The most comprehensive online source of conservation news and events in Maine and beyond, edited by Jym St. Pierre
Thank you for reading Maine Environmental News. Each year, we post thousands of news summaries, notices, and links related to important environmental issues from across the state (and beyond). If you find this service useful, you can help us continue to provide it by making a donation. Just click on the button below and contribute whatever you can afford. Thanks again for your generous support!
Sincerely,
Jym St. Pierre
Editor, Maine Environmental News
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 25, 2024
According to a report from the state Office of Tourism released Thursday, Maine had 15.3 million visitors last year, a 0.6% decline from 2022, but the number of visitor days increased 3.9% with the average length of stay being 4.8 nights, a 6.7% jump over 2022. Travel to the state during the shoulder seasons accounted for 44% of the visitors, up 3.4 percentage points from 2022. Tourism spending in 2023 totaled $9.1 billion, a 4.9% increase fueled by a 5.3% increase in spending per visitor per trip. Those travelers generated a $16.4 billion impact to Maine’s economy.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 25, 2024
The operator of the Amtrak Downeaster on Thursday outlined three sites being considered for a new Portland station along the main rail line between Boston and Brunswick. The rail authority says building a new Portland stationwill increase the passenger train’s efficiency and appeal to travelers.
MAINE AUDUBON • April 25, 2024
Each spring, millions of fish return to Maine’s coastal rivers to spawn. For thousands of years, these fish runs have helped humans build and sustain communities, economies, and cultures, connections to which we all share even as dams, pollution, and other threats have limited habitat and diminished historic numbers and species of fish. As scientists, conservationists, and anglers seek to protect these rivers and streams, it is their stories, both new and old, which carry the memories and connect new generations. Join Maine Audubon and The Nature Conservancy in Maine for an evening of storytelling with scientists, an activist, and a Wabanaki harvester, who will help us all relate to this phenomenon that still defines time and place. At Gilsland Farm, Falmouth, and on Zoom, May 1, 7 pm.
TIMES RECORD • April 25, 2024
The Brunswick Community Education Foundation awarded 14 grants totaling $27,000 to educators this year. The grants, which will be used for classroom and school enrichment programs, were sent to five of Brunswick’s schools. Projects at Brunswick High School received six grants. Social studies teacher and department head Andrew Kosak received two of the three grants awarded to Brunswick Junior High for a project, which teaches kids how to use drones to study Brunswick geography.
ASSOCIATED PRESS • April 25, 2024
Coal-fired power plants would be forced to capture smokestack emissions or shut down under a rule issued Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency. New limits on greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired electric plants are the Biden administration’s most ambitious effort yet to roll back planet-warming pollution from the power sector, the nation’s second-largest contributor to climate change. The rules are a key part of President Joe Biden’s pledge to eliminate carbon pollution from the electricity sector by 2035 and economy-wide by 2050. The plan is likely to be challenged by industry groups and Republican-leaning states.
BOWDOIN COLLEGE • April 29, 2024
Climate warming is initiating several major changes to polar regions. In the Arctic, warmer and wetter conditions are causing landscapes to green, as treelines move northward and vegetation becomes more productive. Arctic greening has the potential to change local ecosystems, northern communities, and the Earth system. In this presentation, Bowdoin Professor Phil Camill will offer insights on arctic greening worldwide and will showcase, with a photo tour and some preliminary data, the view from one of his research sites: Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada. At Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Visual Arts Center, Beam Classroom, April 29, 7:30 pm.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 25, 2024
Lawmakers and advocates who support a bill to give farmworkers protections under Maine’s minimum wage law are frustrated by a veto from Gov. Janet Mills, who has argued that lawmakers’ changes to the bill would jeopardize farmers’ financial security. Mills’ veto of L.D. 2273 on Tuesday hinged on an amendment made in the Labor and Housing Committeeto strike a provision in the original bill that placed enforcement duties with the Maine Department of Labor rather than allow farmworkers to pursue private litigation in response to alleged violations. The governor said she offered a compromise that would allow employees to seek a right-to-sue letter from the Department of Labor, but it was rejected by the committee. In order to override the governor’s veto, lawmakers would need two-thirds support in each chamber, which is unlikely.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 25, 2024
Recently a proposal called for banning the expansion of gas distribution systems in Maine even though natural gas is lower emissions and lower cost than other fuel sources. While I’m relieved the proposal in the Legislature was rejected, it remains troubling. As a farmer, I feed the state, my family, my friends and my neighbors. In 2019, Summit Natural Gas approached us to create one of the nation’s first community dairy digesters at our farm. Today, that digester is providing many economic, energy and environmental benefits by capturing the methane from the manure at our farm and using it to create a carbon-negative gas that takes more emissions out of the air in the form of captured methane than is put back into the air when burned at the burner tip. I hope we can once again lead in Maine’s way by preserving energy choice and making sure the RNG facility at our farm isn’t Maine’s last. ~ Jenni Tilton-Flood, Flood Brothers Farm, Clinton
SUN JOURNAL • April 24, 2024
Firefighters from several towns battled woods, grass and brush fires in two locations Tuesday. A woods fire was reported about 3:30 p.m. at the intersection of Mosher Hill Road and Federal Row on the Farmington/Industry line. A Central Maine Power Co. power line was sparking at the top of a utility pole and ignited grass. About 20 minutes later a second fire was reported in West Farmington caused by a campfire Monday night that wasn’t completely extinguished.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 24, 2024
The developers of a four-story hydroponic farm said Wednesday they have secured nearly $60 million in financing to wrap up construction and begin operating early next year in the city’s downtown. Vertical Harvest Farms, an indoor farming company focused on microgreens, said $59.5 million in financing will advance its work to develop and operate the 51,000-square-foot vertical farm. The Westbrook business is expected employ 47 workers, with half the workforce including people with intellectual and physical disabilities, CEO Nona Yehia said.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 24, 2024
A combination of factors has likely led to an unusually large amount of pine cones in Maine this year. In fact, it’s a “special” time in the cycle that only happens every five years or so, according to Dr. William Livingston, director and associate professor of forest resources at the University of Maine. Livingston, who is also chair of the Multi-state Project on White Pine Health, noted that like other tree species, white pine will typically only produce a large number of cones every three to five years. That’s known as a “mast” year, and the Pine Tree State is now experiencing the fruits of that windfall production that happened this past fall, he said.
