Wabanaki Nations, allies celebrate progress in continued fight for sovereignty

MAINE MORNING STAR • July 12, 2024

Three people were honored Thursday at the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor at Nihkaniyane, the second year that members of the Wabanaki Alliance and allies have come together to recognize the coalition’s work and the relationships that make it possible: Carol Wishcamper, a founding supporter of the Wabanaki Alliance; Rena Newell, former Passamaquoddy Tribal Representative to the state Legislature and former chief of the reservation at Sipayik; and Beth Ahearn, who this year retired as director of government affairs for Maine Conservation Voters, one of the earliest members of the Wabanaki Alliance.

Fishermen sentenced in multi-year commercial herring scheme

MAINE PUBLIC • July 12, 2024

Nine people, including eight from Maine and one from New Hampshire, have been sentenced in a long-running commercial fishing scheme. The fishermen pled guilty to underreporting their catch of Atlantic herring, a popular lobster bait, according to U.S. attorneys. Federal officials said that in a three-year scheme, the owner, captain and crew of a Rockland-based commercial fishing vessel known as the Western Sea knowingly submitted false landings reports to NOAA. The crew caught more herring than is allowed under weekly federal limits. During more than 80 trips the Western Sea crew caught and sold more than 2.6 million pounds of herring that was not reported. The Western Sea concealed the income on tax documents.

Why transmission lines will help us fight climate change

MAINE MONITOR • July 12, 2024

Maine will coordinate plans for new transmission lines — particularly regional projects to share power from offshore wind farms — with nine Northeast neighbors, under a major agreement announced this week. This doesn’t make for the most exciting headline. For some, it might raise the specter of controversial developments like the CMP Corridor power line. But experts agree that transmission lines — big, long-distance power lines, versus the distribution wires strung along local streets — are a crucial part of tackling climate change while controlling costs and shoring up reliability for everyday energy users. The reason: Electrification, increasingly powered by renewables, especially the dawn of offshore wind. 

Algae bloom kills salmon at Maine aquaculture site

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • July 11, 2024

An algae bloom in late June killed farmed salmon at aquaculture sites in the Jonesport area. The die-offs occurred at salmon farms run by Cooke Aquaculture USA in Eastern Bay near the towns of Jonesport and Beals. “The marine algae was concentrated by ocean currents and formed an algae bloom,” Hedlund said in an emailed statement. “As the bloom moved into the Jonesport/Beals area it caused periods of low dissolved oxygen in the water column.” The bloom dispersed naturally after a few days, and Cooke has safely removed and disposed of the dead fish.

Friends of Acadia launches fundraising campaign for workforce housing

MAINE PUBLIC • July 11, 2024

Friends of Acadia has announced a $10 million fundraising campaign, aimed at addressing the shortage of housing for seasonal staff. The organization began fundraising about a year ago, and has raised more than $7 million, which will be used to leverage additional federal money. Housing has become a serious barrier for hiring staff, said park superintendent Kevin Schneider, but it's especially difficult for seasonal workers who only need it for only a few months. "Housing is critical for us at Acadia National Park, if we don't have a house, we won't be able to have a seasonal employee, that's really what it amounts to," he said. "It is impossible for somebody to find a place to live for the six months summer season if we can't provide housing for them." In recent years, about 30% of the park's seasonal positions were unfilled, in part because housing is so difficult for workers to find.

Climate activists push Maine pension fund to divest from fossil fuels

MAINE PUBLIC • July 11, 2024

About three dozen protesters marched and sang in front of the Maine Public Employee Retirement System offices in Augusta Thursday to draw attention to what they consider is its failure to rapidly divest from oil and gas companies fueling the climate crisis. A 2021 state law demanded that Maine PERS pull all its investments from fossil fuels. But Divest Maine campaign manager Hope Light said the agency has dragged its feet. Switching from oil, gas and coal will bring the same or better returns for Maine retirees, Light said, and would limit the system's risk as the public turns away from fossil fuels. Maine PERS said it has implemented the law in accordance with its sound investment criteria and fiduciary obligations.

