Freedom of Access Act (FOAA) Analysis of DEP Documents Related to the 2012 Report, “Implementing Product Stewardship in Maine” Yields Industry Paper Trail

Today, the Natural Resources Council of Maine released an analysis of documents that reveal how a recent Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) report was substantially influenced by representatives of out-of-state companies that opposed enactment of Maine’s product stewardship laws[1] in the first place, are working to defeat similar laws in other states, and who received easy and preferential access to top DEP officials in the new LePage Administration. The NRCM analysis is based on documents acquired under Maine’s Freedom of Access Act (FOAA) law.

The DEP report Implementing Product Stewardship in Maine, released in late December for public comment, addressed five product stewardship programs administered by the state that have reduced mercury and lead pollution to Maine’s environment, diverted millions of pounds of waste from Maine’s landfills and incinerators, and saved money for taxpayers and municipalities. The five product stewardship programs^[2]were adopted with overwhelming bi-partisan support.

But rather than focusing on the benefits of these programs to Maine people and the environment, DEP’s Product Stewardship report presents a surprising assault on the product stewardship programs, including a recommendation to consider their termination. NRCM reviewed hundreds of internal DEP emails, memos, and documents related to preparation of the Implementing Product Stewardship report.

“Our review shows that senior DEP officials have maintained an open door policy for out-of-state manufacturers interested in undermining Maine’s product stewardship programs and a closed door policy to all other stakeholders—including interested lawmakers, internal DEP staff who manage the programs, municipalities, and public interest organizations,” said Abby King, NRCM Product Stewardship Advocate.

“Industry representatives have been gunning to weaken product stewardship programs here in Maine so that they don’t face similar programs in other states,” added King. Findings from the NRCM analysis include the following:

·Senior DEP officials met with representatives of the Thermostat Recycling Corporation (TRC) at least 10 times over the past year. TRC is comprised of Honeywell, GE, and Westinghouse, and they have long opposed Maine’s thermostat recycling program—even as Maine’s program has proven to be one of the most successful of its kind in the nation.

·In a response letter to State Rep. Melissa Walsh Innes (D-Yarmouth), then Acting DEP Commissioner Patricia Aho committed to supporting a “robust” stakeholder process on product stewardship—but no effort has been made by DEP to initiate such a process. Quite the contrary, the letter to Rep. Innes was sent two days after Aho met with TRC, and DEP held multiple additional meetings with TRC over the past seven months. No effort has been made to engage other stakeholders in a meaningful way.

·TRC recommended in February 2012 that DEP conduct a “review” of Maine’s thermostat recycling program. DEP launched such a review, receiving input through private channels from TRC throughout this review period. And when the review was complete, with a recommendation to possibly terminate some product stewardship programs (including possibly the thermostat program), TRC “fully supports” the effort to sunset the program.

·Senior DEP officials delegated the role of “reviewing” Maine’s product stewardship programs to a newly reassigned staff member, Kerri Malinowski, who was not previously familiar with the programs. DEP staff members who manage Maine’s product stewardship programs were deliberately excluded from providing information.

·DEP’s review of Maine’s product stewardship programs resulted in a seriously flawed report that is rife with inaccurate, unsubstantiated, inconsistent, and incomplete information, as demonstrated by the strong concerns voiced in public comments. More than 308 individuals and 34 organizations submitted comments in opposition to DEP’s report, compared with only seven letters of support—six of which were from out-of-state manufacturers.

Maine is not the only target of concerted attacks on product stewardship programs designed to shift some taxpayer-funded recycling costs to the manufacturers that produced the products.  Indeed, many of the very individuals who have been frequenting the offices of DEP this year have been traveling through the halls of state government elsewhere.

In California, for example, the Thermostat Recycling Corporation (TRC) is fighting regulations that would impose collection rate standards on that state’s thermostat recycling program. “Policy-makers in California are looking to Maine’s thermostat program as a guideline for ways to improve our program,” says Annie Pham of Sierra Club California. “But TRC is working hard against us, even as their voluntary thermostat collection program shows a pitiful first-year collection rate of 3.2%.”

Similarly, in New York, the thermostat industry has spent $90,000 in the past two years lobbying to block passage of an effective thermostat collection program. “The pattern of the thermostat industry in New York is to cover up the success of Maine’s collection program and tout their voluntary collection program instead,” said Laura Haight, senior environmental associate with the New York Public Interest Research Group.

In 2008, according to TRC’s collection data, Maine’s per capita thermostat collection rate was the highest in the nation, and more than 20 times higher than New York’s. After 2008, TRC stopped making its data available to the public.

NRCM carefully reviewed public comments submitted to DEP by the January 16 deadline, and from that analysis created a long list of errors, omissions, and inconsistencies in DEP’s report. (Appendix D of the report)

“Although we’re not particularly surprised by the extent to which out-of-state lobbyists have been pounding down the doors at DEP, we are troubled to see how eager DEP has been to assist industry in trying to undo programs that are working well for Maine people,” said King.

“DEP’s product stewardship report presents such a flawed, incomplete, and biased view of Maine’s product stewardship programs that the report should be retracted,” said NRCM Advocacy Director Pete Didisheim. “The report’s content and conclusions are so obviously indefensible that the report’s continued appearance on the DEP website reflects poorly on the credibility of the DEP.”

1.Maine’s product stewardship programs, passed with overwhelming bi-partisan support, are focused on toxic and troublesome products in the waste stream and require manufacturers to establish collection systems to recycle or properly dispose of them.

2.The programs addressed:  mercury-added lamps; mercury switches in motor vehicle components; mercury-added thermostats; electronic waste (e-waste), and dry cell mercuric oxide and rechargeable batteries.

Judy Berk * Natural Resources Council of Maine * 3 Wade Street Augusta, ME 04330 * judy@nrcm.org * (207) 430-0103 * mobile (207) 462-2192 * 1(800) 287-2345 ext 203 * fax (207) 622-4343 * www.nrcm.org

[1] Maine’s product stewardship programs, passed with overwhelming bi-partisan support, are focused on toxic and troublesome products in the waste stream and require manufacturers to establish collection systems to recycle or properly dispose of them.

[2] The programs addressed:  mercury-added lamps; mercury switches in motor vehicle components; mercury-added thermostats; electronic waste (e-waste), and dry cell mercuric oxide and rechargeable batteries.

Open Tar Sand Mine in Alberta Canada

Greetings,

I hope you can join us in Portland Thursday February 9, 7:00 p.m. to learn about this major emerging environmental threat to the greater Portland area. Please do let me know if you think you may be there to report on this, and if you have questions or need more information. Thank you.

Best wishes,

Judy

Free public talk in Portland Thursday February 9, 7:00 p.m.

CONTACT:  Emmie Theberge, emmie@nrcm.org or (207) 430-0105, Glen Brand, glen.brand@sierraclub.org or(207) 749-3896

News Release and Calendar Listing below

Calendar Listing:

Stop Dirty Tar Sands Oil from Coming Through Maine

Have you heard about the proposal to pump tar sands oil in a pipeline from Ontario across Canada and past Sebago Lake to South Portland, Maine from where it would be shipped elsewhere? Come learn about this harmful proposal that puts the lake and Casco Bay at risk, along with our fishing and lobster industries at a public talk:Stop Dirty Tar Sands Oil from Coming Through Maine, Thursday, February 9th at 7:00 p.m. in the Glickman Library at USM, University Events Room on the 5th floor, refreshments will be served. This event is free and open to the public, but space is limited, so please RSVP to emmie@nrcm.org or (207) 430-0105. Co-sponsored by Sierra Club Maine and Natural Resources Council of Maine.

