The most comprehensive online source of conservation news and events in Maine and beyond, edited by Jym St. Pierre
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • July 12, 2025
Robert Stolt was fishing on the Kennebec River near Lines Island in Bath on Sunday when he jumped into the water to rescue his dog after it had tried to retrieve a fish. His body was recovered Wednesday evening after a three-day search by the U.S. Coast Guard and Maine Marine Patrol. The Maine Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined his death was an accidental drowning.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • July 12, 2025
I used an L.L.Bean credit card for 40 years, but I cut mine up last year because it was a Citibank card, and Citibank is among the world’s top investors in fossil fuels. Third Act Maine volunteers, who want to reduce climate change, have been trying to convince L.L.Bean to change its credit card and L.L.Bean isn’t listening. It knows that our climate is threatened, and it could do something about it. ~ Richard Thomas, Waterville
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • July 11, 2025
From Aroostook County to the Atlantic Ocean and from Cumberland County to Cobscook Bay, Maine has many great conservation lands and many miles of fine hiking trails. Here’s a six-pack of good ones for your must-do list this summer. Enjoy!
• Deboullie Public Lands, Aroostook County
• Baxter State Park
• Acadia National Park
• Forest City Trails, Portland
• Cobscook Shores, Lubec
MAINE PUBLIC • July 11, 2025
From ATV riders to mountain bikers, hikers and horseback riders, joggers and walkers, Maine trails cater to all types. We’ll discuss the state of the state’s trails, including how communities can apply for a piece of the $30 million in funding signed into law last year. Some Maine communities are building their economic development plans around existing or new trails, the grant process, and the importance of maintaining existing trails. Panelists: Erin Amadon, founder, Town 4 Trail Services; Douglas Beck, Maine Recreational Trails Program. VIP Callers: Kristina Cannon, Main Street Skowhegan; Brian Threlkeld, Maine Outdoor Brands; Aimee Vlachos, University of New England Outdoor Business and Innovation bachelor’s program.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • July 11, 2025
The bane of many Maine gardeners’ summers has returned: Japanese beetles emerging from the ground to chew through crops, trees and ornamental plants. Mainers have battled these beetles for almost a century, but populations are increasing around the state with help from milder winters. Beetles appear in July, lay eggs and stay active into September. Experts recommend vacuuming up the bugs or knocking them off plants into a bucket of soapy water, where they’ll drown. This is easier in the mornings and evenings, when the bugs are more sluggish.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • July 10, 2025
Jess and Storey thought they’d gotten lucky. Hunting buddies from away, they had both drawn permits in Maine’s nonresident moose lottery, and they were taking their annual hunting trip to the woods west of Katahdin. A big empty wilderness, “country to get lost in.” After a week’s tramping but no moose, they come out of the forest to find dumbfounding devastation. No people, no electricity or cell service, bridges demolished and every vehicle and building burned. Who in God’s name is doing this to backcountry Maine? We don’t learn even the beginning of what’s happened until halfway through the book. At novel’s end, Heller brings this tale to an enormously satisfying conclusion. ~ John Alden
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • July 10, 2025
One hundred years ago, in July of 1925, the so-called Monkey Trial took place in Dayton, Tennessee. It was, I think, supposed to have been the final catharsis, the last gasp of religious fundamentalism guiding science instruction as evolution made its inexorable way into the educational curriculum. But a century since, we seem to have stalled in our progress. Evolution is a fact. The physical world changes, and life must change along with it or else it will go extinct. One would like to think that science had triumphed and fundamentalism had ebbed. But as of last year, 17 states taught evolution only alongside creationism. 100 years post-Scopes, anti-evolution sentiment still lives and breathes in the United States. ~ Robert Klose, emeritus professor of biological sciences, University of Maine at Augusta
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • July 10, 2025
With the sudden end of a long-standing federal tax credit for residential solar projects in sight, Maine’s solar installation companies are bracing for a short surge in demand followed by a long stretch of uncertainty. The residential clean energy credit, sometimes referred to as the 25D solar credit, offers homeowners a federal tax credit worth 30% of the cost of a new solar system. Depending on the project, that credit can be worth a five-figure sum. But the federal reconciliation bill, which President Donald Trump signed at an Independence Day picnic, ends eligibility for any expenses made after Dec. 31, several years earlier than was previously planned. That’s left some companies scrambling to plan past six months from now.
MAINE PUBLIC • July 9, 2025
Maine’s controversial subsidy program for commercial solar developments is coming to a close, following the passage of a law that stops new developments from receiving benefits and slashes compensation for existing solar farms. About six years ago, lawmakers expanded Maine’s net energy billing program to encourage renewable energy in the state. And it worked — too well, some argue. “The goal in 2019 was to build 750 megawatts of solar,” Maine Public Advocate Heather Sanborn said. “And we have built 1,600 megawatts of solar under that program.”
