Column: Time to really harness the strength of Maine’s largest waterfall

CENTRAL MAINE • April 21, 2024

Rumford Falls is the largest waterfall in the U.S. east of Niagara. Today, dams and canals divert the water from its natural pathway, and the highest part of the falls receives little to no water flow for most of the year. Originally built in the early 20th century to support a large pulp and paper mill, today the project is owned by Brookfield Renewable, a multibillion-dollar global energy company. The hydroelectricity generated is sold on the grid. Brookfield is undergoing relicensing by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Increasing natural water flows would enhance water quality, improve aquatic habitat, and support recreational fishing, whitewater rafting, hiking and nature viewing, all key revenue opportunities. To share your opinion on this issue with FERC, you can submit a comment online. Reference project number P-2333. ~ Steve Heinz, Maine Council of Trout Unlimited

Opinion: Marginalized communities need big environmental wins

TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY • April 21, 2024

For too long, communities of color have borne the brunt of environmental degradation, suffering the consequences of pollution and toxic industries that too often find their place in our neighborhoods. That’s why, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced its decision to limit tailpipe emissions and gas-powered cars, it was important to take a moment to celebrate this win — and to acknowledge how far we still have to go. ~ Russell Armstrong, Hip Hop Caucus

Listen to these coyotes talk

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 21, 2024

A coyote howls for a couple of major reasons. One is territorial, telling other coyotes that it’s staking out some turf and warning them to stay away. The other is to communicate with its family. In this video, courtesy of Dan Worcester, you can hear other coyotes answer the one featured here. Coyotes live in families that include a breeding male and female and whatever offspring have not ventured on their own, according to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Sometimes the male and female are mated for life and pup litters average four. Maine manages the eastern coyote as a furbearer that can be hunted or trapped.

Opinion: The truth about electric vehicles

SUN JOURNAL • April 21, 2024

Today, we’re seeing a vastly accelerating shift towards EVs in the national and global markets. We now have the rechargeable battery technology to make EVs not only more practical, but more economical and an answer to many existential problems of our time, like the climate crisis and detrimental public health impacts surrounding air pollution. The average EV on the market today has a range of about 240 miles on a full charge, so most people will have plenty to get through the day. Maine had 435 places you can charge your electric car in 2023. Maine has received a $15 million federal grant to install nearly 600 electric vehicle charging stations in more than 70 cities and towns. ~ Rev. Richard Killmer, Yarmouth; Amy Rogghe, a physician assistant and executive director of the Michigan Electric Vehicle Alliance

Four Kennebec River dams are up for relicensing

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 20, 2024

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which does the relicensing, released an Environmental Impact Statement in late March that recommends relicensing and amending the licenses to ensure upstream and downstream access for Atlantic salmon, alewife, blueback herring, American shad, American eel and sea lamprey, according to a filing by FERC. Brookfield White Pine Hydro LLC, which owns the dams along the Kennebec River, filed plans with FERC to protect Atlantic salmon, Atlantic sturgeon and shortnose sturgeon, which are threatened or endangered species. But the Natural Resources Council of Maine environmental group is criticizing the FERC for what it says are inadequate measures to protect wildlife.

Low water and high turnout marked the 57th Kenduskeag Canoe Race

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 20, 2024

Low water conditions, cold temperatures and a steady rain weren’t enough to dampen racer or “river vulture” turnout on Saturday for the 57th Kenduskeag Canoe Race that finished downtown, where the stream meets the Penobscot River. According to race officials, just about 742 racers took to 402 boats at the start of this year’s 16.5-mile race in Kenduskeag. Nearly all of them finished. Preliminary results indicate Trevor MacLean of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia once again had the fastest overall time, clocking in at 2 hours, 20 minutes. It’s the 18th time the solo kayaker has won the race.

Column: Memories of Joe Brennan from his old speechwriter

CENTRAL MAINE • April 20, 2024

In 1984 I went to work for Gov. Joe Brennan. Joe knew a little bit about courage. He faced down powerful paper companies and landowners to regain 600,000 acres of public lands. His administration succeeded in implementing game-changing ideas to protect rivers, reform education, protect public lands, create the Land for Maine’s Future program, create the Finance Authority of Maine, establish the HOME program, build fishing piers and cargo ports, institute home care for the elderly, and establish energy conservation programs. The Brennan Administration created the toolkit for modern state government. ~ Frank O’Hara, Hallowell

Togus Pond to receive dayslong chemical treatment in battle against algae

KENNEBEC JOURNAL • April 19, 2024

Togus Pond is about to undergo a chemical treatment to be dispersed from a barge, intended to prevent the popular body of water from turning green from algae blooms this summer. The lake will be treated with aluminum sulfate, or alum, by SOLitude Lake Management. The effort is organized and funded by the Worromontogus Lake Association to prevent algae blooms, which degrade water quality.

Biden administration restricts oil and gas leasing in 13 million acres of Alaska’s petroleum reserve

ASSOCIATED PRESS • April 19, 2024

The Biden administration said Friday it will restrict new oil and gas leasing on 13 million acres of a federal petroleum reserve in Alaska to help protect wildlife such as caribou and polar bears as the Arctic continues to warm. The decision – part of a yearslong fight over whether and how to develop the vast oil resources in the state – finalizes protections first proposed last year. A group of Republican lawmakers, led by Alaska U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, called it an “illegal” attack on the state’s economic lifeblood.