News Release:

Stop Dirty Tar Sands Oil from Coming Through Maine

I bet you’ve heard about the disastrous Keystone XL tar sands pipeline proposed for the middle of the country and recently rejected by President Obama, but have you heard about the proposal to bring tar sands oil from Ontario to Portland, Maine, from where it would be shipped elsewhere? Come learn about the environmental and safety risks of this proposed project from people in the know, and learn about the effort to prevent Portland from becoming the tar sands capital of the eastern United States.

The Natural Resources Council of Maine and Sierra Club Maine have teamed up to bring national experts to Portland to discuss the environmental and safety risks of this proposed project, which would reverse the flow of existing pipelines to bring dangerous tar sands crude through our state.

The talk, Stop Dirty Tar Sands Oil from Coming Through Maine, will be held Thursday, February 9th at 7:00 p.m. in the Glickman Library at USM, University Events Room on the 5th floor.  Refreshments will be served.

The Canadian oil and gas giant Enbridge is proposing to pump dirty tar sands oil from Ontario to South Portland, Maine where it would be shipped by tanker to refineries along the East Coast or Gulf of Mexico.

The pipeline passes next to Sebago Lake, the drinking water supply for Greater Portland –more than 15% of Maine people – and could endanger Casco Bay and Maine’s fishing and lobster industries. A pipeline leak in the Sebago watershed would be a nightmare. A single tanker accident in Casco Bay could devastate Maine’s fishing and lobster industries.

National experts from the National Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club, and Natural Resources Defense Council will present the facts and lead a discussion about preventing this risky project.

Jim Murphy from the National Wildlife Federation and Kate Colarulli from the Sierra Club will describe Alberta tar sands oil production—probably the dirtiest energy project on Earth—and its potential impact on Maine. They will share the story of tar sands oil, the environmental and global climate impacts, and how Maine is poised to become part of the larger battle by oil companies to bring tar sands crude to global markets via the Portland-Montreal pipeline and Portland Harbor.

Danielle Droitsch from the Natural Resources Defense Council will focus on tar sands oil pipeline safety issues, and reasons Maine people should be worried if this proposal goes forward.

This event is free and open to the public, but space is limited, so please RSVP to emmie@nrcm.org or (207) 430-0105.

If you haven’t done so yet, please take a moment and “Like” The Valley Voice on Facebook. Thank You!

City of Belfast: $40,000 for a conceptual design and engineering plan that identifies the feasibility of constructing 2.15 miles of a multi-use, pedestrian and bicycle path within the railroad right-of-way located adjacent to the Passagassawakeag River.

Midcoast Council of Governments: $47,500 for work to study and potentially open closed clam flats in collaboration with the Kennebec Estuary Land Trust, Maine Department of Marine Resources, Maine Department of Environmental Protection , shellfish conservation committees of Woolwich, Phippsburg, West Bath, and Georgetown, and the Androscoggin Valley Soil and Water Conservation District.

Southern Maine Regional Planning Commission: $29,400 to implement water quality improvement recommendations from the Piscataqua Region Estuary Plan in Kittery, York, and South Berwick. SMRPC will work with each community on specific strategies that will support improved water quality.

Town of Topsham: $40,000 to hold public planning meetings for a Lower Village waterfront park and to develop, based on the public input received, a final design for the park. The town of Topsham has worked toward this goal since at least the early 1990′s as part of the town’s comprehensive plans, (1992 and 2005), 1996 Maine Street Plan, and 2008 Main Street Village Plan.

Hancock County Planning Commission: $35,000 for a Blue Hill Bay watershed needs assessment. Hancock County Planning Commission will work with the Friends of Blue Hill Bay and the towns of Trenton, Ellsworth, Mount Desert, Bar Harbor, Tremont, Surry, Blue Hill and Brooklin to engage communities, businesses, residents and local organizations in a program to assess the resources and threats to Blue Hill Bay. The goal of the project is to bring the partners together to develop a shared vision of the needs and potential solutions to challenges confronting the region.

City of Portland: $39,200 to develop an education campaign on stormwater management and stormwater infrastructure. The City of Portland, in partnership with the Casco Bay Estuary Project, will engage businesses, community leaders and residents in a discussion of the need for infrastructure maintenance and improvement and will work toward developing a funding mechanism to meet that need.

Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission: $35,040 to evaluate the risks to infrastructure and the natural environment resulting from increasingly severe and more frequent coastal storms. LCPRC will work in partnership with Lincoln County, Maine Geologic Survey, and the 16 communities within Lincoln County.

Town of Wells: 25,000 to undertake a feasibility study, obtain public input, and design a pedestrian bridge to connect the eastern and western shores within the harbor and beach areas. This work responds to the town’s 2005 comprehensive plan which calls for an updated harbor plan and development of eco-tourism programs and facilities to enhance the town’s tourism economy.

The grants are made possible from Maine’s federal coastal management award from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). All of the projects include collaboration among partnerships and each grantee will provide a minimum of 25% in matching funds or services.

(woman with ash strips) Jennifer Neptune of the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance displays strips of brown ash used to create her miniature baskets. The invasive insect, emerald ash borer, destroys ash trees, which are essential to the American Indian traditional craft.

AUGUSTA,Maine– There were 52 logs; 40 volunteers; eight trees from eight different sites; seven landowners; two workshops; and best of all, no emerald ash borer.

The Maine Forest Service, under the Maine Department of Conservation, this week finished up its bark-peeling project to look for evidence of the highly dangerous invasive insect, emerald ash borer (EAB). The results were just what MFS entomologists were hoping for.

After participating in two workshops on Jan. 17 and Jan. 24 and peeling 52 logs down to the cambium, or living layer, the volunteers found no tell-tale signs of the harmful EAB that is threateningMaine’s forests, MFS officials said.

“Although I am heartened by these results that mirror those of various previous surveys, they are not a basis for complacency,” Dave Struble,Maine state entomologist, said. “EAB is established just outside the borders ofNew England and is knocking at our door.  Now is not the time to drop our guard.”

Seven landowners from central Maine, who earlier this year created tree traps to look for emerald ash borer (EAB), brought wood samples to the two workshops to be peeled by volunteers and examined for signs of the dangerous insect, said Colleen Teerling, Maine Forest Service entomologist.

Earlier this year, the Maine Forest Service had asked land owners to volunteer to make tree traps for EAB by girdling a tree, or stripping bark from around an ash tree. Girdling the tree causes the tree to become stressed and release chemicals attractive to the EAB.

(photos courtesy of the Maine Department of Conservation) (man peeling wood) Tom Fox, consulting forester from Orland, peels a piece of ash from his woodlot during a recent Maine Forest Service workshop. Peeling off bark is a way to look for the invasive species, emerald ash borer, which kills ash trees.

“People were enthusiastic, they were happy to talk to each other and share their knowledge,” Teerling said about the bark-peeling sessions. “That cross pollination was a good thing.”

The MFS entomologist pointed out that the volunteers “started to own the whole process” of looking for EAB evidence. “It renewed the importance of looking for invasive insects,” she said.

The tree-girdling project grew out of the efforts of the Black Ash Task Force, a collaboration of the Maine Forest Service (MFS),University of Maine,MaineIndian BasketmakersAllianceand the U.S. Forest Service, Teerling said. The 40 volunteers who took part in the two workshops included the landowners, MFS foresters, members of the Penobscot Nation, and other task force representatives, she said.