Maine landowners to test climate smart forestry

MAINE PUBLIC • July 11, 2024

Six commercial woodland owners have been selected to pilot climate smart forestry that advocates hope could help store millions more tons of fossil fuel emissions in the north Maine woods. The New England Forestry Foundation on Thursday said it will use some of a $30 million grant from the U.S.D.A. to reimburse landowners for using approved methods. Foundation senior forester Brian Milakovsky said the techniques aren't "rocket science.” On some Maine acreage timber companies already cut down overgrown young woodlots to encourage more valuable trees, called pre-commercial thinning, and use similar climate smart methods. The idea is to grow trees that can store more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, either by staying alive in the forest or as durable building materials and other products.

South Portland and Portland downtowns are Maine’s hottest ‘heat islands’

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • July 10, 2024

Global temperatures are rising everywhere because of human-caused climate change, but the built environment is amplifying the temperatures in many cities, even in temperate climates like Maine where most people do not think of extreme heat as a major threat to the population. The average daily temperature in Maine will rise 2-4 degrees by 2050 and up to 10 degrees by 2100. Our summers will be hotter and marked by more extreme heat days: the average summer high in turn-of-the-century Portland will feel like Scranton, Pennsylvania, does now, or about 8.9 degrees hotter. The most concentrated heat island in Maine can be found in Portland, where the built environment amplifies the base “field of green” temperature.

Letter: Shoring up our water infrastructure

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • July 10, 2024

An April EPA survey found that Maine’s clean water systems need nearly $4 billion over 20 years — about $3,000 per person, the 11th highest per capita spending by state. Those needs have more than tripled over the last decade. Unfortunately, a spending bill currently proposed in the House calls for a massive 25% cut to critical clean water programs. These misguided cuts target the Drinking Water and Clean Water State Revolving Funds (SRFs) programs — the backbone of our nation’s water infrastructure. I hope Rep. Chellie Pingree and others will co-sponsor the WATER Act (HR 1729), a commonsense bill that would provide dedicated annual funding for safe, clean water for all. ~ Chrystina Gastelum, Biddeford

You can hike in Maine and Morocco and be in the same mountain range

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • July 10, 2024

For some of those thru-hikers, however, Katahdin is not actually the end of the road. For those intrepid wanderers, there’s thousands more miles to traverse across Canada, Greenland, Europe and North Africa, in a dispersed array of trails known as the International Appalachian Trail. According to the International Appalachian Trail organization, the Appalachian Mountains are part of an ancient chain of mountains called the Appalachian-Caledonian, formed more than 250 million years ago during the Paleozoic Era, on the supercontinent of Pangea. Back then, the mountains straddled a part of Pangea that later broke apart and became what is now eastern North America, eastern Greenland, western Europe and northwestern Africa.

RFK Jr. visits Freeport to talk with supporters about farming and food

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • July 9, 2024

Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made a campaign stop in Maine Tuesday to talk to volunteers and supporters about food, farming and issues facing the food system in Maine and around the nation. Kennedy is running as an independent in a race expected to feature a rematch of incumbent Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump as the front-runners. Kennedy’s visit to the Old Town Meeting Place at the Hilton Garden Inn included a discussion with several Maine farmers who talked about some of their challenges, including contamination by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, on farms.

Invasive fruit flies that wreak havoc on small, soft fruits found in Androscoggin County

SUN JOURNAL • July 9, 2024

After a bust 2023 season for many farmers due to seemingly unending rains, Maine is dealing with a different problem this year: fruit flies, more specifically, the invasive spotted wing drosophila. Philip Fanning, University of Maine assistant professor of agricultural entomology, said. Specializing in integrated pest management, biological control and applied insect ecology, he has been tracking the flies in Maine which arrived around 2011. Joel Gilbert of Berry Fruit Farm in Livermore Falls said his farm had to cut strawberry season short mostly due to spoilage caused by the pests.

Unitil to pay $71 million for Bangor-area natural gas company

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • July 9, 2024

Unitil Corp., Maine’s largest natural gas provider, announced Tuesday that it’s paying $70.9 million for Bangor Natural Gas Co., expanding its customer base in the state by nearly one-fourth. The acquisition could save money for ratepayers by consolidating Maine’s relatively small natural gas industry, the state Public Advocate said. It would leave three natural gas companies operating in Maine.

