The most comprehensive online source of conservation news and events in Maine and beyond, edited by Jym St. Pierre
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 1, 2025
There is so much luck involved in spotting wildlife. A good place to start: Who is active and when? We only have a few species of mammals that are true hibernators and remain dormant throughout the winter. As much as we may love seeing wildlife in our backyards, we do want to keep them wild. ~ Doug Hitchcox, Maine Audubon
MAINE ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS • February 1, 2025
A Flipbook about “Sears Island, For the People.”
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 1, 2025
As public dissent rose last summer against the proposed Gorham Connector and the Maine Turnpike Authority decided to pause — but not drop — plans for the highway spur west of Portland, the agency commissioned a $23,000 poll to better gauge how residents felt about it. 45% of respondents said they oppose (12%) or strongly oppose (33%) the connector, while 40% said they support (20%) or strongly support (20%) building the road.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 1, 2025
Central Maine Power Co. spent $24.5 million to clean up and restore power following three storms last year, the utility told Maine regulators Thursday in an initial estimate that does not calculate the impact on ratepayers. Each of the storms, on Oct. 12 and Nov. 28, knocked out power to more than 120,000 customers, the utility said in its filing to the state Public Utilities Commission. A storm on Dec. 11 caused 91,000 outages, it said. CMP serves about 635,000 customers.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 1, 2025
While “officials” make claims about air around the electric school buses and the environment in general, they do not make any factual claims about benefits to the global warming target: CO2. The officials are basking in the largesse of the federal government, deep-state effort to reengineer our culture to adopt electric vehicles, no matter their real value. Electric buses are only a possibility because the federal government is paying for most of them, while the debt is $36 trillion. This is an example of government overreach. It is ridiculous. The Maine Legislature has mandated that buses be electric by 2035. What the hell, add another $1 trillion to the debt for no good reason. ~ Brian Jones, Gorham
MAINE MORNING STAR • January 31, 2025
State Rep. Reagan Paul, a Republican from Winterport, has proposed legislation that would prevent the state from building a planned facility on Sears Island to support a nascent offshore Gulf of Maine ocean wind power industry. The measure was floated as President Donald Trump froze further ocean wind development in federal waters. It follows funding roadblocks to the ambitious port project. The bill would extend an existing conservation easement over the entire 941-acre, state-owned island in Searsport. The land was divided in 2007 between a preservation area and a smaller parcel set aside for development. Paul opposes developing offshore wind power and argues it is too expensive and environmentally harmful.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • January 31, 2025
A solar developer faced community blowback during an informational session this week on a proposed 5,000-acre solar farm in the tiny northern Maine town of Hersey. “Just tell me now if this is something you want,” said Next Phase Energy Services President Dave Fowler during the meeting with Hersey residents. They responded that they don’t want the project, which could potentially become the state’s largest utility-scale solar project both by acreage and power generation.
MAINE PUBLIC • January 31, 2025
A national biofuels company says it plans to site a new plant at the former Great Northern Paper mill in Millinocket. Castlerock Biofuels will convert logging residue from local forestry operations to into 20 million gallons of bio-oil per year, says company CEO John Murphy. Murphy says bio-crude from wood produces much lower emissions than traditional heating oil. He says the plant processing the wood will be powered by electricity from the nearby hydropower dam in Brookfield. The facility is expected to be operational by 2027. And according to Our Katahdin, a community development nonprofit, the new project should create 150 construction jobs, and once up and running, 80 full-time jobs in the area.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • January 31, 2025
City officials are scrutinizing ongoing tree removal at Calvary Cemetery that’s intended to clear the runway approach to Portland International Jetport. The selective tree removal is required under Federal Aviation Administration regulations and has been approved by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, which owns the cemetery. South Portland Planning Director Milan Nevajda said Friday that city officials are reviewing the tree project to ensure the jetport hasn’t exceeded FAA requirements or a city permit issued several years ago.
MAINE MORNING STAR • January 31, 2025
Conservation groups are praising a recent decision to reinstate protections for endangered North Atlantic right whales in a particularly precarious stretch of ocean off the coast of New England. The First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston decided Thursday to restrict lobster fishing, which in turn restores protections for endangered right whales. That decision overturned a district court verdict by reinstating a 2024 National Marine Fisheries Service rule that cordoned off a 200 square mile area of federal waters between February and April, when right whales are present.