EAB, which has not been found inMaine, has killed millions of ash trees across the nation and threatens all ofMaine’s ash resource, from individual ash shade trees in yards and lining town streets to stands of white, green and black ash in the forests. The invasive insect has been found inNew York,Pennsylvania,Michigan,Maryland, and the Canadian provinces ofQuebecandOntario.

Some treatment is possible to prolong the life of affected trees, but in general, after a tree is infested by the beetle, it dies. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than 25 million trees in theU.S.have been affected by the emerald ash borer.

Tom Fox, a consulting forester from Orland, girdled four trees and brought in the bolts, or logs, for the Jan. 24 workshop held at the MFS headquarters at Bolton Hill. Fox said he had the opportunity to see the devastation caused by EAB during a recent forestry tour atKingston,New York.

“I saw a lot of residential trees that were dead and where emerald ash borer had taken living ash,” as well as dead trees in woodlands, he said. Noting thatMaineresidents and foresters can learn from other states, Fox said the tour “raised my concern about in how the state ofMainewe have the opportunity to develop our own program.

“It’s important that we work to get together and form a response team when it happens inMaine,” he said.

Jennifer Neptune of the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance, who has been making baskets for about 20 years using brown ash, also attended the Jan. 24 workshop and observed the bark-peeling process.

Neptune, who specializes in miniature baskets, commented on the significance of looking for EAB inMaineash as a way to preserve a unique American Indian craft.

“It’s really important, because if something happens to the ash,” she said, “it could be the end of our tradition which has been going on for thousands of years. It’s part of our creation story, and part of who we are.”

For the past three years, the Maine Forest Service has been using sophisticated detection methods to surveyMaine’s ash resource for the possible presence of EAB. Bio-surveillance – monitoring the nests of predatory wasps that eat EAB – has gone on at 18 sites around the state, and this summer, some 955 distinctive purple traps will be placed at key locales.

Tree girdling is the most sensitive way to monitor for EAB because it draws more beetles, Teerling noted. That method and bio-surveillance, however, also are very labor intensive.

Nonetheless, this year’s bark-peeling efforts “worked really well,” Teerling said. “We certainly will consider doing this again next year.”

For a video of the Jan. 24 bark-peeling workshop, go to: www.maine.gov/doc/MFS_bark_peeling.wmv

For more information about EAB, go to: http://www.maine.gov/doc/mfs/InvasiveThreats.htm

For more information about the Maine Forest Service, go to: http://www.maine.gov/doc/mfs/index.shtml

Welcome to Hirundo Wildlife Refuge. Hirundo is a 2,400 acre nature preserve, spanning Pushaw and Dead Streams, Lac D’Or (lake), vast wetlands, including domed bog and maple and juniper swamps, and mixed hardwood and evergreen forests. Only 10 miles from the University of Maine, Orono Campus, visitors paddle canoes free of charge and watch playful river otters, breeding Wood Ducks, Bald Eagles, and Osprey in the tranquil beauty. While hiking, snowshoeing, and cross country skiing, one might encounter moose, deer, red and gray fox, muskrat, beaver, otter, black bear, bobcat,  fisher, and ermine.

Birdwatchers enjoy such breeding and migrating birds as Virginia Rail, Sora, Yellow Rail, Pileated Woodpecker, Northern Goshawk, Northern Harrier, Blackburnian and Nashville Warblers, Common Snipe, Woodcock, Barred Owl, Belted Kingfisher, Northern Waterthrush, Barn, Cliff, and Tree Swallows, and Olive-Sided, Great Crested, Yellow-Bellied, Alder, and Least Flycatchers.

Great Blue Heron. Photo by Gary Kramer, USFWS

Hirundo is the Latin word for swallow. Scores of tree swallow nest boxes attract flocks, breeding in the Spring. Hirundo Wildlife Refuge was founded by Oliver Larouche from his parents’ 3 acre camp in 1965, expanding to its present 2,400-acre size. In 1983 Oliver and his wife  June Larouche deeded the Hirundo land to the University of Maine cementing a long-term collaboration. Hirundo is a living laboratory, where much past research and scientific studies continue.

The public is welcomed to visit Hirundo Wildlife Refuge 7 days a week 9 AM to dusk. Please sign the log book available  at Gate 1,  Gate 2 ,  Gate 3 or Gate 6.

There are no charges, admission fees, or membership, but donations are strongly encouraged. The public should call ahead for canoes. There is a clearly marked,seven mile trail system on 300 acres. Trail maps are available at Gates 1, 2, 3 or 6, and may be downloaded on the maps pages.

Buds, Twigs and Trees – February 19, 2012

Spend Sunday afternoon with Steve Sader, Professor of  Forest Resources at University of Maine,  learning how to identify deciduous trees and shrubs in winter. Hand lenses and magnifying glasses helpful.

Deciduous leaves are scarce in winter, except on beech and sometimes oaks, and bark of young trees can be misleading. Not so buds and leaf scars.  Bud shapes, the number of bud scales, bud arrangement, leaf scares and twigs are features used to key out native and no-native trees and shrubs. Hirundo’s varied forests (wetland, mixed, upland) offers ample opportunity for practice.

Buds are the adaptation strategy of tree and shrubs to maximize food production and flower & seed development during the short active growing period in our northern climate. Buds, pre-formed the previous summer, hold miniature leaves or flowers, or both, depending on species. The trees and shrubs share the same quandary as Maine’s tourist industry. Spring is late, summer short and just like the tourist industry the woody plant has to replenish its depleted resources from the past winter, flower (prosper), produce seed (increase in size) AND make new buds for the next season (put up money) in just a few month!

Lucky for us, buds come in different shapes and sizes, with or without coverings (the bud scale) and are arranged opposite or alternate along the twigs. Some buds are shamelessly naked, as in the Wayfaring Tree (a non-native) and set on gray hairy twigs, with triangular leaf scar beneath.

Flower Bud Wayfaring Tree

Triangular leaf scar with 3 bundle scars

The willow wards off temperature fluctuation with one bud scale, the Red Osier dogwood with two, and the familiar silver maple, among other trees, uses several.

Willow bud

If two species occupy similar habitat, are alike in twig colour and have the same bud arrangement, as it is true for the Red maple and Red osier dogwood, the number of bud scales might just be the right aid for
further identification.

How do buds know when to burst open, to expose leaves to sunlight and flowers to pollination?

Ask Steve on February 19th, 2012 at 1pm.

See you then!

Winter Ecology Series 2012

Hirundo Wildlife Refuge is pleased to announce its Winter Ecology Series of free, family-oriented walks, lasting 1.5 hours.
Beginning on Sunday, January 8 you will learn how to ‘Identify Animal Signs’, hone your skills in ‘Winter Tree Identification’ (February 19) and listen to the calls of Barred or Screech Owl during the ‘Owl Walk’ (March 7). Our heated shelter, at Lac D’Or will be open 1/2 hour prior to the beginning of the walk.

Currently we suggest you bring snowshoes, if available, or reserve them with us by calling 207 944 9259.

Intersecting

Meet at the Parker Reed shelter in the Hirundo Wildlife Refuge. Take Gate 1 and follow the dirt road for ~1/2 mile to the Pine Tree parking lot. The shelter is further on the left. Reservations and cancellations requested, call 207-944-9259. Event is free and open to all ages. Suggested donations are $4 for adults, school-aged children are free.

Willow bud

Come and join wildlife ecologist Bucky Owen, on January 8, as he snowshoes along a section  of  Hirundo’s seven-mile trail system, speaks about the seasonal animal and plant adaptation, and looks for animal tracks.

