How to help prevent your pets from getting heat stroke this summer

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • June 17, 2024

Many common pets, like cats and dogs, don’t regulate their body heat the same way that humans do. And even if they did, they have a coat of fur they can’t shed easily. Because dogs pant to regulate their body heat, they will need adequate access to water throughout the day. Avoid leaving your animal unattended in a hot car. If you think your dog or cat is overheating, the first thing to do is to move them to a cooler place. To help your pet cool down, you can spray cool — but not cold or icy — water onto your pet’s fur, making sure that the water soaks into their coat down to the skin. If you’re unsure whether your pet has heat stroke, calling your vet is the best way to receive adequate care for your furry friend.

Maine's first electric trash truck takes to Portland streets

MAINE PUBLIC • June 17, 2024

A new electric trash truck, the first of its kind in Maine, is about to hit the streets of Portland. The super quiet Mack LRE Packer truck cost almost $684,000, nearly twice the cost of a diesel model. But the city said it will be cheaper to run because of lower maintenance and fuel costs. Portland has a goal of using 100% clean energy for operations by 2040. So far, it’s switched over some cars and pickup trucks to zero-emissions versions, but the trash truck is its first heavy duty electric vehicle. Portland will hold a naming contest for the new truck through June 30. The public will then have a chance to vote on the top five names for the vehicle.

Maine awards $2.4 million in grants for community climate projects

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • June 17, 2024

An additional 54 Maine communities will receive grants to help prepare for climate change and cut carbon emissions as part of a $2.4 million expansion of a state climate change response program. The funds will benefit projects across the state, including installing electric vehicle chargers and rebuilding roads vulnerable to storms, Gov. Janet Mills announced Monday. With extreme precipitation comes major flooding. The Maine Climate Council estimated in 2020 that climate-related flooding from overflowing rivers and streams could cause up to $2.4 billion in building damage alone.

Scientists criticize practices of shuttered Portland carbon-capture company

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • June 17, 2024

The Portland-based carbon-capture startup that shut down suddenly on Friday after gaining international praise is being criticized for dubious scientific claims and practices. Running Tide purported to deploy chunks of wood waste coated in limestone and kelp spores into the ocean near Iceland, where they would absorb carbon and sink to the seabed or be eaten by marine animals. The startup would then sell carbon credits to big companies to offset their emissions. Running Tide, which had raised more than $50 million from private investors, closed because it could no longer sell enough carbon credits to survive after the market collapsed last fall. “The methods used by Running Tide do not sequester any carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Zero,” said Jón Ólafsson, oceanographer and professor emeritus of the University of Iceland. “All this nonsense is for nothing.”

Record temperatures expected as heat wave blasts Maine

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • June 17, 2024

This week is going to be a scorcher. This summer might be hotter, too. Temperatures are forecasted to reach the upper 80s and mid-90s throughout nearly all of Maine, potentially setting records as a “heat dome” washes hot and humid air over New England, according to the National Weather Service. Experts say high temperatures this week are just the start of what is expected to be a warmer-than-average summer.

Letter: Stop removing dams

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • June 17, 2024

Over the recent years, we have lost many important industries and businesses in our state. A major reason for these labor-intensive businesses leaving Maine is the high cost of electricity. A major means of supplying electricity have been the dams with turbines. So what do we do? We tear out the dams so fish can go upstream. I think we need to stop doing this and put larger and more turbines at these dams. ~ Richard Leonard, Veazie

Letter: Save Sears Island

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • June 17, 2024

Mack Point should be reconsidered as the site for the proposed wind port. According to Sprague, new information is available from research and studies. Those who want to save Sears Island from the wind port construction that I believe would be the destruction of that beautiful local treasure sincerely hope that the state will do the responsible and reasonable thing. That they will take a good, strong look at what Sprague is offering. Someone in an impartial position needs to come to the table and study the facts. The new facts. If possible, let’s save Sears Island! ~ Sue Shaw, Penobscot

How to prepare your homestead for a heat wave

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • June 17, 2024

Temperatures will likely reach into the 90s across Maine for most of the week, creating stress for plants and livestock. You can manage the risk by keeping an eye on shade and water. Shade cloth may be the simplest way to protect your plants. Shade and fresh, cool water are key for animals. People are animals too, so we need to take precautions with the heat. If you can, work outside earlier in the morning or later in the evening, avoiding peak heat in the late afternoon. Drinking water is important.

Man drowns in Kennebec River while fishing with son on Father’s Day

MORNING SENTINEL • June 17, 2024

A man died after slipping and falling in the water while fishing in the Kennebec River with his son on Father’s Day, officials confirmed Monday. The man was fishing in the river but slipped and became weighed down as water filled his wader boots.

Maine’s piping plovers are adapting to washed-out beaches after winter storms

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • June 17, 2024

“Many of our beaches in southern Maine and beyond were hit very hard. It was concerning to me to see how much sand was lost,” said Laura Minich Zitske, director of Maine Audubon’s Piping Plover and Least Tern Project, which works to protect and conserve the rare shorebirds. “The plovers can be pretty resilient as long as they have that balance between sand and grass,” she said. Now that it’s prime plover season, it appears that the pairs nesting on around 30 beaches from Ogunquit to Reid State Park are faring well and adapting to the changes. For the first time ever, they have been found near Timber Point in Biddeford. They’ve also returned to two of the Casco Bay islands for the second consecutive year. There are now 75 active nests and at least 149 chicks.

