Task force being set up to find out why Maine dairy farms are dwindling

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 3, 2024

Maine has lost one-third of its commercial dairy farms since 2020, leaving 145 conventional and organic dairy farmers struggling to operate amid rising costs, shifting market forces and climate change. To help stem the losses in Maine, Gov. Janet Mills signed emergency legislation last week to set up a task force that will study the challenges facing the state’s commercial dairy farmers and recommend ways to support the long-term sustainability of the industry by the start of next year.

Letter: Solving climate change with facts

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 3, 2024

The PROVE IT Act (S. 1863), which Sen. Angus King co-sponsors, would measure the carbon intensity of certain goods, help the U.S. negotiate effectively with our trading partners, and build on bipartisan momentum to act on global carbon pollution. I strongly encourage anybody who supports this type of legislation to contact their representatives in Congress and voice their support. We can’t solve this problem without the facts. ~ Hunter Kissam, Lewiston

Forestry experts work to prevent pine-killing beetle from infesting Maine

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 3, 2024

A beetle half the size of a grain of rice, pushed north by a warming climate, is prompting foresters to take action to protect the Waterboro Pine Barrens, which span Newfield, Shapleigh and Waterboro. The pitch pines there are favorite eating and breeding grounds for the southern pine beetles, first found in York County in 2021. The beetles can marshal into swarms that attack and tunnel through pitch pines, choking off nourishment and killing them within weeks. They already have killed thousands of acres of pine forest in the southern United States and on Long Island, New York. They have been spotted on Cape Cod in their move north but remain scarce in Maine, with no infestations reported yet.

New developers propose tidal power project on Cobscook Bay

MAINE PUBLIC • April 2, 2024

Another developer wants to construct a tidal power dam at the mouth of the Cobscook Bay to generate renewable energy. Pembroke Tidal Power Project LLC, a subsidiary of Nestar Energy, filed preliminary federal permit applications last month for a tidal power plant on the Pennamaquan River near Pembroke. It's not the first time that tidal power has been pursued in the region. The Ocean Renewable Power Company tried unsuccessfully with underwater turbines more than a decade ago. The company has since resumed testing in Eastport and Lubec.

Biden administration official touts Maine's expanding EV charging network

MAINE PUBLIC • April 2, 2024

Federal Highway Administrator Shailen Bhatt was in Maine Tuesday to unveil five new federally funded high-speed EV chargers installed in the Hannaford Supermarket parking lot in Rockland. Bhatt used the press event to tout the progress made by the Biden Administration through the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program. Bhatt praised Maine for being a leader in the transition to electric vehicles, and for being one of five states to install NEVI-funded chargers.

Compromise calls for studying natural gas use in Maine, rather than restricting it

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 2, 2024

The Maine House approved compromise legislation Tuesday that would scale back a proposal to restrict natural gas expansion in the state and study its use instead, but it faced bipartisan criticism. The original legislation proposed a ban on gas companies charging ratepayers for construction and expansion of gas service mains and gas service lines beginning Feb. 1, 2025. Instead, business and residential customers that benefit from new gas mains and service lines would have been required to pay the costs. Environmentalists had said the measure is necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The measure drew opposition from gas utilities and their business group allies, prompting the utilities, environmentalists, consumer advocates and others to negotiate a measure calling for studies.

Letter: Mack Point for offshore wind

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 1, 2024

Given our energy predicament, some environmentalists and others advocate “saying yes” to constructing the port on Sears Island, despite inevitable degradation of a special island. I think this sobering choice would be defensible if it actually was the only viable option. It isn’t. I support offshore wind energy, but instead say “yes” to neighboring Mack Point as the best port terminal location. That means in this case “Yes, In My Backyard.” Let’s bring the jobs and the port to Mack Point!  ~ Michael Bowe, Belfast

Maine could get $30M to improve its vast trail system

ASSOCIATED PRESS • April 1, 2024

Maine’s beloved outdoor trail network could receive millions of dollars of improvements under a proposal conservationists have asked lawmakers to put before voters. The state has long been a destination for hikers, cyclists, snowshoers and other outdoor adventurers, and the state has more than 14,000 miles of snowmobile trails alone. A proposal before the Maine Legislature would ask voters to approve $30 million in public money for the design, development and maintenance of both motorized and nonmotorized trails.

Opinion: Maine’s PFAS law should not be weakened

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 1, 2024

In a recent column published in the Bangor Daily News, F-gas producer Honeywell argued for a false choice between making climate progress or protecting our drinking water safety from PFAS pollution. Safer alternatives that are both PFAS free and climate friendly are available. ~ Mike Belliveau, Defend Our Health

Column: A worrying climate anomaly

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 1, 2024

When there was strong warming on our planet (like at the end of the last Ice Age around 11,000 years ago), there were sudden big leaps in the global temperature. It wasn’t a smooth process at all. The worrisome part of the current warming is not just that it has given us the hottest year on record. We’ve been breaking old records for some time now, as you would expect when you keep putting 40 billion tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year. It’s the scale of the rise in temperature this year: two-tenths of a degree Celsius. Climate scientists are calling it an “anomaly,” which is not so much an explanation as an admission that they can’t explain it. Changes in average global temperature from one year to another tend to be quite small. This one is gigantic. ~ Gwynne Dyer

Greenville cautions eclipse visitors to stay off the lake

MAINE PUBLIC • April 1, 2024

Town officials in Greenville are urging visitors to stay off Moosehead Lake if they're traveling to the region to view the upcoming total eclipse. Greenville Town Manager Mike Roy says the conditions on the lake vary. "It's a wide-open space and it looks like a field right now, because it's covered with snow. And you know, we're projected at 30,000 people, and if we have 3,000 out there on the ice in one area and then it collapses, that's a huge concern for us," he says.

