Volunteers, families clean up Portland’s Eastern Prom to mark Earth Day

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • April 27, 2025

On Sunday morning through a gray drizzle, two dozen volunteers in bright raincoats scanned the slopes and paths of Portland’s Eastern Promenade. With trash pickers and garbage bags in hand, the group — half of whom were young children — picked up litter during an Earth Day cleanup. “We only get one planet, and I love it,” said Katherine McDowell, who attended the cleanup with her 2-year-old son, Rowan, who was bundled in a blue rain suit. “It’s little thing, teaching the kids that this is really an important, key part of being a good steward of the Earth.”

USDA funding uncertainty puts Maine farmers in a bind

MAINE MONITOR • April 27, 2025

Last year, Old Crow Ranch in Durham was awarded a $34,000 grant through the Rural Energy for America Program, which Seren and Steve Sinisi planned to use to install a solar array. But the Trump administration has paused the funding, leaving the Sinisis to cover the costs of the project at a higher interest rate than the initial agreement would have required, which they said will be a challenge. The Rural Energy for America Program is just one of several USDA. initiatives that have been paused or cancelled by the Trump administration. In addition, more than $12 million in Maine contracts that were approved are in limbo. “Prior to this administration, the USDA has long been viewed as a partner in helping support farm viability, access to markets, creation of markets, and the trust has really been broken,” said Sarah Alexander, executive director of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association.

Letter: Zoning can’t be ignored in Maine’s housing crisis

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • April 27, 2025

In many instances, municipalities have applied suburban building standards to their traditional town centers. Requiring a half-acre lot in the center of a town or village doesn’t just prevent the “warehousing” of people, it prevents the building of anything at all. Not only are most towns not adding housing to their historic centers but, as housing is lost, it’s not being replaced. This is bad and we should address the problem: outdated zoning regulations. ~ Brian Banton, Topsham

Tick expert offers advice for increasingly popular ‘No Mow May’

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 27, 2025

Growing numbers of people are leaving their yards unmowed for “No Mow May,” the same month when Maine’s tick season goes into full swing. No Mow May is a voluntary pledge to provide habitat and pollen for early-season pollinators by mowing their lawns less or not at all for the month. The practice also provides habitat for ticks, which like to live in long grass. Deer ticks have been active and multiplying since early March, and American dog ticks are waking up now, according to Griffin Dill, tick lab coordinator at the UMaine Cooperative Extension. How many of them you’ll see this year will depend on the weather. Letting your yard grow can provide them more habitat and may lead to more risk.

Maine’s electricity prices grew at third fastest rate in US, analysis shows

MAINE MONITOR • April 26, 2025

Between 2014 and 2024, the average retail price for electricity in Maine increased by the third highest rate in the country, according to an analysis by The Maine Monitor, surpassed only by California and Massachusetts. The average retail price of electricity in Maine during the 10-year period rose from 12.65 cents/kWh to 19.62 cents, according to data collected by the federal Energy Information Administration. That’s an increase of 55 percent. At the same time, the average retail price of electricity in the US rose from 10.44 cents/kWh to 12.99, or 24 percent.

Canadians put off by Trump’s bluster and border arrests are booking far fewer US visits

ASSOCIATED PRESS • April 25, 2025

Trump’s attacks on Canada’s economy and threats to make it the 51st state have infuriated Canadians, who are canceling trips to the U.S. in big numbers. The U.S. gets more visitors from Canada each year than from any other country. The 20.4 million visits from Canada last year generated $20.5 billion in spending. But there has been a big drop in foreigners traveling to the U.S. since Trump took office, and Canadians are no exception. There were more than 910,000 fewer land border crossings from Canada into the U.S. last month than in March of 2024 — a more than 22 percent drop. Trump brushed aside the decline in tourism to the United States on Wednesday, saying, “It’s not a big deal.”

