Offshore wind port siting raises new conflicts for coastal Mainers, environmental activists

MAINE MONITOR • July 14, 2024

Conservationists have celebrated over the decades as plans for a coal plant and a liquefied natural gas terminal on Sears Island came and went without success. This latest proposal presents a new kind of conflict. Rather than pitting townspeople against a corporate polluter, this development would support clean energy and be integral to the state’s plan for cutting climate emissions. Coastal residents concerned for both climate change and ecological preservation are conflicted over the planned location of a facility that advocates say will help launch Maine’s offshore wind industry.

Column: Baxter trail crew members do right on Dudley, and so much more

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • July 14, 2024

More than 220 miles of foot trails crisscross the wild country of Baxter State Park, Gov. Percival Baxter’s enduring legacy. These winding, scenic paths offer myriad ways for day hikers and backpackers to explore the park’s 209,644-acre expanse.. A small but dedicated seasonal trail crew, several full-time staff, plus volunteers and contractors, work hard to ensure that the park’s trail system and related infrastructure is well-maintained and safe for the hiking public, while also protecting the natural resources. When it came time to dedicate the latest Maine Mountain Guide that was an easy call: “This 12th edition is dedicated to the trail maintainers and trail builders throughout Maine, and in particular to the incredible BSP trail crew, who over the past 10 years has accomplished three enormous relocation projects. Absolutely amazing work. Thank you!” ~ Carey Kish

Column: Why plant American chestnut seedlings that are almost certainly doomed?

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • July 14, 2024

By the end of this summer, the Maine Chapter of The American Chestnut Foundation will have planted almost 100 new wild chestnut tree seedlings at 10 locations around Maine. So, if the trees are all going to die, what’s the point in planting them? It’s all about genetics. The idea is that some of the trees will survive at least long enough to produce chestnuts, which are the seeds that can be planted to create a new generation of trees. Those trees would be genetically diverse, so scientists hope that at least one will have a magic formula that makes it immune to the chestnut blight. “Over the past 25 years, (the Maine chapter) has planted over 65,000 chestnut trees and produced many thousands of nuts and seedlings for others to plant.” Maine is the ideal spot for this chestnut-planting effort, as it has more surviving American chestnuts than any other state. ~ Tom Atwell

Column: Here are 12 of the top birding spots in Maine

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • July 14, 2024

I have compiled my top dozen birding sites in southern and central Maine:
• Evergreen Cemetery
• Scarborough Marsh
• Biddeford Pool
• Marginal Way, Ogunquit
• Laudholm Farm
• Kennebunk Plains
• Brownfield Bog
• Reid State Park
• Sabattus Lake
• Viles Arboretum
• Messalonskee Lake
• Waterville Trails
~ Herb Wilson

Nestle shifted critical recycling goal and revealed scale of plastics problem

BLOOMBERG • July 13, 2024

When Nestle SA tweaked its plastic packaging goals in 2022, few noticed. The shift in language on the website of the world’s largest food maker pledged to mostly use plastic “designed for” recycling by 2025 rather than only use “recyclable” or reusable packaging by next year – its original commitment. The subtle rewording, highlighted publicly here for the first time, might seem like semantics. But the difference amounts to 280,000 metric tons of additional non-recyclable plastic waste a year. It’s a fresh indication that the efforts to curb the use of virgin plastics – including a key pledge made by dozens of companies since 2018 to make all such packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable – are failing.

EPA recommends states monitor fish for 12 PFAS chemicals

MAINE PUBLIC • July 12, 2024

The Environmental Protection Agency is recommending that states monitor fish for 12 different PFAS chemicals. The EPA announced the new guidelines, adding five PFAS chemicals to its "contaminants to monitor for advisories" list, and seven to its "contaminants to monitor to watch" list. The "to watch" list is a new addition, meant for chemicals that are found in the edible tissue of fish that could be a concern for human health, but does not have an oral toxicity measure from a federal agency. Maine has already issued consumption advisories for 16 bodies of water throughout the state because of high levels of PFAS.

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.