ample green space of an expanded Lincoln Park.

Canada jays a rare marvel in Maine

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • February 18, 2024

Maine is home, at least seasonally, to more than 300 species of birds. Of that total, slightly more than 200 nest here. Being an avid birder and field trip leader most of my adult life, I’m often asked to name my favorite birds. If I had a list, Canada jays would be in the top five. There isn’t another Maine bird more charming. ~ Ron Joseph

Editorial: Stubborn devotion to highway building must be stubbornly questioned

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • February 18, 2024

There are more effective solutions to vehicle congestion than road-building, which forces people into cars, drives sprawl, increases vehicle miles traveled and increases carbon emissions. Yes, these alternative solutions are all much harder to pull off. That doesn’t mean we can shirk the responsibility to try. Change like this requires bold visualization, insistence on new and unfamiliar standards of public service, and supportive infrastructure. We can achieve these things at a reasonable cost and with a critical return on that investment for the environment, community cohesion and sought-after population growth. Or we can pave yet more land and stay sitting in our cars.

Opinion: Gov. Baxter gave Maine much more than a park

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • February 18, 2024

Though Gov. Percival Baxter is remembered for his gifts of the park and the state school for the deaf, another contribution is worthy of special note. In the 1920s, Central Maine Power was probably the single greatest political force in Maine. The Legislature readily agreed with the utility’s demand to lease state land for a new storage dam without the state being paid anything. The legislative action had been obtained without CMP ever having talked with Baxter and the bill had passed by a veto-proof majority, composed almost entirely of members of his own party. Baxter was furious. His only recourse was to solicit signatures for a popular veto, which brought the president of CMP to his office, ready to make a deal. The people were relieved of some of their tax burden thanks to the foresight of a governor who not only opposed a land grab but put the people ahead of private interests. ~ Gordon L. Weil

Hear the vanishing sounds of Maine’s coast in this new exhibition

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 18, 2024

Maine Maritime Museum in Bath has just opened a new exhibit featuring rarely heard or appreciated sounds, called “Lost and Found: Sounds of the Maine Coast.” The sonic installation features recordings of swelling tides, rumbling lobster boats and distant, offshore bell buoys by Portland sound artist Dianne Ballon. The show also gives voice to some of the museum’s long-silent artifacts, including century-old, hand-cranked foghorns and shipboard bells from vessels scrapped decades ago.

Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery no longer listed as contaminated Superfund site

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 17, 2024

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has removed the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery from its National Priorities List of contaminated Superfund sites after 30 years of extensive remediation. Removal of contaminated soil, sediment and other hazardous materials at the 278-acre shipyard is complete, and no future remediation is required, the agency announced Friday. However, ongoing operation, maintenance, land use controls and monitoring activities will continue at the site as needed.

Maine among nine states pledging to boost heat pumps to 90% of home equipment sales by 2040

MAINE MORNING STAR • February 17, 2024

Environmental agencies in nine states will work together to reduce planet-warming carbon emissions by making electric heat pumps the norm for most new home HVAC equipment sales by 2040. The memorandum of understanding, spearheaded by the inter-agency nonprofit Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management, or NESCAUM, was released last week and signed by officials in California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Rhode Island. While it is not legally binding and does not commit particular funding, the agreement calls for heat pumps to make up 90% of residential heating, air conditioning and water heating sales in these states by 2040.

Column: Part of Acadia’s winter magic is ice climbing

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 17, 2024

Acadian winters have magic. Snow highlighted the peaks, ice lined the bays and the seeps and springs that trickled all summer were frozen solid. Ice flowed over rock in some places, while in others frigid water rolled halfheartedly down a mountainside before turning to temporary stone, freezing the roiling chaos of a waterfall in place. This is where the ice climbers come to play. If it calls to you, try it. There’s nothing quite like standing mid-waterfall, mid-winter. Everything is suspended — the ice, the waterfall, you between ax swings. All waiting to see what will happen next. Or, just go to Acadia. Have hot cocoa on Sand Beach (which is still very sandy after the storms if you were wondering), and laugh at how wild our world is. Laugh that there are people who find it fun to swing around on frozen falls. ~ Clark Tate