Column: Keep your eyes and ears open, spring migration is about to begin

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 26, 2025

One of the most fun aspects of spring migration is you can step outside almost every day and see or hear some new bird species arriving for the summer. Keeping track of the arrival timing of migrants, or other phenological indicators like crocuses blooming, has been a major interest and area of study for naturalists for centuries. Download Merlin Bird ID. a free mobile app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology that can identify birds in several ways. ~ Doug Hitchcox

A midcoast native is opening the 1st virtual lobster museum

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 25, 2025

After eight months of planning, designing, researching and building, a Belfast native is getting ready to open a new museum for Maine’s most famous crustacean. The Maine Lobster Museum will feature colorful, wide-ranging exhibits on everything from how lobsters have been caught over the years, to their biology, to their role in American pop culture. And it will be open to visitors anywhere in the world, at any time. That’s because the museum isn’t a brick-and-mortar space, but rather, a virtual resource available to anyone online.

How businesses along Maine’s northern border see Donald Trump’s trade war

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 26, 2025

Business owners from northern Maine and Canada attending the Top O’ Maine Trade show this weekend had the trade war on their minds, with some opposed to tariffs and others unsure that it will have a major effect on their operations. Business owner Scott Beaulieu said the tariffs may not have a direct impact on them, it will ultimately hurt the economy and tourism. “They’re creating a kind of a scare for people, and it’s too bad because we’ve had a relationship with the United States and Canada for so long that people who used to come and go each day are starting to get a little nervous, not to go, but to come back,” he said.

Some Maine landowners see a future in ecological forest management

MAINE MONITOR • April 26, 2025

Sustainable forestry, exemplary forestry. Foresters argue the pros and cons of each model, but the overall goal is the same: Timber harvests generate profits; woodlands remain healthy. Such approaches are more labor intensive and can be slower to produce income than traditional timbering practices. Even so, their earnings can be substantial — sometimes greater — and they tap into a natural, regenerative loop. The New England Forestry Foundation has developed a model it calls Exemplary Forestry, which strives to balance the conditions in individual forest tracts with those of the surrounding landscape, filling gaps in habitat needs for plants and wildlife while producing high-quality timber. The goal is to have a healthy mix of land uses, as well as a diversity of tree species and sizes. 

Opinion: Maine’s farmers and retailers can’t afford cuts to SNAP

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 26, 2025

Maine’s farms are in the news for all the wrong reasons — federal funding freezes, grant funding cuts, concerns over proposed tariffs and the end of a USDA program that helped schools purchase directly from farms. While support from our communities, media and members of Congress is important in the wake of these announcements, we need the same level of support against proposed cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Food Assistance Program (SNAP), which will have dire consequences for Maine farmers and residents. ~ Jamie Cermak, Belfast Community Co-op, and Noami Brautigam and James Gagne, Second Frost Farm in Monroe

Avoid the crowds at Acadia by hiking this steep trail with granite steps

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 26, 2025

On the steep eastern side of Mansell Mountain is an impressive talus slope, a jumble of angular granite rocks baking under the sun. Adorned with faint blooms of white and green lichen, the rocks vary greatly in size and shape. Some of the hunks of granite are no larger than a book, while others are true boulders, exceeding the height of the hikers who labor past. It would be a tricky area to traverse if not for the stone staircase that strikes right through its center. Such is the magic of Acadia National Park. The trail, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1933, is steep and fantastical, its many steps forming a clear path through the wilderness. Yet it almost seems a part of the landscape.

Maine trappers are being suspended from YouTube with little explanation

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 26, 2025

Maine outdoorsmen who post trapping videos on YouTube were stripped of their ability to earn money on the platform, with little explanation as to why. Two of those channels were reinstated Friday after a Bangor Daily News reporter questioned YouTube over why the channels were demonetized. YouTube, which is owned by Google, is one of the few that allows channel creators to earn money from subscribers, merchandise, advertising and marketing. Two outdoorsmen recently posted videos on their YouTube channels explaining that they stopped posting content because YouTube demonetized their pages. YouTube cited its animal abuse policies as the primary reason for the demonetization in emails with the creators.