On February 19,  practice Tree Identification in winter, using twigs and other clues, when you examine Hirundo’s varied forest communities with Steven Sader, from the School of Forest Resource at University of Maine.

Mark your calendar for the Winter Ecology series third outing on March 7. Paul Markson introduces you to animal’s nighttime activities at Hirundo during his Owl Walk.

Directions

FROM THE SOUTH

Take the I-95 N. Take the ME-43 exit 197 to Old Town/Hudson. Go 0.3 mi to the end of the off ramp. At the stop sign, turn left onto Rt. 43 (Hudson Rd). Go west 5.2 mi and look for the large red signs on your right (north side of Rt. 43). Gate 1 leads to the Wabanaki Interpretive Nature Trail and the Shelter at Lac D’Or. Gate 2 leads to parking and multiple walking trails. Gate 3 has parking for the canoe trails.

FROM THE NORTH

Take I-95 S.Take the ME-43 exit 197 to Old Town/Hudson. Go 0.3 mi. Turn right at Hudson Rd. Go 0.3 mi to the end of the off ramp. At the stop sign, turn right onto Rt. 43 (Hudson Rd). Go west 5.2 mi and look for the large red signs on your right (north side of Rt. 43). Gate 1 leads to the Wabanaki Interpretive Nature Trail and the Shelter at Lac D’Or. Gate 2 leads to parking and multiple walking trails. Gate 3 has parking for the canoe trails.

View larger map

“This would be an environmental and economic disaster for Maine,” said Chris O’Neil, President of Friends of Maine’s Mountains (FMM), which is focused on protecting Maine’s mountains and citizens from the impacts of grid-scale industrial wind turbine developments.

Among other shortcomings in the legislation, FMM sees its passage as a de facto mandate for an unsustainable buildup of wind turbines and costly transmission systems on Maine’s mountains. O’Neil asserted that “markets would not support any wind power at all if not for a complicated brew of incentives, grants, mandates, tax breaks, surcharges, and other government created gimmicks. This is just one more gimmick, and it’s a huge one.”

O’Neil said, that renewable power sounds good to lay people, but lay people should not be deciding such technical and critical matters that are presented as simple and benign. “Requiring more renewable power will probably sound great to most people; but to throw additional unrealistic mandates on companies like Bangor Hydro and CMP will cost real dollars for everyone in Maine. And certainly, it will cause further harm to our wild areas with the construction of unnecessary infrastructure like 45 story wind turbines on our mountain ridges and hundreds of miles of new transmission lines cut through our forests,” O’Neil said.

Maine has the highest RPS mandate in the nation, presently at 35%.  Yet Maine law excludes some generators (like Canadian Hydro) and favors others (like wind) such that “for all intents and purposes ‘new renewable’ in Maine means wind,” O’Neil said.  The referendum would double the annual rate at which the RPS now escalates, and it will raise the ultimate percentage mandated from 40% to 50%.

“If Maine is an outlier now, this would put us off the charts.” O’Neil said. “We will be urging voters to think about facts like these before they vote for this feel-good legislation.”

Maine’s electricity generation mix is already very clean.  More than half of our generation comes from renewable biomass and hydro, while most of the other half comes from clean, modern natural gas generators.  Some states get as much as three quarters of their electricity from coal plants.  FMM is not a proponent of introducing coal to Maine’s electricity generation mix, but the group insists that any new generation be sustainable, affordable, clean, and necessary.  “Wind power has never proven that it meets any of these criteria,” O’Neil said.  “We have many layers of environmental regulation in place now.  And, we in Maine have a strong environmental ethos. There is no need to handcuff markets and harm ratepayers by choosing winners, losers, and favorites.”

“This referendum is driven by an unfortunate public belief that wind power can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, displace base load generators, and reduce our already high electricity costs, when in fact it can do none of these,” O’Neil said. “The future of Maine’s environment and economy deserves better than mandated policies which are based on a belief in presumed benefits, rather than proven data. We end up with high impact – low benefit infrastructure that we neither want nor need.”

O’Neil said FMM sees red flags with other provisions in the legislation, like how it would take authority from elected officials and give policy making authority to unelected officials.

The following documents have been included for references.

Friends of Maine’s Mountains,  P.O. Box 60,  Weld, Maine  04285   (207)585-2005

The 20 Facts about Wind Energy Development in Maine

When asked if they think wind generated electricity is good, affordable, green, useful, and necessary most people will say “Yes, of course.” But the fact is, none of the above has ever been proven. Wind generated electricity has been effectively shielded from scrutiny by marketing and lobbying, with no obligation to verify its claims. But despite popular belief, wind generated electricity has high impact and low benefit to Maine’s economy and environment. Following are 20 reasons to take a closer look.

1. Wind generated electricity will not “get us off of oil.” Less than 2 % of the electricity in Maine and in the U.S. comes from oil-fired generators. We use oil for transportation and heating. Switching to electric vehicles and electric heat would certainly reduce oil usage, but it would sharply increase electricity consumption. So ratepayers would more urgently demand and require affordable electricity rather than expensive wind electricity.

2. Maine has 4300 megawatts of electricity generation capacity, though we only use 1500 megawatts on average. There is no shortage of electricity and the grid forecasts less than one percent annual growth in demand for the next decade. No urgent need exists to sacrifice unique resources using ratepayer and taxpayer money to produce a small and unreliable amount of surplus electricity.

3. Even without wind turbines, Maine is already one of the cleanest states in the nation for electricity generation. According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Maine ranks first in non-hydro renewable electricity gen­eration per capita, per gross state product and as a percentage of total electricity generation. We also have the highest renewable portfolio standard in the U.S.

4. By necessity, conventional sources of electricity (nuclear, biomass, natural gas, hydropower) will re­main the primary suppliers of electricity to the New England grid well into the future. Wind-generated elec­tricity cannot, by its nature, replace or displace these “baseload” generators. Intermittency and low power density restrict it to a role as a marginal supplier of electricity.

5. Maine’s 2700 megawatt “goal” for land-based wind generating capacity would require the construction of 1200-1700 wind turbines, each around 400 feet tall, spaced about ¼ mile apart, sprawled across 300 miles of rural Maine’s mountains and ridgelines.

6. The expansive conversion of rural Maine to industrial wind development could provide no more than 5% of New England’s electricity needs under even the most optimistic of scenarios. It would have no meaningful impact on New England’s fossil fuel consumption. The intermittency of Maine’s 2700 megawatt (MW) wind power goal gives it, at most, an effective output that is around 30% of its listed capacity, or about 800 MW. On New Eng­land’s 32,000 MW grid, this is a drop in the bucket – especially, when considering the high-impact infrastructure needed to achieve this “goal.”

7. Wind generated electricity is high impact and low benefit. The entirety of Maine’s 2700 MW goal could be provided by the construction and operation of a SINGLE, moderately sized, conventionally fueled (e.g. natu­ral gas) generation plant, at 10-15% of the cost.

8. Placing wind turbines on Maine’s mountains will not enhance our energy security.Almost all of the fuels used to produce our electricity are sourced from North America. ALL are readily available in North America.

9. Placing wind turbines on Maine’s mountains will not reduce coal consumption or stop mountaintop re­moval mining. Coal is used in other parts of the country as a reliable (albeit dirty) base load fuel, with some states deriving 75% or more of their electricity from coal. Comparatively speaking, New England is a minor user of coal. Maine has only one small coal-fired generator, powering a Rumford paper mill. It accounts for about ½ percent of all of Maine’s electricity generation.

10. Erecting wind turbines on Maine’s mountains will not improve Maine’s air quality.EPA figures indicate that the burning of fossil fuels in Maine is a minor source of the state’s particulate pollution. Most fossil fuel pollutants blow into Maine from population centers many miles away.

