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June 20, 2013
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Press releases, events, publications released, etc. from Maine environmental organizations and agencies. Submit content.
Maine Environmental News
Announcement - Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Thanks for visiting Maine Environmental News, the most comprehensive online source available for links to Maine conservation and natural resource news stories and events. I have posted links to more than 25,000 news articles and announcements. I also post breaking stories and exclusives. Be sure to check not only today's news, but take a look at the headlines from the past several days as well. Articles often come to my attention a few days after they are published. Will Sugg is the website developer. ~ Jym St. Pierre, RESTORE: The North Woods |
Scarborough Marsh Early Morning Birding, Jun 19 – Aug 28
Event - Posted - Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Look and listen for snowy egret, glossy ibis, herons, willet, sparrows and more. At Scarborough Marsh, Wednesdays, 7-8:30 am. Maine Audubon members: $3, non-members $5. |
Scarborough Marsh Family Nature Walk, Jun 19 – Aug 28
Event - Posted - Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Explore the marsh for plants and animals through discovery-oriented, fun-filled activities that use all five senses. At Scarborough Marsh, Wednesdays, 10:30 am – 12 pm, Jun 19, Aug 28. Maine Audubon members $5, non-members $7. |
American Nations, Jun 26
Event - Posted - Wednesday, June 19, 2013
There’s never been one America, Colin Woodard argues in his award-winning book, but rather several Americas, each with its own, centuries-old ideals, values, and religious and cultural heritage. At Gilsland Farm, Falmouth, June 26, 7-8:30 pm. Sponsored by Maine Audubon. |
East-West Corridor, Jun 26
Event - Posted - Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Presentation and best guesses about the route of the proposed East-West Corridor. At Airline Snack Bar, Beddington, June 26, 6:30–8 pm.
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Recreation and Conservation on the former Brunswick Naval Air Station, Jun 26
Event - Posted - Wednesday, June 19, 2013
As part of the annual meeting of the Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust there will be a presentation about the incredible outdoor recreation and conservation opportunities at the former BNAS lands that were recently transfered to the Town of Brunswick. At Topsham Public Library, June 26, 6 pm. |
Borestone Mountain Naturalist Weekend, Jun 28-30
Event - Posted - Sunday, June 16, 2013
Join Maine Audubon Naturalist Mike Windsor and Maine Guide Gary Roberts on a trip to Borestone Mountain Sanctuary, a 1600 acre North Woods preserve located 20 miles south of Moosehead Lake. Stay in the sanctuary’s historic Adirondack style lodges, which are accessible only by boat or on foot, lending an extra sense of remoteness and tranquility to this special place. Jun 28 - Jun 30. Maine Audubon members $225, non-members $250. |
Scarborough Marsh Full Moon Canoe Tour, Jun 23
Event - Posted - Sunday, June 16, 2013
Experience the sights and sounds of marsh creatures under the full moon. At Scarborough Marsh, June 23, 7:30–9:30 pm. Maine Audubon members $11, non-members $13. |
No-till drill demo, Jun 23
Event - Posted - Sunday, June 16, 2013
A pasture walk to exhibit turf improvements made possible with a “no-till drill” approach will be held at Old Crow Ranch in Durham, June 23, 3-6 pm. Sixty-five of the ranch’s 70 acres have been placed into an agricultural easement with assistance from Land for Maine's Future program and Royal River Conservation Trust. Sponsored by Maine Grass Farmer’s Network. |
The Future of Hope, Jun 23
Event - Posted - Sunday, June 16, 2013
This film brings positive insight into Iceland's decision to adopt sustainable practices to recover after their financial crisis. Patrick McGowan, former regional administrator for the US Small Business Administration in New England and Commissioner of the Maine Department of Conservation, will introduce the film and talk about the importance of sustaining Maine’s natural resources, culture, and traditions as the way towards a healthy future. At Reel Pizza in Bar Harbor, June 23. Sponsored by Maine Chapter Sierra Club. |
Katahdin art reception, Jun 22
Event - Posted - Saturday, June 15, 2013
Evelyn Dunphy art exhibit, "Katahdin and the Great Outdoors." At Center Street Gallery, Bath, June 18 - July 15; opening reception and book signing with David Little, author of "The Art of Katahdin," June 22, 4 pm. |
Invasive Pests and Plants Workshop, Jun 22
Event - Posted - Saturday, June 15, 2013