Opinion: The Endangered Species Act is endangered

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 26, 2025

Protecting imperiled species against destruction and fragmentation of their habitat is essential to conserve biological diversity. Habitat loss is the single biggest reason that many species face extinction. Yet, the Trump administration has proposed a rewrite of the definition of “harm” in rules under the Endangered Species Act. Regulations under the ESA define “harm” to include “significant habitat modification or degradation where it actually kills or injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns, including breeding, feeding or sheltering.” The proposed change would remove this clause. The Trump proposal is illegal, ill-advised, and intended to disable the law that has worked to protect America’s wildlife for more than 50 years. ~ Sharon S. Tisher, lecturer emerita, UMaine

Big Tech’s soaring energy demands are making coal-fired power plant sites attractive

ASSOCIATED PRESS • April 26, 2025

Coal-fired power plants, long an increasingly money-losing proposition in the U.S., are becoming more valuable now that the suddenly strong demand for electricity to run Big Tech’s cloud computing and artificial intelligence applications has set off a full-on sprint to find new energy sources. President Trump suggested that coal can help meet surging power demand. He is wielding his emergency authority to entice utilities to keep older coal-fired plants online and producing electricity. Scores of coal-fired plants that have been shut down the past couple years — or will be shut down in the next couple years — are the object of growing interest from tech companies, venture capitalists, states and others competing for electricity. They have a very attractive quality: high-voltage lines connecting to the electricity grid that they aren’t using anymore and that a new power plant could use.

Column: This bird-tracking technology is mind-blowing

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 25, 2025

Bird migration is both orderly and chaotic. Nocturnal flight is no longer invisible thanks to BirdCast, a joint project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Colorado State University and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Migrating birds show up on weather radar, so since the turn of the century, BirdCast has watched migration in real time via radar. It now shares the results and makes migration predictions online. The information may help address a long-time predicament. Ever since humans started building things skyward, birds have been crashing into them. It’s one of the major reasons bird populations have plummeted by 3 billion since 1970. Another project called BirdFlow launched a YouTube video that graphically shows the movements of a billion birds from Argentina to Canada. Look up Spring Bird Migration Data Visualization, and prepare to have your mind blown. ~ Bob Duchesne

Coast Guard proposes removing navigation buoys from Maine waters

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 25, 2025

The U.S. Coast Guard has proposed to remove navigation aids from up and down the East Coast, including more than 100 in Maine waters. The buoys targeted for removal mark harbor entrances, ledges, and other routes and hazards. Some are lighted, while others have gongs, bells or whistles, according to detailed descriptions in the notice. According to the Coast Guard, most, if not all would be removed to modernize a constellation of navigation aids “whose designs mostly predate global navigation satellite systems, electronic navigation charts, and electronic charting systems.”

'Toss the Tanks' campaign ramps up in South Portland

MAINE PUBLIC • April 25, 2025

A new campaign in South Portland wants a Canadian oil company to remove old, mostly empty holding tanks from a residential area. And supporters are imagining the possibilities for sprawling real estate the tanks occupy in the heart of the city. "Toss The Tanks" wants to persuade Suncor Energy that their Hill Street tank farm isn’t a good fit for the city. "Suncor has to understand that the community does not want them here any longer," said organizer Tim Honey during a recent community forum. Almost 20 tanks sit on about 100 acres bordered by schools and homes. Some of the tanks date back to the Second World War, and they have prompted concerns about health and environmental safety. The tanks are mostly empty, but are designed to hold crude oil shipped to Canada through the pipeline — not for U.S. consumers.

The Trump administration cut a key FEMA grant. What does that mean for Maine projects?

MAINE MONITOR • April 25, 2025

The Federal Emergency Management Agency program — Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC — has dished out roughly $133 million to fund local resilience projects since it was launched in 2020 under the first Trump administration. In 2023, FEMA awarded an additional billion dollars through BRIC after the agency received a windfall in congressional funding from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law and saw a surge of applicants. The program’s most recent applications included $5 million for more than 30 separate resilience projects at the state, tribal and municipal level in Maine that have been awarded BRIC grants or identified for further consideration by FEMA. According to the agency’s April 4 announcement, any future grants and funds not yet distributed to local grantees will be returned.

Gulf of Maine scallop fishery halted again, this time for the year

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 25, 2025

Federal regulators are once again halting scallop fishing operations in the Gulf of Maine, this time through the end of March 2026. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration paused scallop fishing on April 12, marking the first midseason closure since regulations were first put in place about 16 years ago. That pause lasted just over a week. But on Friday, the agency announced a second closure, which takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Monday and lasts through the end of the fishing year, March 31, 2026.