What will tourist season in Maine look like? Three towns weigh in

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • May 25, 2025

Tourism has long been one of the state’s biggest industries — even though the calendar window is small and weather dependent — but this year, political and economic factors have created new layers of uncertainty. State officials are bracing for a 25% reduction in visitors from Canada, much of it attributable to the Trump administration’s tariffs and tumultuous relationship with our northern neighbor. Will that materialize or prove an empty threat? What about other international travelers? Will they boycott travel to the U.S.? Will an increase in domestic travelers to Maine make up for any losses? And what of broader economic concerns? When the economy tightens, travel is often the first place households cut back.

The weather in Maine has been weird lately, even by New England standards

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • May 25, 2025

Hot, cold, rainy, cloudy, sunny or even snowy — to have all sorts of weather conditions in a small time span is part of the New England experience. But even with that reputation, the weather in Maine this May has been especially abnormal. Southern Maine has already seen more cloudy days this May than the previous five. “We’re looking at a wet and hot summer,” said Jon Palmer, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service.

CMP to conserve 50,000 acres, a final step in transmission line

KENNEBEC JOURNAL • May 25, 2025

Central Maine Power Co. plans to permanently conserve about 50,000 acres in northern Somerset County, a major step needed to comply with state demands and mitigate the environmental impact of its long-litigated transmission line through rural western Maine. CMP plans to finish building the high-voltage transmission line, named the New England Clean Energy Connect, by the end of this year but needs approval from state regulators on this proposed conservation area before the line can begin operating.

Lewiston’s youngest students learn to be good stewards of the planet

SUN JOURNAL • May 25, 2025

At Lewiston elementary schools, teachers are helping kids gain a healthy respect for the world around them — and showing them firsthand how actions they take locally can have a big impact. In teaching environmental stewardship, however, educators face a number of challenges, including language barriers, student mental health, and the politics surrounding climate change. The Trump administration has rolled back a series of climate initiatives aimed at reducing pollution, as well as the carbon emissions that are warming the earth to alarming levels. He favors the use of fossil fuels, which cause the carbon emissions, over renewable energy. The administration has also scrubbed environmental resources and mentions of climate change from federal websites. The president’s actions have some wondering whether they can even use the words “climate change” in the classroom.

This Bangor-area paddle is excellent for birding

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • May 24, 2025

Tree swallows danced overhead, swooping and gliding as their shimmering blue feathers caught the sunlight. We drifted in our canoe, basking in the sights and sounds of springtime. Red-winged blackbirds sang from the cattails, their sharp beaks lifted to the sky. Bright green blades of new grass lined the channel, and fresh lilypads dotted the water. It had been a vigorous paddle across Fields Pond to reach the wetlands on its west side where a wide channel of water threads into a wetland, narrowing as it becomes Sedgeunkedunk Stream. Fields Pond Audubon Center., a 229-acre preserve is excellent for birding, with lots of edge habitats. Keep an eye out for bluebirds and tree swallows in the nesting boxes that dot the fields, and if all else fails, there’s always a variety of birds raiding the feeders near the nature center. It’s truly an ideal place to go birding. ~ Aislinn Sarnacki

Letter: I don’t want to pay for climate change

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • May 24, 2025

Last spring, along Maine’s rocky coast I saw wrecked docks and shattered piers, splinters strewn across beaches. Seawater defied seawalls, flooding lawns with sand. Houses were damaged or gone. Taxpayers have to shell out $90 million for public infrastructure alone. Harmful pollution exacerbates the climate crisis, making the damage from those storms just the start. If just 4 feet of sea level rise occurs, over 3,700 homes, two power plants, a sewage plant, and other critical infrastructure will be inundated, costing Maine $10.9 billion. Who pays for that? We, the taxpayers, do. I believe our dollars should be invested in building a stronger Maine, not cleaning up a mess we didn’t cause. The Climate Superfund Cost Recovery Program would create a fund that Big Oil has to pay into for rebuilding infrastructure after storms and strengthening our state’s adaptation to climate change. As a young taxpayer, I don’t want to shoulder the financial burden of climate change. A climate Superfund would alleviate that pressure.~ Maya Faulstich, Yarmouth