11. If CO2 is a problem, wind power is not a solution. Placing wind turbines on Maine’s mountains will have no impact on climate change. Using the wind lobby’s optimistic claims, 2700 MW of installed wind capacity in Maine could only reduce total U.S. CO2 emissions by less than five one-hundredths of one percent (0.05%.) Glob­ally, there would be no measurable benefit since 98% of atmospheric C02 is from sources other than electricity generators.

12. Wind turbines require sources of NEW conventional generating capacity. The 2010 New England Wind In­tegration Study stated that “Wind’s intermittent nature would require increased reserves, ensuring that there are other generation options when the wind isn’t blowing.” Even when wind does blow, baseload generators continue to operate, while balancing generators operate inefficiently as they ramp up and down, which increasesemissions.

13. New wind power integration will require an unprecedented expansion of transmission capacity. The president and chief executive of ISO-New England, said in 2010 that large scale integration of wind power into the New England grid “would require spending $19 billion to $25 billion for new transmission lines.” This cost would be passed along to our electric bills.

14. Wind generated electricity will not guarantee lower electricity rates. Wind power lobbyists often state that they cannot compete with low natural gas prices, which are forecast to remain low and stable for decades. The wind lobby’s insistence on a federal Renewable Energy Standard and other government subsidies are proof that wind-gener­ated electricity cannot compete with other sources.

15. It is said that wind should be a “part of the mix” but its part would be insignificant.Demand for wind generated electricity is created not by the market, but by state and federal government policy. Without favoritism from government policies, wind power could not survive.

16. Wind projects are heavily subsidized at an exorbitant rate. Not accounting for state incentives, ratepayer mandates, and various policies, wind generated electricity is generously subsidized by federal taxpayers. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, wind generators take federal subsidies at a rate of $56.29 per megawatt hour (MWh). Compare this to the subsidy totals for reliable generators like natural gas and coal, which receive 64 cents/MWh, Hydro: 82 cents, Nuclear: $3.14, and Geothermal: $12.85/MWh.

17. Wind developments create notoriously few jobs. Despite boasts of creating Maine jobs, wind projects produce mostly construction jobs lasting less than 6 months. Wind projects are NOT long-term investments in jobs. Construction jobs are always welcome, but publicly-funded construction jobs should pro­duce necessary and useful projects, like roads, bridges, and critical infrastructure. Moreover, state mandates to purchase higher priced wind-generated electricity could lead to lost jobs or fewer available jobs in Maine.

18. Most of a wind project’s expenditures leave Maine – primarily overseas., Property valu­ations of most new wind developments in Maine are sheltered by tax increment financing and accelerated depreciation. Under the terms of these deals, Mainers’ tax savings are diverted to developers to help finance wind projects.

19. EVERY operating, multi-turbine, grid scale wind facility in Maine that has been sited near people has sig­nificant unresolved disputes over noise emissions and shadow flicker. Continuing to site wind turbines using the same standards that have caused this conflict assures that the problems will grow in number and that more Mainers will be involved in disputes with wind developers in the future.

20. “Charting Maine’s Future,” the 2006 Brookings Institute report, warned Maine to avoid sprawl in order to protect its “quality of place” and its “brand.” Maine’s wind development policy actually encourages rural sprawl, threatening Maine’s unique character as well as our future prosperity. Fairly weighing the massive impacts to Maine’s economy and environment versus the minimal benefits from wind power, the facts lead us to conclude that the impacts far exceed the benefits. Maine must pursue more sensible and sustainable energy policy.

Friends of Maine’s Mountains

PO Box 60 Weld, Maine 04285

www.friendsofmainesmountains.org

Friends of Maine’s Mountains

PO Box 60 Weld, Maine 04285

www.friendsofmainesmountains.org

The Governor caused a stir last week when he urged citizens NOT to sign the citizens referendum petitions now being circulated by a “coalition” of special interests. That coalition is seeking to pull Maine off an energy/environmental/economic cliff with the measure that would radically increase mandates for electricity users.  Among other shortcomings in this legislation, Friends of Maine’s Mountains (FMM) sees its passage as a de facto mandate for an unsustainable buildup of wind turbines and transmission lines on Maine’s mountains.

As you surely know, almost everyone unwittingly begins with feelings of favorability toward wind power. Then that favor wanes once they learn wind power’s low benefits and high impacts to the economy and environment.  While FMM categorically opposes what the referendum seeks to do, we actually see a statewide campaign as an opportunity for educating more Maine citizens with the truth about wind power’s high impacts and low benefits.

Anticipating that the “coalition” will reach its signature requirement before the January 30, 2012 deadline, and that we will soon be involved in a campaign to oppose the question, we have assembled below some thoughts on it.

Please feel free to contact me for more information.

Chris O’Neil, President

Friends of Maine’s Mountains

(207) 590-3842

cponeil22@gmail.com

———

Maine’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) Mandate, and the referendum attempt to increase it.

Maine already has a statutory “goal” to build out 2700 megawatts (MW) of wind capacity, not counting an additional 5000 MW eventually from offshore wind capacity. The 2700 MW goal alone will not happen merely because people hope or wish it would.  As we know, markets would not support any wind power at all if not for a complicated brew of incentives, grants, mandates, tax breaks, surcharges, and other government created gimmicks.

The gimmick apparently headed for the 2012 ballot is the RPS.  We prefer to call it RPM (M for mandateinstead of standard) but for this memo, let’s call it RPS.  Simply stated, an RPS dictates that a state’s utilities must buy (and sell their ratepayers) a mix of electricity that is X amount renewable.  Our existing RPS mandate is articulated as a percentage of overall electricity sold. In case you wondered, Maine’s RPS mandate is already the highest in the nation, and approving the referendum question would send it even higher.

Why are we so critical of the wind power goal that was enacted into law?  Simply stated it is unnecessary, unaffordable, unsustainable, and it undoes Maine’s Quality of Place.  Remember, the 2700 MW installed capacity goal (25% capacity factor) will effectively add only 675 MW to our 33,000 MW New England grid system.  675 MW could far more easily and reliably be produced at one medium sized conventional plant without erecting thousands of turbines across Maine.  That one new plant (which we don’t need because we already have excess capacity) could run smoothly as a base load generator instead of backing up intermittent wind with load following, balancing, and spinning reserve, necessitating inefficient and polluting starts and stops.

The public relations justification for this rush to wind power has been jobs….we’ve proven that claim to be specious.  Get us off oil…people now realize we don’t use oil to generate electricity.  Reduce electricity prices… think again.

But the primary justification with RPS is to REDUCE CARBON. We know this is fallacy from numerous studies of how wind and the grid work.  Wind won’t close Maine’s three new natural gas plants just like it does not close coal plants in Denmark. While New England has several dirty generation plants that could be closed in the next decade, they are primarily base load generators producing a steady flow of electrons 24/7.  If they are replaced, they will be replaced by base load generation. Wind power boosters have a naive belief that renewables can replace conventional generation, with a commensurate reduction in carbon.  So let’s just switch to wind, right?

Not so easy.  Government, believing or wishing that renewable electricity is necessary and useful, has recognized the need to manipulate the marketplace so that renewables can have a chance. For several years there have been unsuccessful efforts to impose a national RPS, a cookie cutter approach to renewable energy goals across the country, for example, 20%.  For the foreseeable future that effort does not show much chance of passage in Washington DC.  So some states have created their own renewable mandates.