The Piscataquis County Soil and Water Conservation District has rescheduled the Volunteer Trail Clearing Day and Invasive Pests and Plants Workshop at the Demonstration Forest in Williamsburg to Saturday, June 22. These events were originally scheduled for Saturday, June 8. |
Fern Ecology and Identification, Jun 22
Event - Posted - Saturday, June 15, 2013
Mike Windsor, staff naturalist at Maine Audubon, will lead an outing to learn about fern ecology focusing on distinguishing characteristics. At Gilsland Farm, Falmouth, June 22, 9:30 am – noon. Maine Audubon members $12, non-members $15. |
Acadia National Park Service Project, Jun 19-22
Event - Posted - Saturday, June 15, 2013
In honor of the Maine Chapter of Sierra Club's 20th anniversary, the club is holding a service project in Acadia National Park. Camp in the park and perform various service activities as needed (pruning brush along trails, beach clean-up, etc.). On June 21, the Summer Solstice, the group will climb Cadillac Mountain and watch the sun set on the longest day of the year. |
Scarborough Marsh Canoe Tours, Jun 15 – Sep 2
Event - Posted - Saturday, June 15, 2013
Discover the wildlife and plants of Scarborough Marsh as you paddle the Dunstan River with a trained naturalist. Daily, 10–11:30 am. Maine Audubon adult members $10, non-members $12, kids $9. |
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Thanks for visiting Maine Environmental News, the most comprehensive online source available for links to Maine conservation and natural resource news stories and events. If you are a regular visitor we strongly encourage you to make a donation of $35 or more to keep this service going.
Jym St. Pierre, RESTORE: The North Woods, Editor, Maine Environmental News.
Maine Environmental News is provided with free hosting and development by Planet Maine.
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Students discover STEM through nature
Capital Weekly - Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Students in the Jobs for Maine’s Graduates program recently discovered that learning about science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) can be lots of fun during the organization’s first annual Nature Exploration for Students through Teamwork (NEST) event. More than 250 seventh graders in JMG took part in this overnight event May 17-20 at the YMCA Camp of Maine in Winthrop. |
Editorial: Navy's needs have priority over more local issues
Portland Press Herald - Tuesday, May 24, 2011
In order to ensure safe departure this September for the USS Spruance, the Navy wants the Army Corps of Engineers to dredge the Kennebec River by the end of August. That has local fishermen and environmentalists in an uproar, saying that previous dredging efforts have taken place in the winter, when local sea life is less likely to be disrupted. An August dredging would be harmful to local fisheries and the environment, these sources claim. On the merits, the Navy has the stronger case. |
Green power option to go online in fall
Portland Press Herald - Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Will Maine electric customers pay an additional $5 to $7.50 or so on their monthly bills to support renewable energy development? The answer will become clearer this fall, when the Maine Public Utilities Commission begins offering a new "green power" option for residents and small businesses. To make any real difference, the program will have to overcome obstacles that blunted the impact of Maine's most-prominent green power efforts. Only 2,500 customers -- less than one-half of 1 percent -- were signed up for the wind and hydro options offered by the former Maine Renewable Energy LLC. |
Mysterious bat disease confirmed in Maine
Associated Press - Tuesday, May 24, 2011
A mysterious disease that has killed more than a million bats in the eastern and southern United States has been confirmed in Maine as it continues its spread across North America, officials said today. The disease known as white-nose syndrome was found this spring in mines in western Maine where bats hibernate during the winter. The disease has now been confirmed in 17 states from Maine to Tennessee and in four Canadian provinces. The spread of white-nose syndrome could have significant ecological consequences. The million bats already killed would have eaten roughly 1.5 million to 3 million pounds of insects a year, providing pest-control services for farmers and forest managers. |
Maine gets $3.2M for oil-to-wood heating projects
Associated Press - Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Eleven oil-to-wood heating projects will receive $3.2 million from the federal government in the final round of heating conversion grants. Grants ranging from $25,000 to $500,000 are going to Maine institutions, including four schools, four towns, one college, one university and one hospital.
