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
MAINE PUBLIC • April 11, 2025
The fate of the former Androscoggin Mill in Jay is uncertain once again, as the new owner contends with the impact of tariffs. Godfrey Forest Products has started demolition on the site to build a new facility to manufacture oriented strand board — a material similar to plywood, said owner John Godfrey. But he said the facility will require equipment from Europe and electrical components from China — and even domestic machinery is affected by the rising costs from tariffs on steel. And the tariffs could reduce demand for construction materials domestically. "So the tariffs represent a double whammy of raising the cost of building the factory and perhaps diminishing the market's desire for our product," Godfrey said.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 13, 2025
Agriculture in Maine is responsible for more than 200,000 jobs totaling $11.3 billion. It brings in more than $5 billion in tax revenue and exports nearly $650 million worth of goods. We should be doing everything possible to support our farmers. Some policies being considered in Augusta right now would do just the opposite. One bill, LD 1323, seeks to ban the use of insecticides known as “neonics.” Neonics have been thoroughly vetted and proven safe for human health. Lawmakers are also considering labor bills that would have a drastic and detrimental impact on farmers, the most problematic of which would get rid of the overtime exemption is in the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. This is a farm-killer. Last, Maine is part of the New England Food System Planners Partnership — a collaboration with a goal that 30% of the food consumed in New England will be produced here by 2030. That will be extremely hard to pull off by enacting policies that increase our production and labor costs. ~ Jim Pitreau, Green Thumb Farms, Fryeburg
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 12, 2025
Some longtime farmers who, despite the state’s hot real estate market, are struggling to sell or lease their land because they’re searching for people to take over their farms rather than turn them into vacation homes. That’s partly due to the challenges facing younger generations, they say, including their own past apprentices who love their farms but are either unable or unwilling to take over. Newer farmers, for their part, face prohibitively expensive land prices paired with low wages.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 11, 2025
The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife expanded the hunting season for gray squirrels by a month and shifted youth waterfowl hunting dates in the north zone to start and end a week later than last year. The bounty of food, including acorns, in the last few years has helped the gray squirrel population increase to a point that the department felt the hunting season could be expanded, especially in southern and central Maine. It will be held from the last Saturday in September through the end of January. The season has in past years ended on Dec. 31.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 11, 2025
After numerous technical delays, construction is underway on a $55 million potato chip plant on the former Loring Air Force Base, with plans to open for production about a year from now. The Taste of Maine Potato Chip Co. expects to begin producing chips in spring of 2026, then reach full capacity that June. The 80,000-square-foot facility could employ up to 100 people and use more than 1,500 acres worth of Aroostook potatoes.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 11, 2025
The curtain rises on the big show in a week, when the first major wave of migrant songbirds returns to Maine. Three warbler species will lead the way: palm, pine, and yellow-rumped. Ruby-crowned kinglets may overwhelm them all, at least vocally. It’s hard to shut ‘em up this time of year. Yellow-bellied sapsuckers will fly in overnight. At dawn, they will begin drumming on the loudest thing they can find. I’ll share one final observation that makes me giggle. Ring-billed gulls look like a smaller version of the ubiquitous herring gull. They’re all over town right now. While getting gas at BJs last week, there were too many in the parking lot to count. ~ Bob Duchesne
MAINE MONITOR • April 11, 2025
In a hearing on Monday, a pair of Republican state legislators introduced three bills they say would put an outright moratorium on dam removal. State officials and fish passage advocates voiced stern opposition to all three bills, testifying that they would contradict federal law and undermine ecological protections. The conflicting viewpoints created an unusual dynamic: On one side, nonprofits like the Atlantic Salmon Federation argued in favor of existing regulatory processes — the same processes they so often critique when dams go through federal relicensing. On the other side, Republican legislators cited Maine’s clean energy goals in pushing for additional regulations.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 11, 2025
Maine’s top court has rejected appeals that challenged the permits for a proposed 94-acre, land-based fish farm overlooking Chandler Bay in Jonesport, clearing the way for the multimillion project to move forward.Opponents said state environmental regulators, as part of their approval of the project under the Natural Resources Protection Act, did not do enough to assess the impacts that the discharge of treated wastewater would have on wildlife in the bay. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court dismissed the opponents’ arguments Thursday, saying the regulators’ approval of allowing the discharge of treated wastewater into the bay was consistent with the requirements of state law.
WASHINGTON POST • April 10, 2025
The Trump administration is trumpeting a biotech company’s claim of reviving a long-lost wolf as an argument for slashing endangered species protections. Dallas-based Colossal Biosciences said Monday that it used gene editing to create “de-extinct animals” in the form of three pups with the light-colored fur and musculature of a dire wolf. Many scientists expressed skepticism that the pups could be classified as part of a canine species that went extinct over 10,000 years ago. But Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the achievement demonstrates that it is not government regulations but innovation that will save species.
