Maine train derailment that spilled 500 gallons of fuel caused by beaver dam, officials say

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 12, 2025

A 2023 train derailment in rural Somerset County that spilled 500 gallons of diesel fuel was caused by excessive water that flowed through a beaver dam and washed out part of the track, state officials said Wednesday. Three locomotives and six train cars from Canadian Pacific Kansas City derailed in Sandwich Academy Grant Township on April 15, 2023, into nearby wetlands and the Moose River, a tributary to Little Brassua Lake. After the crash, 500 gallons of diesel from the train flowed into the lake during the railway’s cleanup because the company failed to empty saddle tanks on the locomotive before removing the engine.

Scarborough council wants to increase residents’ access to town beaches, potentially free of charge

SCARBOROUGH LEADER • February 12, 2025

The council gave preliminary approval to changes to beach fees and policies at its meeting on Feb. 5 but indicated they'd like to do more to increase residents' ability to access town-operated beaches – potentially for free. The changes would apply to the town-operated beaches of Ferry Beach, Higgins Beach and Pine Point Beach.

Blue states hope their clean energy plans withstand collision with Trump

MAINE MORNING STAR • February 12, 2025

For states that are pursuing plans to build more wind and solar projects, the federal government has suddenly shifted from a powerful ally to a formidable opponent. State leaders are still scrambling to make sense of President Donald Trump’s flurry of executive orders, funding freezes, agency directives and verbal threats about clean energy. Trump has slammed the brakes on offshore wind development, halted permitting for renewable energy projects, frozen grants and loans supporting rooftop solar panels and household weatherization assistance, and he’s created uncertainty around the tax credits that are a driver of clean energy development.

Opinion: Let’s keep the door closed to nuclear energy in Maine

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 12, 2025

Several bills pending in Augusta are aimed at reviving nuclear power in the state. One bill (L.D. 342, sponsored by Rep. Reagan Paul, R-Winterport) would shove nuclear energy into Maine’s Renewable Portfolio Standard. Nuclear energy is not renewable. Another bill sponsored by Rep. Paul (L.D. 343) would order the Public Utilities Commission to investigate small modular reactors, which basically are the same as older mega reactors, including generating radioactive waste. Yet another pro-nuclear bill would prohibit a community’s right to veto construction of a nuclear facility in its backyard. There still are no permanent disposal facilities for the nation’s more than 90,000 metric tons of nuke-generated radioactive waste. It is held in Wiscasset and about 100 other sites around the nation. Maine has developed a robust climate action plan for true renewable energy. Let’s not let a raft of “foot-in-the-door” bills detour Maine from that path. ~ Cathy Wolff, Kittery

Opinion: Make Maine Canadian again

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 11, 2025

President Donald Trump wants to make Canada the 51st state. Instead, I’m offering a deal you can’t refuse. Cooperate with Canada, we’ll let your ships keep using the St. Lawrence River. All we want is northern Maine. Help us draw a straight border from the southeast corner of Quebec to the Maine coast above Bar Harbor. Indigenous peoples of Maine and New Brunswick have shared their lives from the beginning. Acadians of northern Maine will reunite with their cousins in the land that created poutine. Mainers already interact daily with the Irving interests of New Brunswick, who provide most of their gas stations and are Maine’s biggest landowners. The northern Mainers officially joining us can look forward to a safer country, better health care, and longer life expectancy. Yield northern Maine, you’ll feel no pain, Chicago ships will sail again. And for us, it’ll be Mainifest Destiny. ~ Joseph Gough of Ottawa was born in Lubec

Land trust trail project weighs conservation and accessibility in Bowdoinham

TIMES RECORD • February 11, 2025

A section of the Kennebec Estuary Land Trust’s Center Point Preserve in Bowdoinham will soon be reshaped so handicapped outdoor enthusiasts can enjoy the trail. The existing path is riddled with roots and loose terrain. The updated Center Point All Persons Trail, as its name hints, is intended for everyone. KELT acquired the 22-acre preserve in February 2023 and obtained an additional 11 acres in December of the same year. Thanks to a multi-year collaboration and a recent $460,000 award from the Maine Natural Resources Conservation Program (MNRCP) to upgrade three existing culverts on the property, over $630,000 in grant funding has been devoted to improving the property’s wetland habitat and building a new trail that meets USDA Forest Service accessibility standards. 