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White-nose syndrome found in Maine bats
Bangor Daily News - Tuesday, May 24, 2011
A disease that could eventually kill three-quarters of the northeastern U.S. population of hibernating bats has been confirmed in Maine for the first time. Wildlife officials announced during a phone conference that bats infected with White-Nose Syndrome were found in two Oxford County wintering shelters. Until Tuesday’s announcement, Maine and Rhode Island had been the only New England States without confirmed cases. |
Opinion: Who elected the Maine Heritage Policy Center?
Forecaster - Monday, May 23, 2011
When you look at the Republican policy agenda in Maine, what you often see now are not state issues, but national initiatives that seem to serve the interests of big business, not local business: health insurance reform that puts all the power in the hands of out-of-state insurers, the repeal of Maine’s Informed Growth law, the failed attempt to prevent Maine from banning toxins in children’s toys, and what we must hope will be the failed attempts to push through union-busting right-to-work laws, split the Department of Health and Human Services in two and get rid of the Land Use Regulation Commission. ~ Edgar Allen Beem |
Opinion: Repeal of DEP conflict of interest rules will end in tears
Bangor Daily News - Monday, May 23, 2011
After losing his Department of Environmental Protection commissioner to conflict of interest rules, Gov. Paul LePage’ s solution is not to pick a new candidate who is qualified. Instead, he wants to lower the standards. The Legislature should refuse. High government officials with a private conflict of interest simply have no place in a modern democracy — especially as members of the governor’ s cabinet. |
Editorial: Helping business cut electricity consumption boosts profits
Bangor Daily News - Monday, May 23, 2011
The Efficiency Maine Trust provides engineering consultation and equipment rebates to achieve electricity savings. Not only does it do so for businesses, but it also offers these services to residents. The catch is that Efficiency Maine Trust is funded through a charge on electric bills. A PUC-approved plan that needs legislative approval would increase the charge from an average of 75 cents per monthly residential bill to $1.82 in 2013. The new rate would generate $31 million by 2013. Replacing a 100-watt incandescent bulb with a compact florescent bulb saves about $1.66 per month, thereby off-setting the increase. Republicans aiming to help Maine businesses must embrace the expansion of this program. |
Trail group settles with former employee
Bangor Daily News - Monday, May 23, 2011
The Maine Island Trail Association has reached a civil settlement with a former employee accused of stealing money from the group, according to association officials. In March, the group filed a civil lawsuit against its former business manager, Patricia Dano of Naples, after accusing her of embezzling $117,000 of the association’s funds. The settlement includes a restitution plan. |
Jobs and Savings Help Regional Carbon Market Survive GOP Attacks
Reuters - Monday, May 23, 2011
Efforts to unravel a regional carbon trading program have hit a wall in recent weeks after lawmakers in New Hampshire, Delaware and Maine moved to reaffirm their states' participation in the market. "The tide has definitely turned against these ideas of pulling out of RGGI," Seth Kaplan, vice president of policy and climate advocacy for the Conservation Law Foundation, told SolveClimate News. |
Megatrends and Mega-impacts: Implications for Maine, 2035
Other - Monday, May 23, 2011
This slide talk by Susan M. Wachter, Professor of Financial Management at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, to the Maine Real Estate Development Association looks at the implications of large-scale trends. She suggests that "Maine must maintain the assets it is known for, especially quality of life and recreational amenities, to sustain demand," and that the state should invest in scientific research, including marine technology, renewable energy, and environmental preservation (because Maine's "natural beauty = competitive edge"). |
Political Pulse: Losers and winners lobbying the Legislature
Sun Journal - Monday, May 23, 2011
Miller Hydro Group, which operates the Worumbo hydroelectric dam on the Androscoggin River, has paid lobbyists $16,715 so far this session. All of that money went toward opposing a bill that would have created a higher water quality standard on the Androscoggin. The lobbyist for the Lafayette Ocean Resort spent $10,000 in March advocating for a bill that amends the state's sand dune law so that the company can proceed with plans to build a $2 million resort in Wells. The company has paid lobbyists $25,000 this session. An amended version of the bill was signed into law earlier this month. |