MAINE MONITOR • January 31, 2025
A coalition of lawmakers in Hancock County are working on a slate of bills that could allow Maine towns to band together and take ownership of abandoned dams. The timing of the legislation is pertinent. The owner of the former Verso Paper Mill in Bucksport, AIM Development USA, is in the process of forfeiting ownership of three dams in the Bucksport area, where hundreds of residents reside on the dams’ lakes and pond. If the Maine Department of Environmental Protection allows AIM to carry out forfeiture, it would result in the supervised dewatering of Toddy Pond, Silver Lake and Alamoosook Lake, turning lake water into mudflats, depriving Bucksport of its drinking water source and threatening the operations of a gas-fired power plant.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • January 31, 2025
John Soares and Matthew Soares of New Jersey were fishing around the Moody Islands but decided to go to the back side of Sugar Island to get out of the wind. John, who was driving the snowmobile, saw a pressure ridge between the point and the island and slowed down, remembering being told not to go near visible marker buoys on their sled. Just then, as they moved slowly, the sled broke through the ice. He hit the throttle to try to get out of it, but the sled sank. John got out of the cold water quickly. His passenger Matthew, who was fully in the water, panicked at first but managed to get out too. The men walked to the tree line and called 911.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • January 31, 2025
A nearly unanimous vote at a town meeting in the Knox County town of Washington on Wednesday night for a six-month moratorium on the development of any major non-residential projects. The move was meant to block a proposal to build a Dollar General in the town — a development that residents feared would threaten their locally owned alternative. Washington is part of a growing group of midcoast communities that have sought to limit their development. Lincolnville recently renewed a moratorium against big retailers for a second time, after a big project was proposed, and in 2016, Thomaston voted a similar way. Belfast has long limited the development of box stores after a Wal-Mart was proposed in 2001. Washington officials plan to consider rules changes that would permanently restrict large, non-residential retail developments.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • January 31, 2025
The state’s retirement system has only one year left of the five years the law, L.D. 99, has given it to divest from fossil fuel company investments. It has done very little so far to meet this legal mandate. Aside from the obvious harm to the Earth, fossil fuels are becoming a less profitable investment. MainePERS should understand that many people are watching and waiting for it to meet its obligation. We owe it to ourselves and to future generations to not let this truly important issue slide. ~ Marian Flaherty, Waterville
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • January 31, 2025
Coming from a hunting family, any animal killed was used to the fullest extent possible with little to no waste. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said when it comes to coyote killing contests, which allow unlimited numbers of coyotes to be killed for prizes. There is no credible science that supports this as a management tool. Aside from not adhering to fair chase principles or ethical hunting, killing large numbers of coyotes interferes with the important role they play in maintaining Maine’s ecosystems and biodiversity. Contact state representatives and senators to request their support for “An Act to Prohibit Coyote Killing Contests” here in Maine. ~ Tammy Cloutier, Kennebunk
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • January 31, 2025
The Northern Maine Ice Busters, a St. John Valley group that holds the current world record for building the largest ice carousel, is setting its sight on two new records. At an event in March, it hopes to create the first ice carousel with an international boundary running directly through the middle, and the largest one on a river. An ice carousel is a piece of ice cut into a perfect circle over a body of water and designed to spin in a circle. In order for a carousel to qualify for world record status, it needs to spin one entire revolution. They will probably cut the circle on Friday and spin it on Saturday and Sunday.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • January 31, 2025
Canada jays are smart enough to go to college, except that they never leave the northern forest. They are among the most entertaining of Maine birds. you don’t have to find them. They find you. While many birds view humans with suspicion, Canada jays see us as an opportunity. They deserve their nickname of “camp robbers,” coming right down to the picnic table to boldly snatch a morsel. Their coastal range in Maine extends westward as far as Sunkhaze Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Milford. Maybe that’s changing, though. I’m getting a little worried about my local Canada jays. I don’t see them as often as I used to. Or maybe they’ve just gotten bored with me, saying, “Oh, it’s just Bob again.” ~ Bob Duchesne
TIMES RECORD • January 30, 2025
Renewable gas developer Viridi is considering bringing in a major utility facility to Brunswick Landing, now a hotspot for contentious environmental issues. The anaerobic digester facility would bring a renewable energy source to the region — a step toward the town staying on track with its emissions goals. But Brunswick residents are concerned that the facility’s presence will add to myriad issues, such as PFAS contamination, already present in the neighborhood.
MORNING SENTINEL • January 30, 2025
Jamie Rooney, 52, of Haverhill, Massachusetts, was riding his Ski-Doo snowmobile with a friend on the snowmobile trail ITS 89 when he traveled into Hastings Road and struck an EJ Carrier box cargo truck, driven by Katheryn Clark, 22, of Jackman shortly before 2 p.m. Thursday.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • January 30, 2025
Nordic Aquafarms has agreed to pay $125,000 to an activist group that fought the company’s recently abandoned plan to build a large aquaculture project in Belfast. The Norwegian company had for years attempted to build a $500 million facility, which would have been one of the largest inland salmon farms in the world. The company announced this month that it would be abandoning the project, citing legal challenges. Nordic Aquafarms falsely accused Upstream Watch of interfering with its right to use the adjacent intertidal land, the environmental group said in its announcement Thursday. “Nordic in fact, never had title, right or interest to that intertidal land, as determined by the Maine Supreme Court,” Upstream Watch said. Nordic Farms agreed to pay $125,000 and interest within two years, or upon the sale of any of its property in Belfast.
