The most comprehensive online source of conservation news and events in Maine and beyond, edited by Jym St. Pierre
TIMES RECORD • January 16, 2025
The Merrymeeting Bay Chapter of Trout Unlimited is hosting “Insects and Fly-Fishing: A Winning Combination” from 6-8 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 21, at Sea Dog Brewing, 1 Bowdoin Mill Island, Topsham. Imitating stream, lake and pond insects is one of the most important tools in a fly fisher’s bag of tricks. Well-known fly-fishing entomologist Eric Frohmberg will show videos of how insects behave and relate that to fly-tying and fly-fishing techniques.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • January 16, 2025
In late October 1947, massive wildfires swept across the state. By the time the fires were extinguished, they had burned more than 200,000 acres, destroyed 900 year-round and 400 seasonal homes, left 2,500 people homeless and killed 16 others. The fires burned half of Acadia National Park, nearly wiped out nine communities and permanently changed Mount Desert Island and York and Oxford counties. Advances in firefighting technology and woodlands management have reduced the likelihood that they would burn out of control like they did in 1947. “Unfortunately, the fire devastation of 1947 could occur again under the right conditions. With climate change contributing to weather extremes, the risk of large-scale wild fires remains,” said Kent Nelson, a retired Maine forest ranger specialist.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • January 16, 2025
The packaging industry strategy has been simple: convince individuals it is their responsibility for litter, not the manufacturers. In addition to the annual $11.5 billion spent on litter collection, the costs for collecting, transporting, sorting and recycling materials, including plastics, is about $400 per ton. Who is responsible for these costs? 50 state governments, 38,736 local governments and 127,483 million households, enabling producers to externalize the costs of collecting and recycling their single-use products. There is a simple, effective approach to reduce plastic pollution and increase recycling: shift financial responsibility for packaging waste to producers through extended producer responsibility (EPR). EPR is the most cost-effective approach to improve packaging, reduce costs, increase recycling and minimize plastic pollution. ~ Megan Mansfield-Pryor, councilor-at-large for the city of Bath; Travis Wagner, Ph.D., professor emeritus of environmental science and policy at the University of Southern Maine
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • January 16, 2025
Maine’s snowmobilers are on the cusp of having a good year, if they could just get more snow. There’s enough for a good base and some riding in the Moosehead Lake area and regions of western Maine, but connecting trails have little to no snow. And what they have gets beaten up quickly with use, is the consensus among several clubs. Snowmobiling, skiing and snowboarding brought in $108 million at the end of the season in 2023, up from $68 million in 2022, according to the Maine Office of Outdoor Recreation.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • January 15, 2025
Automated farming equipment dealers are sharing floor space with old-time horse loggers in the Augusta Civic Center this week at an event that’s drawing farmers from around the state. Maine’s 84th annual agricultural trade show started Tuesday morning and runs through Thursday, hosting more than 70 presentations, organizations, businesses and educators. The annual event organized by the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry billed itself this year as a way to “discover the future of agriculture.”
BANGOR DAILY NEWS • January 15, 2025
Gov. Janet Mills is proposing higher fees for fishing licenses along with optional concealed handgun permits in her two-year budget proposal that lawmakers will scrutinize. The $11.6 billion plan includes various tax hikes alongside cuts to create a balanced budget and fill a projected $450 million shortfall through 2027.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • January 15, 2025
With their multiyear investigation not yet halfway complete, Maine state inspectors have identified more than 100 Maine farms and 500 residential properties contaminated by the harmful forever chemicals left behind by sludge-based fertilizer use. Maine has had to order fewer than a half dozen farms to stop selling their milk or food, Hennessey said. Some farmers who had positive soil or water tests were able to prove through additional tests that their food products were safe to eat. Others voluntarily pulled their food products from the shelves. The state has installed 500 water filtration systems. Maine DEP estimates it could install the additional 165 water filtration sites likely to be needed and stay within the program’s $28.8 million budget.
MAINE PUBLIC • January 15, 2025
Land for Maine's Future approved the last piece of funding for the purchase of nearly 500 acres of forest in Western Maine yesterday, including land along the Carrabassett River. Dubbed ‘Whitten Woods’ for the family that owns and manages the forest, the new land conservation area is over 455 acres in Somerset County. Somerset Woods Trustees executive director Jennifer Brockway said the additional funds from Land for Maine’s Future should make acquisition of the land possible by April 2025. The organization has been raising funds to purchase the land for over two years. It will be the first public land conservation area in New Portland.
MAINE PUBLIC • January 15, 2025
The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it will drop proposed ship speed limits that were aimed at reducing collisions with North Atlantic right whales. Regulatory officials said there wasn't enough time to review the 90,000 comments they received and finalize new ship speed rules before the Trump administration takes office next week. Ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear are the two leading causes of death and injury to right whales. The population has roughly 370 individuals remaining.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • January 15, 2025
Dozens of North Atlantic right whales — more than 15% of the estimated global population — are gathered off Jeffreys Ledge, east of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, triggering a slow zone for boaters. Surveyors at the New England Aquarium spotted at least 70 individual whales grouped in a small area on Sunday. Whales were observed in close proximity to “large amount” of fixed fishing gear,” which presents a high risk of entanglement,” the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries said. Mariners are asked to slow to a maximum speed of 10 knots. Following that guidance is voluntary, but knowingly approaching a right whale is illegal. “Boaters are also reminded that approaching a right whale closer than 500 yards is a violation of federal law.”