Maine Could Lose Renewable Electricity Standards
Other - Monday, May 23, 2011
Last week, we reported that Governors in Montana, Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri want to to eliminate their state's Renewable Electricity Standards, which require utilities to source a certain percentage of their energy from clean energy. Add Maine to the list. Republican Governor Paul LePage wants to do away with the state's very modest renewable energy standard. Why? Because LePage incorrectly asserts that doing away with the requirement will save ratepayers $42 million a year by 2017. |
‘Hometown boy’ leaves DECH $1 million
Bangor Daily News - Monday, May 23, 2011
A Cherryfield native who made his fortune selling cars has bequeathed Down East Community Hospital a $1 million endowment. The late John Philip Harriman, who died in April 2010 at age 91, was a self-made millionaire whose estate has benefited many area charities. Harriman was a devoted resident of Cherryfield, a pilot and an avid conservationist. In the 1980-90s he operated a feeding station for bald eagles on the Narraguagus River, just above his home. After the listing of the Atlantic salmon as an endangered species, he served as a member of the Narraguagus River Watershed Council. |
DeCoster bill loses key supporter
Other - Monday, May 23, 2011
Colin Woodard Blog - I've been following is the fate of a bill to help the infamous Maine-based egg magnate, Jack DeCoster, by denying his workers the right to collectively bargain. Mr. DeCoster was in the national spotlight last summer when a massive salmonella outbreak was traced to his Iowa-based farms, and the national media started piecing together his companies' staggeringly long rap sheet of health, safety, immigration, labor, and environmental violations. Now that bill may be in trouble. The chair of the labor committee, Sen. Chris Rector, was apparently not pleased to learn that DeCoster's companies' record in Maine isn't as sterling as legislators were led to believe. "I have changed my position and am opposing the bill," he told me this morning. |
Forest Service sets third out-of-state firewood exchange
Daily Bulldog (Franklin County) - Monday, May 23, 2011
Highlighting the start of Maine’s camping season, the Maine Forest Service will again hold an out-of-state firewood exchange this weekend to prevent the importation of dangerous invasive insects to Maine’s forests and to make Maine visitors and residents aware of the problem. For the third time since the state ban was put in place last year, MFS forest rangers will exchange the prohibited out-of-state firewood for disposal as a way to prevent the spread of two invasive species in particular: Asian longhorned beetle and emerald ash borer. |
Windplanners nears fundraising goal
Herald Gazette - Monday, May 23, 2011
On Friday and Saturday, May 28 and 29, the Camden Rotary Club will hold a yard sale to help Camden Hills Regional High School's Windplanners meet their goal of installing an energy-generating wind turbine on school grounds. |
Opinion: We are family
Capital Weekly - Monday, May 23, 2011
Republicans are no more unified in their priorities than Democrats and far less focused on common goals than most monkeys, many marsupials and some species of amphibian. Until the GOP grasps the fact that legislators are independent creatures, more akin to pollywogs swimming aimlessly than koala bears banding together to fight predators, it’s never going to govern effectively. So long as the big bullfrog in the Blaine House keeps muddying the waters and filling the air with rancorous ribbits, Republicans will be straining like this metaphor to accomplish anything. ~ Al Diamon |
Forestry program has winning record
Sun Journal - Monday, May 23, 2011
Five girls are among the 18 students taking the forestry program at Foster Technology Center at Mt. Blue High School, and next year, 10 girls have applied. This traditionally male program that used to stress brawn has been adapting to the new world of work where more students are going on to college and looking for a range of skills that are needed in more advanced careers, forestry instructor Dean Merrill said. |
Wind power helps couple aerate new fish pond
Morning Sentinel - Monday, May 23, 2011