FOX NEWS • April 10, 2025
REI's CEO has publicly retracted the company's previous endorsement of President Trump's nominee for Secretary of the Interior - and issued an apology while doubling down on protecting public lands. After Trump began his second term, REI was part of the "Outdoor Recreation Roundtable" that sent a letter officially endorsing Burgum in January. Trump confirmed his nominee, Doug Burgum, as the secretary on Feb. 1. Burgum is an ultra-wealthy software industry entrepreneur and served two terms as governor of North Dakota. In a video message posted on REI's social media platforms on Wednesday, current REI CEO Mary Beth Laughton described the endorsement as a "mistake." She emphasized, "Our public lands are under attack from the gutting of national park staff to expanded threats of drilling or even selling off our public lands, the future of life outdoors has never felt so uncertain.”
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 10, 2025
Bowdoin College plans to build an outdoor education center in the Carrabassett Valley that will carry the name of a Bowdoin student who thrived in the wilderness and died in a kayaking accident. The college has purchased 21 acres along the Carrabassett River in Kingfield that will become the Finnegan McCoul Woodruff Mountain Center. The Bowdoin Outing Club will use the space as a base of operations for its camping, skiing, mountain biking, hiking, fishing and other adventures. Brunswick native Finnegan “Finn” Woodruff was the son of Bowdoin Outing Club Director Mike Woodruff and an avid lover of the outdoors. A Bowdoin senior, he died in a kayaking accident on the White Salmon River in Washington in November 2021.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 10, 2025
Fishermen are likely to be restricted from hauling scallops from federal waters in the Gulf of Maine for several weeks because regulators have delayed finalizing annual catch limits. The temporary closure, expected in the next five days, would mark the first time the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has shut down the regional fishery midseason since the regulations were put into place 16 years ago. Those who dive for scallops near Maine’s coast are unaffected; federal waters begin 3 miles offshore.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 10, 2025
The current exhibition at Space, “Envision Resilience: Shifting Tides and Evolving Landscapes” (through April 26) mixes provocation and beauty. Featuring works by seven Maine-based artists that are unabashedly beautiful, it asks us to contemplate the inevitable — rising sea levels due to global warming — though, to its credit, it does not knock us over the head with polemic. This is not a show for climate change deniers.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 10, 2025
Northern Maine has a problem. Northern pike, a voracious invasive fish that kills native species, are moving down from Canada into the St. John River and nearby bodies of water. Except the St. John River is already teeming with muskellunge, an invasive fish better known as muskie. In a first for Maine, the northern part of the state suddenly finds itself home to two types of aggressive invasive fish. What this might mean for the waters supporting both types of pike is a complete unknown, but it isn’t good news for any native fish remaining there.
MAINE PUBLIC • April 9, 2025
Maine industries from forestry to retail could be affected by global tariffs. So Patrick Woodcock, of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, said the 90-day pause on most tariffs is welcome news. He said Maine's forestry, retail, seafood, and construction sectors could feel the effects of tariffs. Woodcock said he has seen the decline in manufacturing in Maine, and supports efforts to bring that back, but he's concerned about collateral damage to trade relationships.
MAINE PUBLIC • April 9, 2025
President Trump's executive order targeting state climate laws has provoked outrage from environmental groups that charge the White House with unconstitutional overreach. "This is an attack on states' rights to protect the health of our residents and respond to the impacts of climate change in Maine," said Anya Fetcher, a federal policy advocate at Natural Resources Council of Maine. The Tuesday order directs the U.S. Attorney General to identify all state and local laws, regulations and practices that address climate change, environmental justice, greenhouse gas emissions and similar issues. It orders the Attorney General to take steps to stop the enforcement of state laws and continuation of lawsuits that they determine to be illegal.
NEWSWEEK • April 9, 2025
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday to remove limitations on water pressure from showerheads, a subject he broached along the campaign trail and during his first term in the White House. Since his first presidency, Trump has hit back at various energy efficiency standards and regulations that he believes hinder household appliances as well as showers. He previously called for an end to paper straws, advocating instead for the less environmentally friendly plastic ones. Deregulation has been a top priority of the Trump administration. In the latest order, he says that "Overregulation chokes the American economy and stifles personal freedom."
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • April 9, 2025
The Maine Land Use Planning Commission halted the reconstruction of a dam in Indian Purchase Township on Wednesday following a residential appeal. The panel sent the project back to the commission’s staff for further review. Landowner Robert McNally, who lives near the proposed dam, had filed an appeal in November after staff at the LUPC issued a development permit to Katahdin Forest Management for a replacement dam located between Smith Brook and Smith Pond off Millinocket Road.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • April 9, 2025
Proposed legislation, LD 1177, would pause the installation of new synthetic turf statewide for three years while the Maine Department of Environmental Protection completes a study of its environmental and health impacts. Existing fields could remain in use but could not be patched or replaced. Artificial turf has been a topic of heated debate for years. Critics highlight the environmental and health risks. Synthetic turf contributes to microplastic pollution and often contains toxic chemicals and heavy metals like lead and mercury that can leach into the soil and groundwater. It can become dangerously hot in the summer, posing risks to athletes. Supporters like its durability, low maintenance and year-round usability. Synthetic turf doesn’t require watering or mowing, making it attractive to communities looking to save on upkeep costs. It provides a consistent playing surface in adverse weather conditions, like those in Maine.