MORNING SENTINEL • April 24, 2024
New storefronts, restaurants and other businesses along Bay Street. Unified architectural design standards. Encouraged pedestrian walkability. Preparation for the impacts of climate change. This is the vision laid out in a new comprehensive plan for Winslow, in which town officials have described their goals over the next decade for making community improvements. Winslow Town Manager Ella Bowman said that the comprehensive plan will maintain Winslow’s rural character while advancing new development downtown.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 24, 2024
Versant Power is pushing back against a new approach to broaden the use of heat pumps, which already are a key part of Maine’s toolbox to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Efficiency Maine Trust, a quasi-state agency that promotes energy efficiency, has shifted its rebate program to incentivize electric pumps that heat an entire house rather than one or two rooms. Versant Power opposes a shift to whole-house electric heat pumps, saying affluent homeowners and developers will benefit.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 24, 2024
The plan is for floating offshore wind turbines to provide about 50% of the electric power Maine will need by 2040. More great news is that experts predict offshore wind will provide between 10,000 to 30,000 new, good jobs for Mainers. The most hopeful part of this wind story is the amount of energy the U.S. may be able to get from East Coast offshore wind. The Department of Energy says the goal is 30 gigawatts by 2030 and 110 GW by 2050. This will go a long way toward replacing fossil fuel use and will slow the progression of climate change and clean the air. Please tell our legislators to support the rapid development of offshore wind. ~ Nancy Hasenfus, Brunswick
MAINE PUBLIC • April 23, 2024
Governor Janet Mills has vetoed a bill that would establish a minimum wage for farmworkers and allow them to receive cost-of-living increases. The proposal was brought forward this year by Mills herself after she vetoed a similar initiative last year. The current bill would allow farmworkers to earn the state’s minimum wage – currently $14.15 per hour. But the governor said a change to her bill by lawmakers compelled her to veto it. The amended version would allow farmworkers to sue their employers, a prospect that the governor said goes well beyond her proposal which would have left wage enforcement up to the state labor department.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 23, 2024
Gov. Janet Mills vetoed three bills on Tuesday, including measures that would have set a minimum wage for farmworkers in Maine and allow them to engage in certain labor-related activity. She also rejected a bill that would have required the state-owned Juniper Ridge Landfill to treat water discharge so that it does not exceed the drinking water standards established by the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.
ASSOCIATED PRESS • April 23, 2024
The world’s largest 3D printer has created a house that can cut construction time and labor. An even larger printer unveiled Tuesday may one day create entire neighborhoods. The machine revealed Tuesday at the University of Maine is four times larger than the first one – commissioned less than five years ago. Researchers plan to tinker with the material consumed by the machine, including more bio-based feedstocks from wood residuals that are abundant in Maine.
SUN JOURNAL • April 22, 2024
The owner of a large parcel between Gracelawn Road and Lake Auburn has scrapped plans to develop the site into housing. At one time, property owner John Gendron eyed a 1,100-unit development on the 88-acre site, but the proposal set off a communitywide debate over water quality that included a lawsuit between Lewiston and the Auburn Water District. According to Eric Cousens, director of planning and permitting, Gendron has decided not to pursue a housing project at the site, and plans to continue with a gravel mining operation for the foreseeable future.
MAINE PUBLIC • April 22, 2024
The state of Maine will receive about $10.5 million in federal infrastructure funds to preserve saltwater marshes and repair aging culverts. The announcement came on Earth Day, and in the aftermath of three severe winter storms that Mainers are still recovering from. The Maine projects are among 30 coastal restoration awards announced Monday by the White House and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