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • January 15, 2025
Maine has received $22 million in federal funding to scale up commercial development of new wood-based technology, such as environmentally friendly building and packaging materials. The funding is earmarked for the state’s Forest Bioproducts Advanced Manufacturing Tech Hub, which is led by the Maine Technology Institute. Federal money will pay to stand up the hub with management and staff and provide grants for innovative technology proposed by companies. The other half of the funding will be earmarked to the University of Maine to commercialize business ideas. From 2000 to 2020, average employment in pulp and paper mills dropped by 72% in Maine.
MAINE MORNING STAR • January 15, 2025
Maine is receiving an additional $22 million from the federal government to support forest-based biomaterial production and manufacturing. The funding announcement from the Biden administration adds to approximately $1 million in other federal grants the state has received for its forest-based biomaterial consortium. The new funds will support two projects to strengthen innovation by leveraging manufacturing and workforce resources, and bring the hub’s products to the global market.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • January 15, 2025
Maine’s lighthouses have been added to a global list of monuments and cultural sites facing major challenges or threats, including from the effects of climate change. World Monuments Watch released its annual list of heritage sites that are threatened by a variety of forces, ranging from neglect to wars to flooding and extreme weather driven by climate change. The historic lighthouses of Maine made the 2025 list along with 24 other sites. “A changing climate presents mounting challenges for the state’s lighthouses,” the organization says.
ASSOCIATED PRESS • January 15, 2025
The federal government is withdrawing a proposal that would require more ships to slow down in East Coast waters to try to save a vanishing species of whale, officials said Wednesday. The move in the waning days of the Biden administration will leave the endangered North Atlantic right whale vulnerable to extinction as the Trump administration is signaling a shift from environmental conservation to support for marine industries, conservation groups said.
FRANKLIN JOURNAL • January 15, 2025
The Livermore Select Board announced Tuesday that there will be a special town meeting Jan. 28 at 6 p.m. at the Town Office regarding a new solar 19-acre project on Route 4. Vice Chairperson Brett Deyling said the project caught them off-guard. He said they need to put an ordinance in place.
LIVERMORE FALLS ADVERTISER • January 15, 2025
he Parks and Recreation Department has a new director, Jennifer “Jenn” Savage, of Chesterville, according to Town Manager Erica LaCroix. Previously the assistant director, she succeeds Matthew “Matt” Foster who resigned in October to take a position with state Bureau of Parks and Lands. At the selectmen meeting Tuesday evening, LaCroix also announced Michelle Dowd of Farmington was hired as the assistant director for the Parks and Recreation Department.
SUN JOURNAL • January 15, 2025
If you’ve been bowling since the 1980s in this country, chances are the lanes you rolled the ball down were made in central Maine. And they were made from layers of paper, not strips of wood. Tucked away in the woods sits Panolam Surface Systems, known for many years locally as Pioneer Plastics. The name has changed but it remains the sole supplier of high pressure laminate, or HPL, synthetic bowling lanes to the top three manufacturers of bowling products — Brunswick, AMF and US Bowling. It’s the same plant where laminate countertops and other laminate products have been competing with brands like Formica for decades. The products today are more varied and have become much more advanced.
KENNEBEC JOURNAL • January 15, 2025
A proposed development would bring 62 identical single-family homes on 33 undeveloped acres over the next 3 1/2 years, making it the biggest such project in Monmouth’s history. Not only would the proposed neighborhood — to be named Hilltop View Estates — disrupt the rural character of 4,000-person Monmouth, but half-million dollar houses do not reflect the type of development the town should promote says neighbor Kathy Perless. Ashley Woodbury’s property is bordered on two sides by the proposed development. She said during the public hearing that she was most concerned about the safety impacts of the stormwater filtration pond planned for directly west of her house and the neighborhood road entrance planned for directly to the north.
MAINE MORNING STAR • January 15, 2025
A coalition of 40 conservation, climate and public health organizations unveiled its policy priorities for the new legislative session, which they said would help the state address the climate crisis, cultivate healthy communities and protect land, water and wildlife. The Environmental Priorities Coalition highlighted nine priority areas along with corresponding legislation or proposals to achieve those goals.
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • January 15, 2025
My aunt has a garden plot that I took care of over the summer. She was in town one day and we went to the garden. While everything seemed perfect in the neighboring plots, I learned that it wasn’t. She taught me that the nutrient value of vegetables depends on the soil. One of the best soil ecosystems is a forest floor, which is spongy, with trees and leaves covering the soil, shielding it from direct sunlight so it doesn’t dry out. The soil has the capacity to absorb and hold water because it has holes for air and water to get in and out. The plant’s roots in the forest floor are able to function properly and the whole ecosystem can work together to thrive. I realized that my aunt’s garden, for all its chaos, held a deeper kind of order, emulating the forest floor. It taught me that the real value often isn’t obvious from the surface. Like in the garden, life’s real purpose often lies just out of sight, where you can’t see it until you’re willing to get your hands dirty and uncover the meaning. ~ Grace Alexander, Portland