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • July 8, 2025
International tourists will have to wait and see how their upcoming visits to Acadia National Park will be affected by President Donald Trump’s call to increase fees paid at National Park Service sites. The president issued an executive order on Thursday directing Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum to increase entrance and other fees charged to nonresidents at national parks and other federal lands used for recreational purposes. The order comes on the heels of significant staffing and budget cuts to the park service, and lacks significant details, including how much fees would increase, when they would take effect, how the park service would single out foreign visitors and whether other national park sites in Maine would be affected beyond Acadia.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • July 8, 2025
The town of Scarborough has decided to erode coastal access for Mainers, with the Town Council unilaterally deciding on an unprecedented raise in beach access costs for Mainers and tourists alike. The cost of visiting Scarborough’s beaches rose up to 80% in the early morning hours, while season passes were restricted and cost 25% more for non-Scarborough residents. This is a reductive approach to public resource management that harms the community and Scarborough’s economy. Policies governing Maine’s beaches should ensure broad public access, prioritizing the common good over exclusivity. ~ George Katilus IV, Portland, runs Swell Affair, that makes surf goods
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • July 8, 2025
The release of the report Banking on Climate Chaos 2025 was a somber reminder that the fossil-fuel engine of global pollution through greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions remains steadily in high gear. This report revealed that in 2025 the 65 largest banks had committed to loans of $869 billion to companies involved in the extraction and production of fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal). Four of the top five lenders are U.S. corporations (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo — all doing business in Maine), alone accounting for $184 billion of that total, or approximately 21%. Maine savers’ funds can go to responsible institutions rather than supporting the big banks that are funding climate chaos. ~ David von Seggern, retired earth scientist and volunteer with Maine Chapter of the Sierra Club
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • July 8, 2025
I am writing to express my disgust for those people who think “rolling coal” — deliberately emitting large amounts of black exhaust containing soot and diesel — is acceptable. Several friends and I, most of whom are retired and in our 60s, 70s and 80s, gather for a peaceful protest every Tuesday because we love our country and are concerned about the future. Most drivers honk or wave or give us a thumbs up. Some refuse to look at us. Others give us the finger or yell obscenities. It’s their prerogative and we accept that. However, occasionally, drivers of pickup trucks, who are offended by ideas that don’t adhere to what they see on Fox News, will pass us while rolling coal and laughing. How is this legal? I would like to see a police presence at all of our future protests. ~ Cecile Thornton, Lewiston
TIMES RECORD • July 7, 2025
Brunswick Landing has taken another step to rid itself of toxic firefighting foam, as policymakers seek to understand — and eventually remove — Maine’s stock of aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF). American Airlines purchased 5,925 gallons of AFFF concentrate — a fire suppressing foam that contains a toxic PFAS compound known as PFOS — from the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority, the organization that manages Brunswick Landing. The airline removed the AFFF from MRRA property on July 3. Now home to businesses, residences and the Brunswick Executive Airport, the former base was the site of an August 2024 spill that released 1,450 gallons of AFFF concentrate mixed with 50,000 gallons of water from Hangar 4, polluting local ecosystems and wells.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • July 7, 2025
Robert Stolt, 22, of Augusta, was fishing from a 23-foot boat Sunday afternoon when his dog jumped into the river north of Bath, the Maine Marine Patrol said in a statement on Monday. Another dog on the boat also wound up in the river. Stolt and the female passenger worked together to save the dogs, and then Stolt aided in rescuing the passenger, before he went underwater and didn’t resurface.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • July 7, 2025
Portland, Saco and South Portland will temporarily redesign select streets in an effort to make roads safer for pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers. All three temporary redesigns will be removed by Nov. 15, ahead of snowfall. These three projects are the first of nine such installments planned across the region for the next three years. “These projects are about more than paint and posts,” said Andrew Zarro, executive director of the Bicycle Coalition of Maine. “They’re about protecting lives.” In Greater Portland, there were 92 people killed and more than 580 seriously injured by traffic crashes between 2017 and 2021. Pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists account for 40% of traffic fatalities despite only being involved in 4% of crashes.
FRANKLIN JOURNAL • July 7, 2025
Logan Comfort, 21, was driving a dirt bike at a "high rate of speed" on Temple Road when an ATV did a U-turn and the two collided. The four-wheeler flipped trapping Comfort under it. He received life-threatening injuries.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • July 7, 2025
First responders were called to Walker Pond on Saturday for a report of two swimmers who were calling for help. One of the swimmers was able to reach shore safely. A sheriff’s deputy and a Sedgwick firefighter swam toward the other swimmer, who was floating on the surface about 150 feet from land, but he went under the water before they could reach him. The deputy and firefighter searched the area but were unable to immediately find him. First responders eventually recovered the swimmer’s body. He was identified as Shawn Clapper, 18, of Deer Isle, and pronounced dead at the scene.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • July 7, 2025
No. Tick season in Maine typically peaks between May and July, and again in October and November, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Human encounters with the two most common species of ticks in Maine — the deer tick and the American dog tick — tend to decline in August and September; the majority of human Lyme disease cases are reported in June and July. Ticks are active whenever temperatures are above freezing, particularly over 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • July 7, 2025
When Andre Briere became executive director of the Maine Turnpike Authority in April one month after the board of directors dumped the Gorham Connector proposal, he knew he was hired to fix it. He’s got a long to-do list, including reviving transparency and trust in the authority, increasing digital technology, security and automation, and improving service plazas with updated bathrooms, children’s play areas and new dining options. Getting rid of the turnpike authority — something that’s been tried unsuccessfully more than 25 times — isn’t on Briere’s list. He says the agency benefits the state and its residents. His plan calls for providing much smaller E-ZPass sticker tags instead of the current transponders; offering a Maine Turnpike app so E-ZPass users can manage accounts more easily online; letting drivers pay tolls with credit cards; and keeping tolls low or flat for Maine E-ZPass users.