While massive wind turbines continue to pop up across Maine, pumping wind energy to commercial power grids, smaller personalized wind-power technology in use by businesses, farms and homes is still tough to find. Harnessing the wind to lower energy bills or power farm machinery remains a costly investment that is too unpredictable and doesn't have enough payback for many Mainers, according to two state officials involved with wind power and agriculture. |
Letter: Snowe's criticism of OSHA based on misinformation
Portland Press Herald - Monday, May 23, 2011
In a recent piece ("Regulatory review would aid business, environment," April 3), Sen. Snowe cited the example of a proposed OSHA rule that she says "would have required businesses to install unnecessarily costly equipment to reduce noise levels when less expensive -- but just as effective -- equipment was available." The fact is, the engineering and administrative controls OSHA proposed are far more effective at protecting against hearing loss than the equipment Snowe referred to in her column. ~ Frank Gallagher, National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, Portland |
Editorial: LePage has not made case for energy overhaul
Portland Press Herald - Monday, May 23, 2011
Gov. LePage has promised a business-friendly energy policy, but it all depends on what business you are talking about. His bill that would stop the diversification of Maine's electricity portfolio would not help the businesses that want to invest billions of dollars in Maine on renewable energy projects, including wind, tidal, biomass and solar. It would not help a manufacturer who wants to invest in efficiency, but needs to lock into a long-term energy contract to finance it. What's needed is a study that could determine the real cause of Maine's high energy costs. The Legislature and governor would be armed with something they don't have now -- solid information about what the real problems are and what they can do about them.
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Letter: Safe from chemicals
Bangor Daily News - Monday, May 23, 2011
While we’ve made important progress here in Maine on strong public health laws, it is not enough. The federal law governing toxic chemicals is out of date and failing to protect our health. There are over 80,000 synthetic chemicals used in today’s products. Many have been linked to health problems. That’s why I am asking our Sens. Snowe and Collins to continue Maine’s example of leadership on environmental health and take action at the federal level to co-sponsor the Safe Chemicals Act. ~ Ruta Jordans, Lubec |
Letter: Long live ‘oilfare’
Bangor Daily News - Monday, May 23, 2011
Sen. Susan Collins and Sen. Olympia Snowe are to be highly commended for their vote to end the big oil companies subsidies that apparently have existed since the early 1900s. Unfortunately, all the other Republicans and a few Democrats voted to give more “oilfare” to the “impoverished” big oil companies proving once more that the government of, by, and for the big business shall not perish from the earth as long as Congress remains addicted to re-election. ~ Joe Pickering Jr., Bangor |
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Maine Organic Farmers
and Gardeners Assn
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The strawberry edition | | By Meredith Goad - Red, ripe and just about ready for picking, Maine berries bring their sweet something to food and drink. | | 6/18/2013 11:00:00 PM |
Gagged by Big Ag | | By Ted Genoways - Shawn Lyons was dead to rights - and he knew it. More than a month had passed since People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals had released a video of savage mistreatment at the MowMar Farms hog confinement facility where he worked as an entry-level herdsman in the breeding room. | | 6/17/2013 11:00:00 PM |
You Won't Believe What Pork Producers Do to Pregnant Pigs |  By Tom Philpott - Despite pigs' many lovable qualities, of all the billions of beasts confined in our meat factories, the most miserable may be the 5.9 million sows that churn out the piglets that grow into chops, bacon, and ham. | | 6/17/2013 11:00:00 PM |
Maine leaders try and fail to dilute recycling's success | | By Colin Woodard - 'Product stewardship' regulations – even those with industry and bipartisan support – meet staunch resistance from, among others, a commissioner with former ties to corporate interests. | | 6/17/2013 11:00:00 PM |
How Gardeners Can Help Pollinators | | Every food source and habitat provided can help pollinators rebound from the challenges they face. You can provide food and habitat in your backyard - or even in your windowsill - to help pollinators thrive. | | 6/17/2013 11:00:00 PM |
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Natural Resources Council
of Maine
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