We are not against effective methodologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  We do not oppose renewables, per se.  We do oppose the Maine policy that hand picks renewable winners and losers, and then mandates their generation, capacity, and consumption. All renewables are not created equal.  Hydro and biomass could provide reliable and affordable base load electricity. But they do not benefit equally from all the government “gimmicks” which wind power gets. So wind power is essentially guaranteed a meal ticket if the referendum passes.

As we enter this referendum debate we must be mindful that Maine has an RPS calculation better suited to other states, a higher percentage standard than all of them, and a very clean electricity mix today; Maine is already a model carbon citizen.

Maine’s indigenous electricity generation mix is very clean: about half from new natural gas plants that were built after the closure of Maine Yankee.  We all know that gas is not only abundant and likely inexpensive for decades, but that it burns much cleaner than other fossil fuels. The other half of our generation is predominantly biomass and hydro. Maine’s capacity mix is a little less clean, but that is due to the presence of our biggest generator, Wyman station in Casco Bay.  That is a large oil-fired plant with 620 MW of capacity. Market forces have rendered it a generator of last resort.  Despite the fact that Wyman could power every home in Maine, it is only called upon by the grid operator for peak load moments, typically those 90 degree days in August when all available generation sources on the grid are required to produce.

An aside here: note that our utilities – like Bangor Hydro and Central Maine Power – do not buy all the electricity that Maine generates. Nor does all the electricity that they buy for / sell to us come from Maine generators. The New England grid is fluid, and Maine utilities regularly purchase a portion of their electricity from coal and nuclear generators, neither of which exist in Maine.

Looking at US Department of Energy figures for electricity generation, Maine’s tons of CO2 per square mile of carbon sequestering forest is only 192. The same calculation for Texas is 13,556. In fact Maine is third best in the nation at this metric. Yet some people would have us falling over ourselves to proliferate ineffective and costly wind generation when we don’t need it, shouldn’t want it, and will see no benefit from it.

It is imperfect to compare the states.  But as I noted, Maine already has the highest renewable portfolio mandate in the nation. That’s right. The highest now. 29 states have some variation of an RPS, and none is even close to Maine’s. Do not confuse the RPS with either Maine’s generation output, generation capacity, or generation consumed.  All are different animals. The RPS mandate is on the utility.  It tells CMP how much renewable power they must sell to us, therefore it is a mandate on generation consumed.  Some states, particularly in the Northwest (e.g. where federally funded dams enabled civilization to proliferate) have higher renewable percentages of their electricity capacity, generation, and consumption than we do. Other states, like Iowa and Alabama, get three quarters of their generation from coal generators. (They enjoy rates less than half ours, incidentally, and we get their emissions.)

About a decade ago, the Maine Legislature set our RPS at 30%. A few years later, as we were entering the wind bandwagon era, Maine’s RPS was amended with an annual 1% automatic escalator. In 2012 it is scheduled to automatically escalate from 35% to 36%.  This escalating mandate essentially disregards the 30% baseline and requires utilities to buy (and then sell to us) 1% MORE “renewable” electricity per year from “new” generation sources.  The 1% annual escalation enacted in statute is presently scheduled to top out in 2017 at 40%.

The early spin from the referendum’s proponents is that Maine will gradually come to using 20% renewable energy.  Such a benign characterization, which has been repeated in early press reports, is incomplete and misleading. In fact the proposed referendum doubles the escalation rate to 2% “more new renewables” per year until Maine hits a 50% renewable mandate.  This is like telling me that 360 pounds is too skinny and I need to eat more so I will get to 500 pounds.  Or that I have to get half of my groceries at the donut shop. If enacted, this mandate will put unprecedented pressure on Maine to not only allow, but push wind power development.

Why?  Remember, 3000 MW of installed wind capacity is NOT 3000 MW of delivered or consumed electrons. Maine ratepayers (via our utilities) would need to purchase 800 to 1000 MW of “renewable” electricity.  That would create a disadvantageous supply/demand equation for us buyers, necessarily raising costs. This a a job killer and a major drag on Maine’s economy.

We often say that wind power is a two-headed monster that gets its sustenance dually from Washington and Augusta. So the proposed referendum is a Thanksgiving feast of state sustenance.  If the federal government, as we hope, continues its recent inclination to curtail the Washington sustenance, and we keep escalating our mandates, then Maine will get the worst of both monsters:  environmental degradation from state-mandated wind turbines, at an even greater cost  because of the reduced federal maintenance of monetary effort.

We do not often wade into the “global warming” and “climate change” debates. It is a fact that the worldwide atmospheric C02 level is at a historic high, and still trending upward. But we also know that only about 4% of atmospheric C02 is man made, with only a small percentage of that man-made C02 coming from electricity generators. So if we want to reduce atmospheric C02, why focus so much radical reform on a tiny C02 contributor like electricity?  It is moreover a waste of time, money, and natural resources to hope that C02 will be reduced by wind electricity, which cannot provide any measurable C02 benefit.  If we close a 1000 MW coal plant in Connecticut and replace it with 1000 MW of hydro from Newfoundland, now that would give us a reduction in Co2 and other emissions. But remember, in the overall schems of global C02, reducing the C02 contribution from electricity generation is barely going to budge the needle. OK to do it, and perhaps advisable.  But let’s not overstate the benefit.

Some of us have more and less urgency in our concern for C02.  But regardless of whether we think the ice caps are going to melt next week, or if we see things the other way, and think that global warming is fiction, we should agree that today’s panic approach to curing C02 ills by eschewing how we generate electricity is both a cockeyed diagnosis and prescription.

A final and different thought about cookie cutter approaches to carbon and renewables:

The average % forest coverage of land in the world is 29.6% according to the United Nations’ “State of the World’s Forests.” The % forest cover of land in the U.S. is 24.7%. Spain and Denmark, two countries often cited as examples of wind power proliferation, have forest covers of 28.8% and 10.7% respectively.

Trees are carbon sinks. They store carbon.  They are carbon. Importantly, Maine, at 90% forest cover, is well above the world and U.S. averages. In terms of our forest cover (largely a function of nature, but certainly to some extent a function of cultural and economic practices, such as our forest products industry), we are well ahead of almost everyone. Moreover, because we have a relatively low population density, our low ratio of man-made CO2 to forest would likely be even more remarkable. We are a VERY LOW net carbon state, even with heavy motor vehicle and heating oil usage.

It thus seems that cookie cutter solutions suggested to all the states, such as RPS mandates, may be a case of a one size fits all solution not applicable to a low population, high forest CO2 sequestration state like Maine which does not burn oil or coal for electricity!  Also, consider our hydro and biomass are already reliable renewables.

Some of the states with greater wind power penetration such as Texas have below 10% forest cover. It may be that their relatively low carbon sequestration levels have led to overlooking the importance of forests and maintaining forest based industries rather than subsidizing industrial wind.

Add to this, the fact that Maine RPS law excludes big hydro and foreign hydro from qualifying as “renewable” and we can do even better than we do if we would simply lift that artificial barrier. Furthermore, generators of that big/foreign hydro are similarly excluded from being considered “renewable” for the purposes of receiving subsidies via RGGI/Renewable Energy Credits.  Provincial utilities in Labrador and Quebec are poised to compete for electricity and renewable demand at population centers south of us, but their product is financially penalized by Maine and other states because of these two isolationist policies. They must be repealed, allowing Maine – which has relatively low demand -  to tap into the “pipelines” of electricity that are headed around and below us.  Maine is geographically situated to leverage that northern supply against the demand from populations south of us.