Column: How is this spring from a naturalist perspective? Odd

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • May 24, 2025

I have had the joy of leading bird walks at Evergreen Cemetery in Portland each day for the past two weeks. The only way I can describe this spring is: odd. We got a really early start, and then things really slowed down. I’m mostly talking about the bird migration we’ve been observing, in particular the long-distance song birds. ~ Maine Audubon Staff Naturalist Doug Hitchcox

Maine angler ‘could barely stand up in the boat because of the waves’

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • May 24, 2025

Rick and Nancy Labbe are avid anglers who spend a lot of time fishing on Moosehead Lake. But when they fished on Maine’s largest lake recently, they had to contend with 4-5-foot waves, some of Moosehead’s worst conditions. They caught several fish anyway, including an impressive 22½-inch approximately 5-pound salmon that Nancy reeled in. “I could barely stand up in the boat because of the waves,” Nancy said. At one point, all four of their rods had fish on them.

2 rescued after falling out of canoe into Orrington stream

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • May 24, 2025

Two people were rescued Thursday afternoon after falling out of a canoe into Sedgeunkedunk Stream. When rescue crews arrived, they discovered the pair stranded on a small island in the stream. Additional help was requested by Orrington Rescue, and rescue workers from Brewer and Holden responded with a boat and more personnel. Both individuals were brought safely into the boat by 5:22 p.m. and taken to a waiting ambulance, where they were evaluated and released.

Letter: Climate change could teach a costly lesson

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • May 24, 2025

Many homes are uninsurable because of the rising ocean, flooding and wildfires. Insurance companies can’t sustain the losses and remain solvent. These properties are not insurable. This is what happens to capital holdings from ignoring climate change. A property without insurance means no bank mortgage. When the insurance industry collapses, then the mortgage industry collapses, property values collapse and property taxes collapse, and then … what’s next? Climate change is not a hoax. Deal with it. That’s a capital idea. ~ Patrick Quinn, Winterport

Column: Easy terrain and changing habitats make this walk a special Maine birding hotspot

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • May 23, 2025

For at least a decade, I’ve led a bird walk at Leonard’s Mills in Bradley on the third Monday in May. Usually, there is little traffic. Not this time. Just as the walk got underway, a crew of volunteers for the Maine Forest and Logging Museum arrived. They were moving a Lombard Log Hauler to the museum. I was quietly thrilled. The Lombard is an iconic piece of Maine’s logging history. Leonard’s Mills is a recreation of an early pioneer settlement from the 1790s, but it was a special place long before Europeans arrived. The entire area has been culturally important to the Penobscot Nation for thousands of years. Even now, the alewives currently running up Blackman Stream are a testament to the resource richness of this location. More people should visit. ~ Bob Duchesne

Bar Harbor business owners are pessimistic as tourism season begins

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • May 23, 2025

With the unofficial start of Bar Harbor’s tourism season just days away, local business owners are apprehensive about what 2025 might bring. The scenic seaside town on Mount Desert Island, which serves as a gateway to Acadia National Park, has attracted seasonal visitors for more than a century but this year is expected to present myriad challenges for the businesses and organizations that cater to tourists. President Donald Trump’s bellicose diplomacy could deter foreign tourists from coming, and his administration’s efforts to sharply reduce the federal budget could mean that more jobs at Acadia go unfilled — an obstacle that in recent years has also been caused by a lack of affordable housing in the area. But while those potential hurdles have yet to play out, one thing is for sure: there will be far fewer cruise ship visits in Bar Harbor this year than usual.

Opinion: We must protect our oceans’ golden geese

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • May 23, 2025

19 years ago, Jean-Michel Cousteau persuaded President George W. Bush to set aside 140,000 square miles of Pacific Ocean as critical marine sanctuary while phasing out commercial fishing. Barack Obama and Joe Biden followed suit — the former expanding fivefold the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument while the latter restored restrictions Donald Trump had overturned. Another Obama contribution, the New England Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, hasn’t harmed the fishers, with Maine’s boats having netted $700 million-plus in 2024. For Trump, it’s a no-brainer to revert to practices that cause the depletion of commercially critical stocks. Marine monuments and sanctuaries cover small critical parts of the world’s oceans, and the denizens there need protection if enough of them are to wind up on our tables. ~ Neil Cote, Saco

Yarmouth Clam Festival returns with focus on sustainability

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • May 23, 2025

This year, the Yarmouth Clam Festival will make extra efforts to increase the event’s sustainability and reduce its environmental impact. The festival is marking its 60th anniversary and likely will see over 100,000 visitors during July 18-20. The emphasis on sustainability follows the Yarmouth Town Council adopting the Yarmouth Climate Action Plan last spring. One of the plan’s goals is to increase community collaborations toward reducing waste and emissions produced in Yarmouth.

