Column: Departures and Arrivals

BOOTHBAY REGISTER • May 1, 2024

We’ve been serenaded most mornings this week by a loud, whistled “Old Sam Peabody-Peabody-Peabody”—the sweet sound of a white-throated sparrow tuning up the song that he will soon be singing incessantly from the depths of an opening in a fragrant spruce-fir forest somewhere farther north. Over the weekend, we were delighted at Pemaquid Harbor to hear the wonderful cacophony of a newly arrived flock of laughing gulls cavorting along the shore. Across the way in a little strip of muddy shore and saltmarsh were four greater yellowlegs. We were surprised to see a number of Arctic and Boreal breeding ducks that hadn’t left their Maine coast wintering grounds yet. Brunswick blessed us with the clear, whistled song of an eastern meadowlark. While walking the dog last week we heard an exuberantly singing pine siskin. ~ Jeffrey V. Wells and Allison Childs Wells

Sappi’s $418 million expansion of Skowhegan mill continues on schedule

MORNING SENTINEL • April 30, 2024

Sappi North America’s $418 million expansion of its Somerset Mill in Skowhegan to increase capacity on the machine to produce solid bleached sulfate paperboard products is continuing on schedule. The switch is part of the company’s efforts to reduce its reliance on other paper products. The mill employs about 754 people. The expansion will add a “modest” number of new jobs. Sappi also operates mills in Westbrook, Maine; Cloquet, Minnesota; and Matane, Quebec. Maine’s forest products industry has seen change. TimberHP brought back manufacturing to the Madison Paper Industries mill that closed in 2016. In Jay, a company that manufactures a product similar to particleboard announced in March its plans to reopen the former Androscoggin Mill, which stopped producing paper in March 2023. Later that month, ND Paper in Rumford announced it planned to temporarily shut down one of its papermaking machines.

Eight areas in the Gulf of Maine chosen as possible lease sites for commercial offshore wind

MAINE PUBLIC • April 30, 2024

The federal government is proposing eight areas in the Gulf of Maine as possible sites for commercial offshore wind farms. The proposed lease areas cover about 1 million acres and have the potential to generate 15 gigawatts of energy, enough to power five million homes, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said Tuesday. Two of the sites, encompassing nearly 254,000 acres, are off the Maine coast.

Column: Humans are right to help, but some species’ extinctions are natural

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 29, 2024

I was idly through the pages of a textbook on historical geology, and chanced on this passage: “The pattern we see in the fossil record is not one of continuous diversification with new species being added, but none ever removed. Instead, the average species lasts a few million years, and then vanishes forever from the face of the planet. It goes extinct.” Human beings are uncomfortable with this fact, because we feel guilty for accelerating the extinction of so many other species. It’s a much bigger deal when an entire existing ecosystem threatens to go extinct, but the first such event is now knocking at our door: the mass death of the coral reefs. ~ Gwynne Dyer

Opinion: Veto of farmworker bill thwarts the wishes of Mainers

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 30, 2024

Gov. Janet Mills killed two bills that would have improved the lives of farmworkers in Maine, the people who put the food on our tables. Maine’s governor chose the anniversary of his death to veto L.D. 2273, the governor’s own bill, and the product of a committee she created because she claimed to believe that farmworkers deserve a fair wage. Mills’ veto demonstrates otherwise. This marks the fourth time in a span of 27 months that Maine’s governor has vetoed bills that would have improved the lives of the people who help feed us; the fourth time that Mills has told farmworkers, with her actions, I don’t see you and I don’t care about you. ~ Former Rep. Thom Harnett

Column: The latest Allagash controversy all began with money

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 30, 2024

Money, especially large amounts of it, has a way of imposing change. The Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands, which has a bundle of “free” money from the Feds, is planning to construct some new storage buildings in the Allagash Wilderness Waterway and purchase a large boat with muscle outboards and some new American with Disabilities Act-compliant stations. An opposition group, Citizens for Keeping the Wild in Allagash, argue that all of this planned construction does not comply with the spirit of the mandate to keep the Waterway wild. This is a difficult issue, one rooted in the age-old conflict between progress and the natural environment. And the most difficult and delicate of all, accessibility for the disabled. ~ V. Paul Reynolds

‘Relatively cool’ year in Gulf of Maine still 5th hottest on record

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 29, 2024

Last year was the fifth hottest year on record in the Gulf of Maine, continuing a trend that makes it one of the fastest-warming bodies of ocean on Earth, according to the latest annual report from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. Late winter and spring 2023 saw record-setting sea surface temperatures about five degrees above the climatological average. The second half of the year was relatively cool, thanks partly to the mixing effect of a passing storm, and much closer to long-term normals.

Mainers arrested in Canada on suspicion of poaching baby eels

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 29, 2024

Five Maine residents were arrested in Nova Scotia last week for allegedly poaching baby eels, also known as elvers, according to Canadian officials. The names of the Mainers were not included in an announcement by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the agency that regulates the country’s commercial fishing. Worth thousands of dollars per pound, elvers are caught when they migrate in the spring from oceans to freshwater upstream. Maine’s elver fishery, which is tightly regulated, legally generates roughly $20 million in annual revenue for licensed fishermen.

Maine teen kills 2 turkeys with 1 shot on youth day

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 29, 2024

The Harris family of Dixmont are deer hunters. At least until Alex,13, killed two turkeys with one shot on youth day Saturday. Now his parents Andrew and Melanie Harris want to learn turkey hunting too. The successful hunt was made possible by Moose Maine Kids, a nonprofit organization whose volunteers give kids who want to learn to hunt opportunities to do that.