As several dirty generators to our south move closer to decommissioning, we could use sustainable renewables to reduce our carbon quotient and clean up other harmful emissions that now drift to us. These sustainable renewables can come from Maine or outside Maine. But we should not mandate any kind of power, and we certainly should not mandate wind power.

FMM sees red flags with other provisions in the legislation, like how it would take authority from elected officials and give policy making authority to unelected officials.

For more information, see FMM’s 20 Facts About Wind Power

Friends of Maine’s Mountains

PO Box 60 Weld, Maine 04285

www.friendsofmainesmountains.org

Friends of Maine’s Mountains | P.O. Box 60 | Weld | ME | 04285

Emerald Ash Borer (EMB)

AUGUSTA, Maine – Maine Forest Service entomologists, using a method reminiscent of an old-fashioned husking bee, will hold two bark-peeling workshops later this month to look for evidence of the emerald ash borer, an invasive insect threatening Maine’s forests.

Ash-tree owners from central Maine, who earlier this year created tree traps to look for emerald ash borer (EAB), will bring wood samples to the workshops to be peeled by volunteers and examined for signs of the dangerous insect, said Colleen Teerling, Maine Forest Service entomologist.

“We’re going to work with them to peel the tree bolts,” Teerling said. “We’ll teach them to do it properly and how to search for emerald ash borer.”

The workshops will be held Tuesday, Jan. 17 and Jan. 24, at the Maine Forest Service Southern Region Headquarters, Bolton Hill,Augusta,ME.

EAB has killed millions of ash trees across the nation and threatens all of Maine’s ash resource, from individual ash shade trees in yards and lining town streets to stands of white, green and black ash in the forests. The invasive insect has been found in New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Maryland, and the Canadian provinces of Quebecand Ontario.

Some treatment is possible to prolong the life of affected trees, but in general, after a tree is infested by the beetle, it dies. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than 25 million trees in theU.S.have been affected by the emerald ash borer.

The exotic insect has not yet been found inMaine, and the Maine Forest Service (MFS), under the Maine Department of Conservation, has been taking steps to prevent its entering the state by banning out-of-state firewood. For the past three years, the Maine Forest Service also has used sophisticated detection methods, including bug traps and bio-surveillance, to surveyMaine’s ash resource for the possible presence of EAB.

Earlier this year, the Maine Forest Service asked land owners to volunteer to make tree traps for EAB by girdling a tree, or stripping bark from around an ash tree. Girdling the tree causes the tree to become stressed and release chemicals attractive to the EAB.

About 10 owners, mostly from centralMaine, created the traps on their trees, which will be cut down into 3-foot lengths, or bolts, Teerling said. Next week, the tree owners will each bring four to 10 bolts to be examined, the MFS entomologist said, adding that she expected workers to have about 30 to 60 bolts to look at during the daylong workshops.

The tree-girdling project grew out of the efforts of the Black Ash Task Force, a collaboration of the Maine Forest Service,University of Maine,MaineIndian BasketmakersAllianceand the U.S. Forest Service, Teerling said. The bark peelers will include the tree owners, MFS foresters, members of the Penobscot Nation, and other task force representatives, she said.

The bark peeling is an elaborate process, Teerling said. It involves using a draw knife to slice the bark into multiple layers down to the tree cambium, or living layer. That is where EAB, if it is present, will show up, she explained.

The bark must be peeled off slowly, “so you don’t just dig down into the wood and destroy any evidence,” the entomologist said.

The volunteers will be looking for EAB “galleries,” Teerling continued, “basically little tunnels that emerald ash borer makes under the bark. They may be only an inch or two long if there is a new infestation.”

The tree-girdling, bark-peeling detection method has been used in other places, such asNew Yorkand other states that already have EAB, Teerling said.

“We haven’t found emerald ash borer with other methods we’ve been using, but this is a new method,” she said. “The earlier that we find an infestation, the better are our chances to contain it and deal with it.”

The MFS entomologist said she was hopeful that the invasive insect wouldn’t be found during the workshops.

For more information about EAB, go to: http://www.maine.gov/doc/mfs/InvasiveThreats.htm

For more information about the Maine Forest Service, go to: http://www.maine.gov/doc/mfs/index.shtml

Media attendance is encouraged.

BRUNSWICK – More than two million dollars will help public and non-profit groups restore and protect high priority wetlands and other natural resources across Maine.

The Maine Natural Resource Conservation Program – which is administered by The Nature Conservancy in collaboration with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – announced awards totaling $2.4 million to help restore, enhance or preserve wetlands and other important habitats at 17 project sites.

The program provides flexibility for both regulators and the regulated community to choose a fee in lieu of more time-intensive traditional mitigation options. These so-called In Lieu Fees are collected by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and then transferred to the Natural Resource Conservation Fund at The Nature Conservancy.

“This third round of grants is another step forward for the conservation of aquatic resources in Maine,” said Alex Mas, who manages the program for The Nature Conservancy in Maine. “Traditional mitigation projects can often be scattered, small or poorly located; this program allows us to focus wetland mitigation funds in high priority areas to help ensure they continue to provide important benefits like habitat, clean drinking water and flood control for people and for wildlife into the future.”

“This collaboration between Maine DEP, The Nature Conservancy and the U.S. Army Corps is facilitating a systematic and strategic process for comprehensive compensation projects that are saving and strengthening our state’s highest value wetland habitats,” said Commissioner Patricia Aho of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. “In just a few years, this program has become one of Maine’s most meaningful tools used in partnership by conservationists and developers to ensure important environmental protections. It’s a win-win for Maine’s natural environment, and its economic one.”

“After all efforts have been made to avoid or minimize wetland impacts, this program provides permit applicants an efficient and workable alternative to traditional mitigation, while providing a better outcome for our wetland habitats,” said Ruth Ladd, of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New England District. “The fees are used to restore, enhance, preserve or create aquatic resources and their associated uplands.”

This is the third round of awards from the Maine Natural Resource Conservation Program to advance important land and water conservation around the state. More than 2,300 acres of land will be conserved or restored statewide.

•In rural Penobscot County, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife will protect more than 2,000 acres of habitat, expanding the Mattawamkeag River System Wildlife Management Area. The majority of the property is wetland associated with the river and with Eagle Pond. Nesting bald eagles and rare Clayton’s copper butterflies – verified at just eleven sites worldwide – have been seen in the area.

•In the Midcoast, a DIFW restoration project on Maquoit Stream in Brunswick will restore a wetland that will serve as habitat for migratory fish as well saltmarsh sparrow (a Maine Species of Special Concern) and other birds, with the removal of a small earthen dam and reestablishment of a natural stream channel and more than 10 acres of wetlands.

•In Southern Maine, the York Land Trust will protect just over 22 acres within the watershed of Boulter Pond, which supplies drinking water for thousands of residents of Kittery, York and Eliot. The area is also important habitat for woodpeckers and great blue herons.

And the Great Works Regional Land Trust will protect 83 additional acres in South Berwick as part of the ongoing Mount Agamenticus to the Sea conservation effort. These wetland areas provide some of Maine’s best habitat for Blandings and spotted turtles.

•In Franklin County, the Androscoggin Land Trust will protect 42 acres of forestland in the town of Jay as part of their “Expanding the Androscoggin Greenway Project.” The property will be managed for wildlife habitat, water quality protection, and low-impact recreation.

Other award recipients include: Atlantic Salmon Federation, Maine Council; Blue Hill Heritage Trust; Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust; Georges River Land Trust; Greater Lovell Land Trust; Kennebec Land Trust; Sebasticook Regional Land Trust; Trout Unlimited; Western Foothills Land Trust; and the towns of Wells and Falmouth.