New Public Lands Actions Turn the Page on Decades of Conflict and Mismanagement

CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS •

The U.S. Department of the Interior is taking important steps to turn the corner on a long history of conflict and mismanagement of nearly 250 million acres of America’s public lands. Key actions include the BLM’s foundational new Public Lands Rule, as well as new policies supporting responsible clean energy growth, updated oil and gas requirements, and a new framework to better support outdoor recreation and visitation. Together, this set of commonsense but long-overdue actions will update the BLM’s public lands oversight role to fit the modern era, enabling the agency to responsibly steward public lands, waters, and wildlife for the long haul; meet the nation’s clean energy needs; expand outdoor recreation opportunities; and support rural economies.

How the Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race became the biggest of its kind in New England

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 19, 2024

The first running of the Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race came about because two friends thought it might be a fun idea to race canoes and kayaks in the spring of 1967. Little did founders Sonny Colburn and Lew Gilman know that 55 years later, the race would still be going strong. After years of high water and low, through sunny days and freak snowstorms, and even after 2020, when the pandemic forced the cancellation of the event for the first time in its history, the Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race will be run for the 57th time this Saturday.

Letter: Scrap plan for Gorham Connector

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 19, 2024

Scrap the plan to put a highway through Smiling Hill Farm. Urban sprawl is the result of continuous highway expansion. It is sad. As early as 1728, Nathaniel Knight built Harrow House, and his progeny have been protecting the property ever since. Knight was a person of great influence in the “mast trade” and worked with George Tate during the Colonial period, when the British were desperate for masts for the Royal Navy. Also, in 1976, archaeologists found Col. Westbrook’s grave on Smiling Hill Farm. Please let Warren Knight continue to do what he has proven to do so well and conserve his family farm for future generations. ~ Mary Louise Sprague, Cape Elizabeth

Portland’s Amtrak station may move from Thompson’s Point

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 19, 2024

The operator of the Amtrak Downeaster hopes to increase the passenger train’s efficiency and appeal to travelers by building a new Portland station along the main rail line that runs from Boston to Brunswick. Passengers hope the new station will ease traveler and parking congestion where the Downeaster currently stops at the Portland Transportation Center, a facility owned by and shared with the Concord Coach Lines bus company. A new train station and platform would cost $25 million to $30 million and could be completed within five years.

Opinion: What if Portland became a bike town?

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 19, 2024

I’m selling my bike. Until I moved to Maine, biking from A to B was one of the great day-to-day pleasures of my life. I didn’t think Portland would take it from me; I was wrong. It’s really hard to bike in and around Portland. It shouldn’t be. The city is eminently bikeable. It’s packed with people who are physically active, environmentally minded and interested in using bikes to get around it. But the car is king, its reign tyrannical. It’s really hard to reconcile the nature of the place and its residents with the screaming lack of bikes. We need many more functioning bike lanes; we need to upgrade the uninviting public bike scheme, encouraging more willing people to take bikes around casually and intermittently; we need places to safely park bikes, of which there are very few; and we need PSAs to rouse inattentive motorists and pedestrians. ~ Siobhán Brett

Column: Arrival of certain spring birds coincides with Kenduskeag canoe race

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 19, 2024

I’ve been wondering for several years if Maine’s entire canoe racing schedule needs to be advanced a week. Snow melts sooner, if there’s any snow at all. If the arrival of yellow-rumped warblers is still going to coincide with Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race weekend, the day may be coming when the race is held on the second weekend of April. If so, you heard it here first. ~ Bob Duchesne

9 oceanside trails to try in Maine this spring

Patten can’t afford to repair national monument access roads

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 18, 2024

Increased traffic on roads leading to the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument is creating unsafe driving conditions and a financial hardship on Patten’s resources and infrastructure, officials said. The national monument directs visitors into the Seboeis Parcel of the 87,500-acre attraction in northern Penobscot County through four Patten roads that are deteriorating from the increased use. Depending on the level of repair or restoration, the project will cost between $16 million and $28 million, according to an engineering report.

Biden administration moves to make conservation an equal to industry on US lands

ASSOCIATED PRESS • April 18, 2024

The Biden administration on Thursday finalized a new rule for public land management that puts conservation on more equal footing with oil drilling, grazing and other extractive industries on vast government-owned properties. Officials pushed past strong opposition from private industry and Republican governors to adopt the proposal. GOP members of Congress said that they will seek to invalidate it. The rule from the Bureau of Land Management — which oversees more than 380,000 square miles of land — will allow public property to be leased for restoration in the same way that oil companies lease land for drilling. The rule also promotes the designation of more “areas of critical environmental concern” — a special status that can restrict development on land with historic or cultural significance or that’s important for wildlife conservation.

Booming cold drink sales means more plastic waste. So Starbucks redesigned its cups

ASSOCIATED PRESS • April 18, 2024

Booming sales of cold drinks at Starbucks has created a problem: growing amounts of plastic waste from the single-use cups that Frappuccinos, Refreshers, cold brews and other iced drinks are served in. The coffee giant said Thursday it plans to alleviate some of that waste with new disposable cups that contain up to 20% less plastic.