Letter: Vandalism degrading Portland public park spaces

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • June 17, 2024

Now that the dog walkers have moved to the woods behind Evergreen Cemetery because of the leash law, we are experiencing a wave of vandals in Baxter Woods. Graffiti on a beautiful log, firecrackers, graffiti on a bridge and live trees – including a swastika. The reason this is occurring is that the people who love and use the park are being shut out by a nonsensical rule. Why would a 29-acre urban wood, surrounded by 11 other city parks that allow unleashed dogs in the most forested state in the union, need to restrict dogs? Allegedly, it is to protect birds, but that really doesn’t make sense. ~ John Schaberg, Portland

Maine’s latest emissions inventory

MAINE MONITOR • June 16, 2024

The state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) released its Tenth Biennial Report on Progress Toward Greenhouse Gas Reduction Goals this week. The previous edition ran through 2019; this one runs through 2021. The data shows Maine has officially met one of its short-term climate goals — reducing emissions 10% below 1990 levels by 2020. In fact, we’ve been exceeding that goal since 2016. The big targets enshrined in state law still lie ahead: becoming carbon neutral by 2045, and reducing emissions at least 45% below 1990 levels by 2030 and 80% by 2050. To that end, the DEP says Maine is 91% of the way to its carbon neutrality goal. Home energy use is still the second-biggest source of emissions in Maine after transportation, which accounts for nearly half of Maine’s carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels.

Hundreds of Maine households are stranded in ‘forever chemical’ limbo

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • June 16, 2024

About 500 Maine households rely on well water that is considered too contaminated to drink under new federal limits on forever chemicals – but not contaminated enough to qualify for state money to install the expensive filtration system needed to make it potable. And those are only the private wells that have been tested by the state. No one knows how many others there are that fall into the gray area between state and federal safety standards and have yet to be tested or aren’t located near a farm that used tainted sludge to fertilize its fields.

Lewiston-Auburn’s treatment plant turns 50. Its legacy: A cleaner, healthier Androscoggin River

SUN JOURNAL • June 16, 2024

50 years ago, the Androscoggin River was one of the most polluted rivers in the country — rated in the top 10 during the 1960s, where untreated sewage flowed into the river. A new wastewater treatment plant opened in Lewiston in March 1974 and helped transform the water quality of the Androscoggin River. Gone is the dark and brown foam, the odor and the toxic chemicals. There was not enough oxygen in the water to sustain fish. Reports of paint peeling on nearby buildings have not been heard in years. Facility leaders will soon change its name to the Lewiston Auburn Clean Water Authority to better reflect its role in cleaning up the river.

Hundreds of Maine households are stranded in ‘forever chemical’ limbo

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • June 16, 2024

About 500 Maine households rely on well water that is considered too contaminated to drink under new federal limits on forever chemicals – but not contaminated enough to qualify for state money to install the expensive filtration system needed to make it potable. And those are only the private wells that have been tested by the state. No one knows how many others there are that fall into the gray area between state and federal safety standards and have yet to be tested or aren’t located near a farm that used tainted sludge to fertilize its fields.

Column: Ethical questions will often arise with conservation efforts

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • June 16, 2024

Some species are declining due to the effects of human activities. To help those species, we need conservation actions. A recent article in Conservation Biology reviews the practice of killing gulls on offshore islands in the Gulf of Maine to protect nesting terns, whose eggs and chicks are subject to gull predation. The argument has been that gulls have increased unnaturally over the past century in the Gulf of Maine because of human impacts. The terns are doing poorly because of the increased gull numbers. The authors of a recent article in Conservation Biology dispute the narrative that gulls are overpopulated in the Gulf of Maine. They argue that gull removal is based on precarious reasoning and may be deterring conservationists from finding more effective ways to improve the plight of terns. ~ Herb Wilson

Column: Debsconeag camps a stunning example of remote Maine at its finest

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • June 16, 2024

Beginning around 1900, Pleasant Point Camps hosted visitors from Boston, New York, Philadelphia and the like, who traveled here by passenger train, boat, portage trail and canoe. These wealthy “rusticators” spent weeks at a time at the camps on Fourth Debsconeag, relaxing deep in the Maine woods, enjoying three square meals a day, fishing for trout and hunting deer. In 2006, the camps were sold to the Chewonki Foundation, an environmental education organization based in Wiscasset, which was looking for a remote site to operate a girls’ camp. Renamed the Debsconeag Lake Wilderness Camps, the facility sits on 11 acres leased from the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands, which owns the surrounding 43,000 acres of the Nahmakanta Public Lands in the heart of the 100-Mile Wilderness. ~ Carey Kish

Nature Connects: Investing in the path forward for Maine’s trails

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • June 16, 2024

From mountain biking to birding, hiking, ATVing, cross-country skiing, commuting, snowmobiling or simply walking, trails connect Mainers with the outdoors. They promote physical activity while immersing us in Maine’s stunning and diverse landscapes. Maine’s trails are a critical component of our outdoor recreation industry, which contributed $3.3 billion to Maine’s economy in 2022 alone. That’s nearly 4% of the state’s GDP. Trails help preserve fragile ecosystems, allowing locals and visitors to experience nature while limiting our physical impacts and inspiring environmental stewards of all ages. Organizations and trail supporters statewide support the Maine Trails Bond, which would authorize $30 million over four years to support the design, development and maintenance of motorized, nonmotorized and multiuse trails throughout the state. ~ Pete Didisheim, Natural Resources Council of Maine, and Gabe Perkins, Maine Trails Coalition and Inland Woods + Trails

Maine vegetable breeder remembered as a generous teacher

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • June 16, 2024

A Maine man who left a significant mark on farms, gardens, plants, seeds and the people who grow them across the country died on June 1 at age 69. John Navazio of Belfast, a plant breeder, professor and author, is remembered by family and colleagues as an enthusiastic resource for organic growers. He spent the past decade as the plant breeding manager for Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Winslow. He previously worked for the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor and universities and seed companies across the country.