The most comprehensive online source of conservation news and events in Maine and beyond, edited by Jym St. Pierre
ASSOCIATED PRESS • April 23, 2024
The world’s largest 3D printer has created a house that can cut construction time and labor. An even larger printer unveiled Tuesday may one day create entire neighborhoods. The machine revealed Tuesday at the University of Maine is four times larger than the first one – commissioned less than five years ago. Researchers plan to tinker with the material consumed by the machine, including more bio-based feedstocks from wood residuals that are abundant in Maine.
SUN JOURNAL • April 22, 2024
The owner of a large parcel between Gracelawn Road and Lake Auburn has scrapped plans to develop the site into housing. At one time, property owner John Gendron eyed a 1,100-unit development on the 88-acre site, but the proposal set off a communitywide debate over water quality that included a lawsuit between Lewiston and the Auburn Water District. According to Eric Cousens, director of planning and permitting, Gendron has decided not to pursue a housing project at the site, and plans to continue with a gravel mining operation for the foreseeable future.
MAINE PUBLIC • April 22, 2024
The state of Maine will receive about $10.5 million in federal infrastructure funds to preserve saltwater marshes and repair aging culverts. The announcement came on Earth Day, and in the aftermath of three severe winter storms that Mainers are still recovering from. The Maine projects are among 30 coastal restoration awards announced Monday by the White House and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 22, 2024
aine will receive $62 million in federal funding to help extend solar power access to low-income and disadvantaged communities. Maine is looking to bring solar power to more homeowners and renters in all parts of the state. The funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would reduce financial barriers to rooftop solar panels by providing incentives for residential solar and energy storage.
MAINE MORNING STAR • April 22, 2024
Maine is receiving $62 million from the federal government to bring solar energy to low-income households, reduce energy costs and create more jobs. Maine was one of 60 projects to receive this funding through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Solar for All competition, which expands residential or community solar programs and is funded through the Inflation Reduction Act. The state’s applicationincluded incentives for rooftop solar storage and technical assistance for cooperatively owned solar operations.
MAINE PUBLIC • April 22, 2024
The Center for Biological Diversity has filed a petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to put the saltmarsh sparrow on the Endangered Species list. The Center's Stephanie Kurose said the saltmarsh sparrow only breeds in salt marshes in the Northeast, and has been in rapid decline since the late 1990s. "We've lost 87% of the population during that time," she said. "The main threat to these birds is sea level rise, but also coastal development."
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 22, 2024
A group of federal officials is visiting Scarborough today to announce $123 million in funding for coastal habitat restoration and conservation to increase community resilience to climate change, including $10.6 million for local projects in Brunswick, Scarborough, and Wells. The local projects include:
$1.4 million to restore degraded areas, improve public access and allow for inland migration of Scarborough Marsh.
$4.5 million to replace aging, undersized culverts that restrict tidal flow and fish passage in Brunswick and Perry.
$2.9 million to restore tidal hydrology and allow for marsh migration in Wells.
E&E NEWS • April 22, 2024
President Joe Biden is struggling to regain his popularity with young voters who helped put him in the White House in 2020. A group of youth climate activists say they have an answer to the president’s dilemma: Biden’s Department of Justice needs to drop its opposition to a long-running lawsuit that seeks to curb the U.S. government’s reliance on fossil fuels. “It’s a mistake for the Department of Justice to take this position in an election year, especially when young voters continue to be more and more disenchanted with the current administration and the permitting of big fossil fuel projects,” said Mat dos Santos, general counsel of Our Children’s Trust, the law firm that represents young climate activists in Juliana v. United States. “This is an opportunity for the administration to do right by young people.”
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 22, 2024
Three environmental groups have sued Maine over allegedly failing to act on climate change. That comes as the state marks Earth Day and after a winter that saw intense storms batter the state from end to end. The lawsuit, which the Conservation Law Foundation, Maine Youth Action and Sierra Club filed against the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, alleges that the state is failing to act on a 2019 statutory goal to reduce carbon emissions by 45 percent of 1990 levels by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050.
