The most comprehensive online source of conservation news and events in Maine and beyond, edited by Jym St. Pierre
MIDCOAST VILLAGER • April 18, 2025
Heidelberg Materials North America has completed the acquisition of Giant Cement Holding Inc. and its subsidiaries that includes the Dragon cement plant in Thomaston. Dragon is Thomaston’s largest property taxpayer, paying more than $1 million to the town annually.
E&E NEWS • April 18, 2025
The Interior Department is moving forward with sweeping reorganization and consolidation efforts that will be overseen by a former member of the Elon Musk-led workforce reduction team. The plan would include consolidating communications, financial management, contracting, human resources, grants, civil rights and interactive technology. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum signed a secretarial order Thursday that confirmed most of those details. A conservation watchdog accused Burgum of handing over too much power and control for the reorganization to Hassen and DOGE. “If Doug Burgum doesn’t want this job, he should quit now,” said Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities. “This order shows what it looks like when leaders abdicate their jobs and let unqualified outsiders fire thousands of civil servants who are working on behalf of all Americans and their public lands.”
MAINE PUBLIC • April 18, 2025
We’ve all gazed into the night sky but with the proper tools we can observe and photograph amazing celestial events. We visit a local astronomy club to see what the night sky has to offer.
MAINE PUBLIC • April 19, 2025
The number of travelers crossing the Canadian border into Maine declined in March by 26% compared to the same month last year, furthering a dip that began with President Donald Trump's tariffs and threats of annexation. The data on border crossings into Maine comes from monthly U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports. In February, when the president first announced his tariffs against Canada and goals of annexing the country, there was a 15% decline from the previous year. The March data show an even steeper drop-off — about 60,000 fewer people coming through Maine border crossings. The figure is part of an overall drop at all northern border crossings of 900,000 travelers nationwide. State officials have warned that Canadian visitors are an important part of the state's tourism economy.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 15, 2025
A federal judge on Tuesday paused proceedings in a defamation lawsuit Maine lobstering groups brought against a California aquarium, staying the case until broad questions about how to interpret Maine libel law are answered by an appeals court. U.S. District Judge John Woodcock had ruled in February that the suit — brought by the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association and a handful of lobstering businesses — could proceed after nearly two years in legal limbo. The groups sued the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation “for making false and defamatory statements about Maine lobster fishing practices and for misleading consumers and commercial lobster buyers about the integrity of the Maine lobster harvest” after the aquarium’s Seafood Watch program downgraded its rating for Maine lobster.
TIMES RECORD • April 25, 2025
A bill introduced Friday would reshape the leadership of the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority, the organization responsible for Brunswick Landing. If passed, the bill would amend the goals of the authority to require it to engage in “environmental stewardship.” It would also restructure the authority’s board of trustees, an 11-member body appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Legislature. Brunswick Landing is the site of an August 2024 firefighting foam spill that released 51,450 gallons of foam laced with toxic forever chemicals.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 15, 2025
The Orrington trash incinerator is 15 to 18 months away from reopening. The plant was shuttered in 2023 after longtime owner Penobscot Energy Recovery Co. was foreclosed on. The timeline shared Tuesday is the latest update on the incinerator’s future, and is more than a year and a half later than the facility’s newest owners had proposed reopening when they purchased it last year.
TIMES RECORD • April 15, 2025
The authority in charge of Brunswick Landing has removed firefighting foam containing forever chemicals from one of its airport hangars. Hangar 6 held 975 gallons of aqueous film-forming foam concentrate, or AFFF, containing a toxic PFAS chemical compound known as PFOS. A malfunction at Brunswick Executive Airport’s Hangar 4, which is owned by the Navy but operated by Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority, dumped 1,450 gallons of AFFF concentrate mixed with 50,000 gallons of water last summer. The spill prompted ongoing cleanup and monitoring efforts as well as a push to get rid of the foam at the airport in Brunswick and across the state.
TIMES RECORD • April 15, 2025
EveningStar Cinema in Brunswick will celebrate Earth Day with screenings of “A Peace of Forest,” a new nature documentary made by Maine filmmakers about the state’s wildlife. The movie theater will screen the film in the days following Earth Day, which is on April 22. There will be showings on April 25-27 and May 1. Husband-and-wife team Lee Ann and Thomas Mark Szelog shot the entire film within 70 acres of forest in Whitefield, where they live. “‘A Peace of Forest’ is a compelling, feature-length film, celebrating the beauty and intimacy of wildlife in Maine,” according to a theater news release. “This one-of-a-kind cinematic adventure showcases surprising, tender and exquisite interactions of wildlife during peaceful moments in Maine’s natural world.”
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 15, 2025
For years, the United States has actively assisted Canada in growing its oil production because U.S. presidents saw an opportunity to shift oil acquisition away from OPEC countries to our more secure and trustworthy partner to the north. Donald Trump’s trade war with Canada under a tortured idea that Canada is treating us unfairly doesn’t acknowledge the enormous benefit we set up for both countries by giving Canada the assistance needed to expand its oil production. Engaging in a trade war will cost both countries dearly but also force the United States away from secure Canadian oil, back into the arms of OPEC and its Middle Eastern billionaire-supported terror networks. Far from making America great again, Donald Trump is destroying beneficial relationships with allies, enabling unfriendly regimes and driving costs up for everything: a lose, lose, lose proposition. ~ Stephen Demetriou, Waldoboro
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 14, 2025
A proposed bill to be heard by the Maine Legislature’s energy committee on Monday aims to get a one-time, $10 million payment from the state to extend Fairfield’s public water supply to residents with private wells that have high levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS. To date, state regulators have dealt with the high readings in Fairfield by providing free filtration systems to residents. So far, 149 homes have the systems, and another 111 are approved for them. But money for the $25 million filtration program will run out in a few years.