Regulators to investigate Passamaquoddy solar dispute

MAINE PUBLIC • February 11, 2025

The Maine Public Utilities Commission said it will settle a dispute over a major rooftop solar development planned by the Passamaquoddy Tribe. Late last year, the Indian Township government asked the commission to confirm that it was not violating state rules by installing solar panels on more than 200 homes and buildings in the Washington County community. The project, which included individual battery backup systems, was funded with a $7.4 million federal grant. However, Eastern Maine Electric Cooperative, the utility that serves the area, said it was concerned that the individual rooftop systems combined were a single discrete electric generator. And the entire system together would produce about 20 times more power than allowed under the state's rules for solar arrays qualified to receive benefits through the net energy billing program. On Tuesday commissioners instead voted to start a formal investigation into the matter.

Bird flu has been detected in Maine

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 11, 2025

The highly contagious bird flu has been detected in Maine. The virus infected four Canada geese, two red-tailed hawks and a great horned owl found in Kennebunk, Kittery, Ogunquit, South Berwick, South Portland and York, according to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. It also has been found in poultry flocks in four New England states, the wildlife department said Tuesday morning. The highly contagious virus has killed millions of chickens nationwide, which has been the primary driver in a 65 percent increase in retail egg prices recently.

Letter: Maine needs to expand its economy

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 11, 2025

We’ve lost most of our ship building, dairy farming, chicken farming, and fishing, and we’re increasingly dependent on “vacationland” for our income. If the economy goes down, “people from away” are going to stay away, and our former dairy farms, chicken farms, hay farms and mills. In short, nearly every stone in our economic foundation has been abandoned in dependence on money brought in from away. Isn’t it time to start expanding the base of our economic structure? ~ Dr. William Burgess Leavenworth, Searsmont

Stricter Lobster Fishing Rules Scrapped After Complaints from Fishermen

FOOD MANUFACTURING • February 10, 2025

Fishing industry regulators have decided to scrap stricter new lobster fishing standards off New England in the wake of months of protest from lobster fishermen that the rules were unnecessary and would bankrupt harvesters. The regulators were planning to institute new rules this summer that increased the minimum legal harvest size for lobsters in some of the most important fishing grounds in the world. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Council, which manages the fishery, said the changes were important to preserve the future of a lobster population that has shown recent signs of decline. Many commercial fishermen adamantly opposed the changes.

Harpswell has 44 of Maine’s 600 remaining overboard discharge systems

HARPSWELL ANCHOR • February 10, 2025

With no municipal sewer system, almost all of Harpswell’s homes and businesses rely on septic systems to handle their wastewater. But a few dozen properties that are too small or too rocky for conventional septic systems still use what are called overboard discharge systems, even as the state and town governments work to replace them. Overboard discharges, or OBDs, release treated wastewater, which could introduce bacteria and other pathogens, to surface water such as a river or the ocean. About 600 OBDs remain. Harpswell has 44 of those, the fifth most among Maine towns. Only Boothbay, Bristol, Georgetown and Southport have more. Maine has a grant program to help property owners pay for overboard discharge replacement, but there is a long waitlist for the limited funds available.

Letter: US moving backwards on climate change

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 10, 2025

Doug Burgum, the new secretary of the Interior Department, is another blatant example of the fact corporations have captured our democracy. This time the stakes are so much higher. The petroleum industry has never had the kind of influence they have now and they seem hellbent to burn every drop of their product. Wake up folks, our grandchildren are being sacrificed on the altar of greed. Demand and work for a transition to wind and solar now! ~ Tom Mikulka, Cape Elizabeth

New administration sparks uncertainty for Brunswick PFAS spill cleanup

TIMES RECORD • February 10, 2025

A slew of impactful executive orders coming from the new presidential administration is sparking uncertainty amid efforts to clean up a toxic chemical spill at Brunswick’s airport. Under the new administration’s Environmental Protection Agency, and with many federal funding programs facing uncertainty, local authorities are waiting for things to settle. They face the expensive task of cleaning up PFAS-laden aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) at Brunswick Executive Airport a malfunctioning fire suppression system dumped tens of thousands of gallons into the nearby environment in August. The cleanup costs and ongoing monitoring of private drinking wells near the airport, formerly Naval Air Station Brunswick, have amounted to over $781,000 as of the end of December.