MAINE PUBLIC • April 22, 2024
The Maine Governor's Energy Office is one of 60 recipients of the Biden administration's Solar for All grants. The grants announced Monday in honor of Earth Day are intended to expand accessibility to clean energy for low- and moderate-income Americans. Maine will use its share of $5.5 billion in grants to facilitate single- and multi-family on-site solar programs and support cooperatively owned community solar.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 22, 2024
As longtime environmental organizers and activists, we hope this Earth Day will mark the beginning of improved outcomes at the Juniper Ridge Landfill. Current management operations by Casella Waste Systems are squandering Juniper Ridge’s disposal capacity and threatening public health and the environment. It’s time for the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and Bureau of General Services to stop Casella from gaming the system. ~ Bill Lippincott and Ed Spencerare, Don’t Waste ME
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 22, 2024
The planet is experiencing a horrifying streak of record-breaking heat, with March marking the 10th month in a row that the average global temperature has been the highest ever recorded. It would be shocking if it wasn’t so predictable. Despite everything we know about the effects of burning fossil fuels, humanity is still going in the wrong direction with self-destructive abandon. If 10 months of record heat isn’t enough to jolt world leaders into crisis mode, it’s hard to say what will. The stakes are especially high this year. A former president who has arguably the worst climate record in U.S. history, having rolled back more than 100 environmental protections, is polling neck and neck with a president who has done more to fight climate change than anyone before him, even if it’s still not enough. ~ The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 22, 2024
There has been little sign of progress in the construction of a proposed salmon farm at the former paper mill in Bucksport, nearly five full years after the project was fully permitted by state and local officials. In 2019, Whole Oceans was approved by Bucksport officials and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection to build a $250 million land-based fish farm on the site of the former Verso mill. Unlike some other fish farm proposals that have come to Maine in recent years and gotten bogged down by legal and other challenges, the Bucksport project was unique in that it faced minimal opposition along the way.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 22, 2024
The Hills to Sea Trails Coalition is working to fix a two-mile gap in its 47-mile system. The trail relies on the grace of more than 60 landowners, some of whom close their land to public access during hunting season in the fall, then reopen it. This year, one landowner did not reopen 2 miles of land to public access, according to Buck O’Herin, coordinator of the Hills to Sea Coalition and president of Midcoast Conservancy. He said the coalition is working to reconnect the trail, possibly rerouting it if necessary. ills to Sea, which runs from Unity Village to Belfast, is the third longest walking trail in Maine. Volunteers completed the trail in 2016 and it is free to the public to use.
MORNING SENTINEL • April 21, 2024
In Waterville, those who came to the Mid-Maine chapter of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby’s event helped to complete an interactive mural, titled “How Humanity Managed To Save the Planet,” with the help of Burnham-based artist Lucky Platt. a group of students from the Waterville Alternative High School worked with her to create imagery for the mural. Based on the students’ sketches, Platt drew them onto a 24-foot-long piece of paper. Those who came Sunday colored it, using markers, crayons and colored pencils.
MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • April 21, 2024
Last Sunday’s editorial, “Perfection is the enemy of our environment,” is misleading. All of the major environmental and conservation entities in Maine favor the development of offshore wind energy in the Gulf of Maine. While there is unanimity on that, some groups have serious doubts that Sears Island must be the place to support this development. A viable alternative, called Mack Point, exists onshore just a short distance from Sears Island. This was not even mentioned in the editorial. I do not accept that we must disrupt a functioning ecosystem and recreational destination on Sears Island while a suitable alternative exists. ~ David VonSeggern, Westbrook
MAINE MONITOR • April 21, 2024
Between 2021 and 2022, the amount of zinc released in Maine increased significantly, resulting in a net increase of the state’s overall release of TRI-listed chemicals. The source? Maine’s two largest paper and pulp mills: ND Paper in Rumford and Sappi North America’s Somerset Mill in Skowhegan. The mills increased their use of shredded tires as a fuel source to power operations. Burning tires and filtering the emissions produces a zinc-heavy ash. Because of its high zinc levels, which are especially harmful to aquatic life, the ash has to be disposed with special precautions to avoid it leaching into nearby water and soil or blowing away in the wind.
MAINE MONITOR • April 21, 2024
Monitoring weather and tides. Moving cars. Wearing boots. Adjusting business hours. Pumping water. Portland Pier offers an early glimpse of how thousands of coastal residents and business owners may have to cope with a rising sea in the years ahead. Maine has already experienced eight inches of sea-level rise over the last century, according to the Maine Climate Council. Based on projections, that rise is expected to reach an additional 1.5 feet by 2050. Measures such as raising buildings may be possible, but they are expensive and present technical challenges. Short of that, experts say, coastal Mainers will need to adapt to rising sea levels and — as shown on Portland Pier — learn to accommodate inevitable surges of water in their lives.
MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • April 21, 2024
Earth Day is well-timed in our corner of the world, as it occurs at the peak of spring. There’s a promise of rebirth and renewal, as plants leaf out and animals return or emerge from hibernation. Earth Day was born out of an environmental movement. This movement was perhaps given a big boost by Mainer Rachel Carson, whose 1962 book, “Silent Spring,” documented the devastating effect of the use of chemicals on many birds. There is no shortage of ways we can help improve the health of the earth and all of its creatures. We can recycle, grow native plants in our yards, and turn down the thermostat in our homes a few degrees. Earth Day should inspire us to do all we can to reduce the carbon emissions that are heating our planet. ~ Herb Wilson
MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • April 21, 2024
Here's a handy checklist to help you get ready prior to opening day. ~ Bob Humphrey