MAINE PUBLIC • April 11, 2025
The fate of the former Androscoggin Mill in Jay is uncertain once again, as the new owner contends with the impact of tariffs. Godfrey Forest Products has started demolition on the site to build a new facility to manufacture oriented strand board — a material similar to plywood, said owner John Godfrey. But he said the facility will require equipment from Europe and electrical components from China — and even domestic machinery is affected by the rising costs from tariffs on steel. And the tariffs could reduce demand for construction materials domestically. "So the tariffs represent a double whammy of raising the cost of building the factory and perhaps diminishing the market's desire for our product," Godfrey said.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 13, 2025
Agriculture in Maine is responsible for more than 200,000 jobs totaling $11.3 billion. It brings in more than $5 billion in tax revenue and exports nearly $650 million worth of goods. We should be doing everything possible to support our farmers. Some policies being considered in Augusta right now would do the opposite. LD 1323 seeks to ban the use of insecticides known as “neonics.” Neonics have been proven safe for human health. Lawmakers are also considering labor bills that would have a detrimental impact on farmers. The most problematic would get rid of the overtime exemption in the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. This is a farm-killer. Last, Maine is part of the New England Food System Planners Partnership — a collaboration with a goal that 30% of the food consumed in New England will be produced here by 2030. That will be extremely hard to pull off by enacting policies that increase our production and labor costs. ~ Jim Pitreau, Green Thumb Farms, Fryeburg
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 12, 2025
Some longtime farmers who, despite the state’s hot real estate market, are struggling to sell or lease their land because they’re searching for people to take over their farms rather than turn them into vacation homes. That’s partly due to the challenges facing younger generations, they say, including their own past apprentices who love their farms but are either unable or unwilling to take over. Newer farmers, for their part, face prohibitively expensive land prices paired with low wages.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 11, 2025
The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife expanded the hunting season for gray squirrels by a month and shifted youth waterfowl hunting dates in the north zone to start and end a week later than last year. The bounty of food, including acorns, in the last few years has helped the gray squirrel population increase to a point that the department felt the hunting season could be expanded, especially in southern and central Maine. It will be held from the last Saturday in September through the end of January. The season has in past years ended on Dec. 31.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 11, 2025
After numerous technical delays, construction is underway on a $55 million potato chip plant on the former Loring Air Force Base, with plans to open for production about a year from now. The Taste of Maine Potato Chip Co. expects to begin producing chips in spring of 2026, then reach full capacity that June. The 80,000-square-foot facility could employ up to 100 people and use more than 1,500 acres worth of Aroostook potatoes.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 11, 2025
The curtain rises on the big show in a week, when the first major wave of migrant songbirds returns to Maine. Three warbler species will lead the way: palm, pine, and yellow-rumped. Ruby-crowned kinglets may overwhelm them all, at least vocally. It’s hard to shut ‘em up this time of year. Yellow-bellied sapsuckers will fly in overnight. At dawn, they will begin drumming on the loudest thing they can find. I’ll share one final observation that makes me giggle. Ring-billed gulls look like a smaller version of the ubiquitous herring gull. They’re all over town right now. While getting gas at BJs last week, there were too many in the parking lot to count. ~ Bob Duchesne
MAINE MONITOR • April 11, 2025
In a hearing on Monday, a pair of Republican state legislators introduced three bills they say would put an outright moratorium on dam removal. State officials and fish passage advocates voiced stern opposition to all three bills, testifying that they would contradict federal law and undermine ecological protections. The conflicting viewpoints created an unusual dynamic: On one side, nonprofits like the Atlantic Salmon Federation argued in favor of existing regulatory processes — the same processes they so often critique when dams go through federal relicensing. On the other side, Republican legislators cited Maine’s clean energy goals in pushing for additional regulations.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 11, 2025
Maine’s top court has rejected appeals that challenged the permits for a proposed 94-acre, land-based fish farm overlooking Chandler Bay in Jonesport, clearing the way for the multimillion project to move forward.Opponents said state environmental regulators, as part of their approval of the project under the Natural Resources Protection Act, did not do enough to assess the impacts that the discharge of treated wastewater would have on wildlife in the bay. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court dismissed the opponents’ arguments Thursday, saying the regulators’ approval of allowing the discharge of treated wastewater into the bay was consistent with the requirements of state law.
WASHINGTON POST • April 10, 2025
The Trump administration is trumpeting a biotech company’s claim of reviving a long-lost wolf as an argument for slashing endangered species protections. Dallas-based Colossal Biosciences said Monday that it used gene editing to create “de-extinct animals” in the form of three pups with the light-colored fur and musculature of a dire wolf. Many scientists expressed skepticism that the pups could be classified as part of a canine species that went extinct over 10,000 years ago. But Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the achievement demonstrates that it is not government regulations but innovation that will save species.