Valued in the millions, Swans Island fishing wharf damaged by January storms is up at auction

MAINE PUBLIC • April 29, 2024

A working waterfront property on Swans Island damaged by the January storms is now up for auction. The owners of Kent’s Wharf value the business and property to be worth $2.9 million, setting the minimum bid at $1.4 million. Beyond selling fuel and bait, Kent’s Wharf operates as a middleman for commercial fishermen — buying their lobster catch and selling to seafood retailers. Shelton said the wharf serves about half of the island's commercial fishermen. During the January storms, the high sea levels lifted one of the docks at Kent's Wharf off its pylons and onto its side. The wharf’s owners successfully applied for a $5,000 grant from the Island Institute and have since made the repairs.

Bath ospreys snub CMP’s new perch, advocate calls for pole barrier removal

TIMES RECORD • April 29, 2024

Central Maine Power is facing a fresh round of backlash as a mating pair of ospreys have tried and failed repeatedly to nest atop a utility pole alone Route 1 after CMP removed the nest, fearing the birds or nest could damage the lines and knock out power to the area. The utility added yellow pylon-like barriers atop the utility pole to try to deter the raptors from rebuilding, but the pair has attempted numerous times to build in between the barriers.

Electricity Maine could pay up to $5 million in refunds to customers in a proposed settlement

MAINE PUBLIC • April 29, 2024

Electricity Maine would be required to issue up to $5 million in refunds to customers, under a proposed settlement with the Maine Public Utilities Commission. The company, which offers an alternative to the state's "standard offer" for electricity supply, is under scrutiny for allegedly moving customers, without sufficient notice, from fixed to variable rates, and allegedly charging rates that caused some customers' bills to balloon by hundreds of dollars per month. A proposed stipulation between the company and PUC staff would require Electricity Maine to pay up to $5 million to refund about 18,000 current and former customers, and work to improve customer service moving forward. But the stipulation does not have support from Maine Public Advocate Bill Harwood. Harwood said the company needs to offer more money in refunds to customers, and also noted that the company has now repeatedly violated consumer protection rules.

Complaints of odors from Hartland Landfill linger as town works toward closure

MORNING SENTINEL • April 29, 2024

Some residents say town officials, along with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, do not do enough to mitigate the odors, respond to concerns and protect the landfill’s neighbors. Town officials, however, say they do what they can to keep odors contained and address complaints. And if the landfill is to be closed one day, which some neighbors hope will be sooner rather than later, the town must continue to operate the landfill to save millions of dollars needed to close the facility — a plan approved by voters. The DEP can take enforcement actions if there is sufficient evidence of a violation. But the department has not taken formal enforcement actions in relation to the Hartland Landfill in recent years.

Global negotiations on a treaty to end plastic pollution at critical phase

ASSOCIATED PRESS • April 29, 2024

For the first time, negotiators from most of the world’s nations are discussing the text of what is supposed to become a global treaty to end plastic pollution. Delegates and observers at the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution called it a welcome sign that talk has shifted from ideas to treaty language at this fourth of five scheduled plastics summits. Negotiators aim to conclude a treaty by the end of 2024

Christmas trees now helping restore Popham Beach sand dunes

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 29, 2024

Volunteers and workers have almost finished placing old, donated Christmas trees in rows along Popham Beach as part of an effort to restore sand dunes that were flattened by winter storms. In late March, they placed about 460 trees along the public beach in Phippsburg, creating three rows that totaled 1,560 feet in length. The team will add a fourth and final row in the weeks to come, after this month’s highest tides have passed.

Maine gets low marks for hurricane preparedness

MAINE PUBLIC • April 29, 2024

An insurance group reports Maine is falling behind in preparing for hurricanes.The Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety has issued its 5th "Rating The States" survey. It found Maine is now 14th among the 18 East Coast and Gulf Coast states that are at risk from the big storms. Its rating has slipped since 2012, when the Institute first rated the states. The institute's Managing Director of Standards and Analytics, Dr. Ian Giammanco, says since then, there have been two revisions to building standards that Maine has failed to adopt. Among the newer requirements: sealed roof decks.

Letter: Celebrate, rather than eat, lobsters

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 29, 2024

The second Annual Auburn Lobster Festival, set for May 11, should honor these magnificent, complex animals — not eat them. While lobsters look different from humans, they are intelligent animals that use complicated signals to explore their surroundings and establish social relationships. And just like people, lobsters have a sophisticated nervous system that enables them to feel pain. There is no humane way to kill these sensitive, fascinating beings. The lobster industry is also hazardous to the environment. Entanglement from lobster fishing gear is one of the biggest threats to aquatic life and our fragile ecosystem. ~ Scott Miller, The PETA Foundation

Column: Whitewater paddling is a challenging rite of spring

TIMES RECORD • April 28, 2024

During my half-century whitewater journey, I’ve experienced several transitions. Initially, my friends and I paddled long, awkward tandem canoes and wore inferior cold-water gear. Over time, most of us evolved into solo canoes and kayaks. We now wear dry suits, dry tops or wetsuits, and use state of the art whitewater equipment. For many years, our paddling skills reflected the improved quality of our outfitting. More recently, I’ve entered another stage in my paddling endeavors: old age. My skills have diminished, likewise my confidence. But I still love the sport. ~ Ron Chase