Warren gets $4M EPA grant to clean up mountains of toxic carpet

BANGOR DAILY NEWS • May 23, 2025

After years of trying to deal with a property contaminated with heaps of toxic carpet scraps, the town of Warren has been awarded $4 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection to help clean it up. Warren will use the funding to clean up the 71-acre former Steamship Navigation site on Route 90, which has been littered with 300,000 cubic yards of carpet since the late 1990s when Chester Randall Dunican and his wife Kathleen began dumping the material there to serve as berms for a proposed rifle range.

Maine has the most land trusts per capita of any state, according to new report

MAINE PUBLIC • May 23, 2025

A new report shows that Maine's 84 land trusts have conserved nearly three million acres, protecting both public access and natural resource-based industries at a scale that's unmatched in most parts of the country. That's partially because Maine has very little public land, said Jeff Romano, director of Public Policy at Maine Coast Heritage Trust. "New Hampshire, has over 20% of its land publicly owned, whereas in Maine, it's less than 7%," he said. The report finds that Maine ranks far behind many other states for its overall percentage of public lands. Most land trusts remain on the tax rolls, and Romano said more than 6,000 volunteers are working to restore marshes, preserve wildlife corridors and create hiking trails as public demand for more conservation land increases.

Maine solar developer fined for water pollution

MAINE PUBLIC • May 23, 2025

A solar company has been fined almost $236,000 by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection for polluting the Kennebec River during construction of a 5 megawatt array in Embden. Sediment runoff from a development by Tower Solar Partners LLC ran into the river from nearby Alder Stream, according to its agreement with the department. Erosion control measures were improperly installed and not maintained. The company spent more than $722,000 to remediate the impact of noncompliance, in addition to the state penalty. Tower Partners was purchased in 2022 by Luminace, a subsidiary of Brookfield Renewables.

Backyard chicken bill making its way through Maine State House

SPECTRUM NEWS • May 23, 2025

A bill to require cities and towns to allow backyard chickens is flying through the State House and should soon land on Gov. Janet Mills desk. In 2021, Maine was the first state to enshrine a right to food in its state constitution. But after a public hearing, the Legislature’s Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee simplified the bill, stating only that “a county or municipality may not adopt a regulation or ordinance that prohibits a person from keeping chickens on that person’s residential property.” The bill passed the House 131-8 and sailed through the Senate without a roll call vote. Cities and towns can regulate backyard chickens through ordinances related to health and safety, but the bill will not allow them to ban them.

Patagonia drops lawsuit against Marden’s over fake jackets

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • May 23, 2025

Patagonia has dropped its trademark lawsuit against the Maine bargain retailer Marden’s Surplus and Salvage. The outdoor gear and clothing company sued Marden’s in March in the U.S. District Court of Maine. It claimed Marden’s was knowingly selling counterfeit jackets and down sweaters with replicas of Patagonia’s trademarked mountain-range logo. Patagonia called the fakes “virtually identical,” according to the lawsuit. Marden’s had these jackets on racks at its stores in Scarborough, Biddeford, Gray and Sanford, according to the lawsuit. But a general manager for the Maine company said it was unaware the products were counterfeit. Patagonia did not specify the reason for dropping the lawsuit. Marden’s worked with Patagonia outside of the courtroom.

York County hospitality industry reports Canadian bookings are down

MAINE PUBLIC • May 23, 2025

When President Donald Trump said he wanted to make Canada the 51st state and then slapped 25% tariffs on Canadian imports in March, former Canadian Premier Justin Trudeau angrily shot back that Canadians would not come to Old Orchard Beach this summer. The Mills Administration met with the hospitality industry this week to talk about the fallout of that rhetoric on tourism in York County. Seaside Inn owner Ken Mason said reservations are down nearly 20% and he had to refund close to $7,000 in pre-booking deposits. Chris Whittaker of Ocean Park Realty in Old Orchard Beach said his vacation rental business is also down. Data show Canadians spent almost half a billion dollars in Maine in 2024.