This historic park off the Maine coast is a joy to visit, even in the dead of winter

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • February 10, 2025

Roosevelt Campobello International Park is on Campobello Island. The 2,800-acre park is jointly administered and funded by Canada and the United States. When signing the park agreement in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson said of U.S.-Canada relations: “I hope that Campobello Park will live eternally as a symbol of our friendship that cannot be shaken or diverted. President Roosevelt would want it this way.” While the park was an absolutely stunning place to visit in the winter, I’d like to return in the summer to see the planted gardens. Admission to the park and Roosevelt house is free.

Letter: Right whales are losing the battle

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 10, 2025

Right whales, like other similar species, sequester copious amounts of carbon simply by existing and create entire ecosystems with their migratory feeding patterns. Fishing line entanglement and ship strikes are the leading causes of their mortality, despite what the oil industry and other propagandists would have the unwitting, unknowing individual believe about offshore wind turbines. Yet collectively we do nothing but watch their slow, painful journey to the end. Basic and completely reasonable regulations fall one after the next, forfeited because of a few whining lobstermen and a newly elected fear-mongering degenerate. Someday we will face what we have invited upon ourselves. Until then, we witness. ~ Sarah Perry, Falmouth

Opinion: There are no easy answers when it comes to forest fire

CENTRAL MAINE • February 10, 2025

According to an expert in the White House, the best way to prevent forest fires is to rake all the combustible materials from forest floors. That couldn’t be done before the Maine forest fire of 1947 and it can’t be done now. The forest floor is covered with vegetation as well as dead, dry plant material — including trees. To remove all of this would be an unsustainable cost in any budget. The devastating fires in the Los Angeles area were not solely the result of unkempt plant life. Drought and hurricane-force winds made any ignition source unstoppable. I guess we’ll have to get rid of the wilderness. This would be of particular concern in Maine, where so much of the economy depends on the regeneration of its woodlands and maintaining an environment that attracts those from away. ~ Doug Yohman, East Waterboro

Nick Dorian talks of "The Secret Life of Bees" in horticulture series, Feb. 11

PENOBSCOT BAY PILOT • February 9, 2025

Nick Dorian, Ph.D. ecologist and educator, talks about “The Secret Lives of Wild Bees,” presented by Camden Garden Club, in coordination with the Camden Public Library, Feb. 11, from 9:30 a.m. On Zoom, preregister.

Discover the Largest Whitetail Deer Ever Harvested in Maine

AZ ANIMALS • February 9, 2025

There are about 320,000 deer in Maine. According to the Boone and Crocket Club, in 1965 Ronnie Cox earned the record for the largest whitetail deer harvested in Maine’s history. His trophy scored 193-2/8. Then-teenager Hill Gould shot the non-typical whitetail deer more than a century ago, in 1910. His buck’s antlers earned a score of 259. Word spread pretty quickly about the deer’s impressive and usual rack, but it didn’t enter the Boone and Crockett record books officially until 1994.

A Maine border town finds itself on the front line of a looming trade war

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • February 9, 2025

For many who live in towns like Madawaska, the result isn’t two distinct worlds but one community. External forces are threatening to pull that world apart. Economists have warned that the impacts of President Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs would reverberate through the American and global economies in ways big and small. Maine’s border towns, whose fortunes are closely tied to sister communities in Canada, will feel the effects acutely. Tariffs won’t just make everyday goods more expensive on both sides of the border, but may also cost the town’s millworkers their jobs. Across the border, greater Edmundston is a bustling metropolis compared with Madawaska. Judy Paradis, who represented Madawaska in the Legislature for years, said, “Canada has been so good to us — they don’t deserve this.”

Maine public health experts worry about federal data removed from websites

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • February 8, 2025

Public health experts say they are worried about access to important federal health data after agencies removed information in the last few weeks. Rebecca Boulos, executive director of the Maine Public Health Association, said, “We rely on data sources to help us understand what’s going on in public health.” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, spoke out against the cap Monday, saying the “poorly conceived” directive.