Maine isn’t prepared for a huge threat to its fishing industry

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 1, 2024

Dozens of commercial and public piers along Maine’s coast were damaged in the twin storms on Jan. 10 and 13, delivering a serious blow to a billion dollar fishing industry that depends on such access points for bringing hundreds of millions of pounds of seafood ashore each year. Some pier owners are now scrambling to get repairs done before the approaching summer lobster season. Others aren’t sure they’ll be able to find the money to rebuild, or whether they should even bother. Climate change has forced many working waterfronts to make decisions, balancing the urgent need to reopen against the longer term demand for structures that can withstand rising seas and intensifying storms. State, federal and nonprofit programs are offering some help with the recovery. But as bigger storms become more common, this year has demonstrated that the present resources won’t be enough for struggling fishing operations. Insurance has not covered much of the destruction, and other help has been slow to arrive.

Snowmobile registrations are the lowest in 8 years

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 1, 2024

Late season snow hasn’t bailed out Maine’s beleaguered snowmobile season, as rains and wind melt the state’s white gold. Maine has had a tough winter for snowmobiling. Between the wind and rain storms in December and early 2024 that devastated trails, the warmer-than-normal temperatures and the sporadic snowfall all winter, the number of residents who chose to register their snowmobiles this year decreased nearly 10,000 from last year. Resident registrations in 2023-24 totaled 46,813, while nonresidents purchased 20,765,

Lack of snow takes pressure off Maine’s plowing budgets, workforce

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • March 31, 2024

State agencies and municipal public works departments saved money allocated for snowstorm response, but diverted some of that to deal with major flooding in December and January.

Mild winter takes a toll on Maine’s outdoor sports, seasonal economy

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • March 31, 2024

Maine’s increasingly warm and snowless winters have been challenging for winter-reliant businesses and communities. And the 2023-24 season was especially tough for many. Thin ice frustrated pond hockey leagues and ice-fishing derbies, winter rainstorms damaged ski resort infrastructure, and the lack of snow led to the cancellation of Can-Am Crown, New England’s marquee dog sledding race. But it probably hit Maine’s snowmobile industry hardest.

The winter that wasn’t: Climate change is transforming Maine’s coldest season

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • March 31, 2024

Maine is closing the books on one of the warmest and least snowy winters on record. But it’s increasingly feeling like the new normal. “The long-term trend is clear: The winters are much warmer than they used to be,” said state climatologist Sean Birkel of University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute. “Our winters look and feel different: more rain, less snow, more bare ground, earlier ice outs.”

Column: Spring snowstorm results in rare bird sightings

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • March 31, 2024

What happens to migrating birds in snowstorms? In the days following the storm there are so many blackbirds and sparrows in the state, and many of these are southern migrants that had been returning in the weeks leading up to the storm. They were happy to turn to readily available food at bird feeders. In the same vein of fox sparrows being forced to bird feeders, it is also interesting to see how detections of rare birds also increase following these storms. It is way too early to try to quantify any of the effects of this past storm on wildlife, and it’s a good reminder that readers should always contribute data. Backyard bird observations can go into databases like Cornell’s eBird and sightings of other wildlife can go into iNaturalist. ~ Maine Audubon Staff Naturalist Doug Hitchcox

Frustration reigns as a warm winter melted hopes for outdoor Maine pursuits

SUN JOURNAL • March 31, 2024

Lake Auburn saw ice-out March 12, the earliest ever recorded since 1836. There were about 55 days between ice-in and ice-out this winter, which is also the shortest duration of ice cover since ice-in information started being recorded in 1953. Maine’s overall average daily temperature, December 2023 through February 2024, was 5.8 degrees warmer than normal at 24.2 degrees. It was the warmest winter recorded for the northern region of the state. This warming trend was largely due to three factors: An El Nino weather pattern, the earth’s natural fluctuations in weather patterns, and climate change, according to Ivan Fernandez, professor emeritus and climate research scientist at the University of Maine in Orono. The result was less snow and lake ice, limiting Maine’s traditional outdoor activities including, skiing, snowmobiling and ice fishing.

Nearly 13,000 remain without power after strong winds hammer Maine

CBS 13 • March 30, 2024

Thousands of Central Maine Power customers are still without power Saturday after high winds took out power lines. CMP reports nearly 13,000 outages and told CBS 13 that the outages tied to fresh tree damage, running mostly from the Midcoast north toward the Augusta area. Those are areas that saw rain, saturated ground and strong winds Friday night.

Committee approves mining law changes

MAINE MONITOR • March 30, 2024

An initial group of lawmakers unanimously signed off on changes to the state’s mining act this week that could make it easier to mine for lithium, a highly sought metal used in everything from truck grease to touch screens. The rule changes, which staff at the Maine Department of Environmental Protection have worked on since late last year, will allow the extraction of certain metallic minerals to be exempt from the state’s stringent mining regulations so long as a mining operation can prove that getting them out won’t pollute the nearby environment.