NECEC converter station nears halfway to finish line in Lewiston

SUN JOURNAL • July 9, 2024

A major piece of the controversial New England Clean Energy Connect transmission line through central Maine is roughly halfway complete in Lewiston. The estimated $250 to $300 million converter station off outer Main Street, which will convert direct current from Hydro-Quebec to alternating current for consumer use, made Lewiston one of the transmission line’s most ardent supporters even as other municipalities and a majority of the public opposed it. Following a two-year hiatus due to a citizens’ initiative, the project restarted in August 2023 after a court ruling sided with NECEC.

Maine's endangered plovers weather climate change

MAINE PUBLIC • July 9, 2024

Beaches change all the time, as sand moves and shifts naturally, said Laura Minich Zitske, director of the coastal birds project at Maine Audubon. But the storm damage this year was something different. Decades of development have interrupted the wide, sandy beaches plovers need to nest. The construction of housing, jetties and seawalls has cost plovers about two thirds of the Maine beaches used as nesting habitat, according to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. The plover population in Maine was down to just a handful of breeding pairs back in the early 1980s. Last year nearly 160 nesting pairs were sighted.

Maine joins 9 other states to promote regional planning to boost clean energy

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • July 9, 2024

Maine has joined nine other Northeastern states promising to coordinate their work to improve the reliability of electricity transmission and smooth the transition to clean energy. The Governor’s Energy Office signed the agreement with Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont. It establishes common technical standards for offshore wind transmission to reduce the cost of meeting federal and state goals and be compatible with future projects connecting wind energy to the grid. State officials will cooperate on the planning and development of regional transmission infrastructure and may work with utilities, manufacturers, environmental groups and others.

These paddleboarders are making a 175-mile journey from Moosehead Lake to Atlantic Ocean

MORNING SENTINEL • June 9, 2024

“It’s just a beautiful day to be on the water,” Chris Morgan said Tuesday from the Oosoola Park boat launch. Morgan’s 175-mile journey down the Kennebec River was about halfway complete as he led a group of about 20 paddlers into the water. It was just under 90 degrees and partly cloudy, with smooth water and hardly any wind along the river. Morgan was leading the jaunt down the river as he continues his “source to sea” journey from Moosehead Lake to the Atlantic Ocean. His stop at Oosoola Park marked roughly the halfway point in the journey, with just over 80 miles of river already traversed. Morgan is advocating for the creation of a ‘paddle trail’ along the Kennebec, with dedicated take-out and put-in spots, campsites and potentially gear rentals along the way.

Conservation groups cheer decision preserving state authority in Kennebec River dam relicensing

MAINE PUBLIC • July 9, 2024

Conservation groups are cheering an appeals court decision they say will help to preserve some state oversight in the relicensing process for the Shawmut Dam on the Kennebec River. The state initially drafted a denial of the water quality certification for the dam, operated by Brookfield Renewable, in 2021, as part of a federal dam relicensing process, pointing to concerns about the passage of endangered Atlantic salmon. Brookfield submitted an updated proposal, including significant modifications a few weeks before the state faced a deadline to act on it. The Maine DEP denied the application, saying that the state didn't have time to evaluate significant changes and needed additional information. Brookfield argued that, in its denial, Maine waived its right to participate in the relicensing process. FERC rejected that argument, and Brookfield then filed a petition for an appeals court to review the commission's order. The court ruled against Brookfield in a decision on July 5.

Teen hiker from Quebec released from hospital after collapse on Appalachian Trail near Caratunk

MORNING SENTINEL • July 9, 2024

Rescue workers aiding a teenage hiker, who fell unconscious after suffering from heat exhaustion Friday on the Appalachian Trail near Caratunk, helped cool her body temperature by using water from a nearby stream and applying ice packs, a state official said Tuesday. A Maine Forest Service pilot flew Elyssa Bernardin, 14, of Saint-Lambert, Quebec, at about 7 p.m. to a spot accessible by ambulance. The ambulance then transported her to Redington-Fairview General Hospital in Skowhegan.

Maine enters agreement with Northeast states to improve grid, ease transition to clean energy

MAINE MORNING STAR • July 9, 2024

Maine joined nine other Northeast states on Tuesday in signing a memorandum of understanding to coordinate efforts to establish a more efficient electric grid to accelerate the clean energy transition. The states agreed to coordinate regional planning of power transmission after requesting last year that the U.S. Department of Energy convene a first-in-the-nation multi-state initiative to explore ways to increase the flow of electricity between three different planning regions in the Northeast and assess offshore wind infrastructure.