How the grants were awarded: Public agencies, non-profit conservation organizations and municipalities applied, through a competitive process, for funding from this program for restoration and preservation projects in Maine. Proposals were evaluated and ranked by a Review Committee, which was convened by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and made up of public and non-profit entities. The final funding decisions were made by an Approval Committee, which was comprised of state and federal agencies.

The Nature Conservancy administered the process and is responsible for seeing that the projects are executed. The Conservancy did not vote as part of the Review Committee or Approval Committee on which proposals were approved for funding.

For more information about the Maine Natural Resource Conservation program, visit http://maine.gov/dep/land/nrpa/ILF_and_NRCP/MNRCP/index.html

Keliher, of South Gardiner, has served as Deputy Commissioner and Director, Bureau of Sea Run Fisheries and Habitat within DMR since 2007. He has served, most recently as Acting Commissioner, and has been serving in this capacity since July.

Maine’s commercial and recreational fisheries industry is a valuable component of Maine’s outdoor heritage. The marine industry sustains thousands of jobs for hardworking Mainers, which significantly contribute to the overall State economy. Maine is known and recognized worldwide for its fresh seafood.

Governor LePage applauded Keliher’s efforts since he has taken on the role of Acting Commissioner. “Pat has gone above and beyond demonstrating his ability to serve as Commissioner. He has worked to reorganize the department, focusing on areas that have the biggest economic benefit to the State,” he said. “Keliher has demonstrated his ability to work with the fishing industry on contentious issues, balancing our need to create and sustain jobs while protecting Maine’s numerous marine resources. I am confident that he will continue to serve Maine people well.

Prior to joining DMR, Keliher served as Executive Director of the Atlantic Salmon Commission and Executive Director of the New England States of the Coastal Conservation Association, Greater New England. Keliher has also served as a licensed Coast Guard Captain and is a Registered Maine Guide.

“I am honored to be selected by Governor LePage to be the next Commissioner of Marine Resources,” Keliher said. “We have many challenges facing our coastal communities – it is imperative that our long-term management plans take into account the sustainability of the resources and also the people who depend on these resources for their livelihood.”

The Joint Standing Committee on Marine Resources will review the Governor’s nomination. If approved, Patrick Keliher would then need to be confirmed by the Maine State Senate.

The annual awards program from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection will honor entities whose innovation has resulted in measurable environmental and economic benefits.

AUGUSTA – The Maine Department of Environmental Protection in partnership with Governor Paul LePage is re-launching a recognition program to spotlight the state’s stewards of sustainability.

Nominations are now open for the Governor’s Awards for Environmental Excellence, which will honor businesses in four workforce size categories, nonprofits and public entities for going beyond standard techniques or regulatory requirements to creatively meet environmental challenges.

Award applicants will be asked to show how their project or program was innovative, collaborative, resulted in measurable and meaningful environmental and economic benefits and could be replicated by others doing similar work. Finalists will undergo a compliance review by the DEP to ensure they are conforming with all laws, rules and applicable licenses administered by the department.

Completed nomination forms, which can be downloaded from DEP’s website, are due to the department by Friday, Feb. 17 with the awards being presented by Governor LePage and Commissioner Pattie Aho in April to coincide with Earth Day. Self-nominations are encouraged.

“Through this awards program, Maine DEP and the Governor’s Office will celebrate those who have initiated innovative ways to shift a culture toward sustainability while investing in infrastructure and creating jobs,” Commissioner Aho explained. “These winners will prove that what is good for Maine’s environment is also good for our economy while inspiring others to follow in their footsteps in proactively protecting Maine’s environment.”

A similar environmental excellence awards program was discontinued by the department in 2005 to the disappointment of the regulated community. Commissioner Aho said the decision to re-launch the annual awards starting in 2012 was to recognize the many environmental leaders she has seen while touring the state during her tenure who are modeling the department’s vision of a mutually healthy environment and economy but who often go unrecognized.

“A strong economy and protecting our natural resources go hand in hand and Maine DEP has done a great job moving in this direction,” said Dana Connors, president of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce. “The Maine State Chamber of Commerce thanks the Maine DEP for relaunching the Governor’s Awards for Environmental Excellence officially recognizing that Maine’s business community is one of our greatest environmental stewards.”

For more information about the Maine Department of Environmental Protection’s Governor’s Awards for Environmental Excellence or to

download an application, visit http://www.maine.gov/dep or contact Samantha DePoy-Warren at (207)287-5842 or samantha.depoy-warren@maine.gov.

20 APRIL 2011, 9:38 AM

TXsharon

The Dark Side of the Boom

How natural gas drilling in Texas threatens public health and safety

(This week, in connection with the launch of our campaign Fracking Gone Wrong: Finding a Better Way, we’ve invited some of the movement’s most prominent advocates to guest blog. Today’s guest blogger is Sharon Wilson, aka TXsharon, a blogger and an organizer with Texas Oil and Gas Accountability Project. Earthjustice has worked for years alongside EARTHWORKS OGAP in Colorado, New York, Pennsylvania and other drilling states.)

Howdy, I am Sharon Wilson but most people know me as TXsharon, author of the blog, Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS that focuses on drilling issues locally, statewide, nationally and even globally. My involvement started when I noticed alarming things happening to the countryside near my property in Wise County, Texas—a smelly pit here, a smoking rig there, and leaky pipes and hoses that ended up in flowing creeks. I wrote letters to the paper, talked to neighbors and blogged as a guest until I finally started my own blog.

In 2008, my friend Don Young, founder of Fort Worth Can Do!, and I called EARTHWORKS’ Oil and Gas Accountability Project for help in reining in the out of control and largely unregulated drilling in North Texas. Shortly after an initial tour and meetings with key OGAP staff, we founded Texas Oil and Gas Accountability Project (see industry’s reaction HERE). In January 2010, I became the part-time Texas organizer.

Over the years, I have collected stories and documentation of the havoc that uncontrolled and virtually unregulated drilling and fracking are wreaking on the health and safety of the people of North Texas. I chose four of those stories, developed them into case studies and presented them in October 2010 to the EPA in North Carolina. In December, I traveled a long way from Texas and presented them in Washington, D.C.

Texas has long been the capital of the U.S. oil and gas industry. But the U.S. natural gas boom has brought a new wave of drilling activity to the state, with thousands of drilling rigs and production facilities puncturing the landscape of the region around Forth Worth, known as the Barnett Shale. The new boom and the state’s industry-friendly regulatory system mean that Texas is failing to protect residents from the hazards of gas drilling and production.

That’s what the Texas Oil & Gas Accountability says in a new report, Flowback: How the Texas Natural Gas Boom Affects Health and Safety that was released at the Texas State Capitol in Austin. The report finds that authorities either lack the resources to deal with the air pollution, water contamination and other problems that accompany natural gas production; are limited in their response by inadequate laws and regulations; or continue in the long Texas tradition of favoring the oil and gas industry at the expense of citizens.

Texas is just one of the places across the country where OGAP is working with communities impacted by the nation’s natural gas boom. Our new report gives voice to the families and communities on the front lines of a public health crisis that is spreading from the Barnett Shale to other parts of the state. It pulls together for the first time detailed results of air and water testing as well as health effects data linking residents’ symptoms to toxic chemicals used in drilling andhydraulic fracturing (“fracking”).

Flowback roundly criticizes the inadequacy of policies and the response of authorities at all levels of government, but reserves its sharpest criticism for the Texas Railroad Commission: long the oil and gas industry’s lapdog, (the commission) must become a watchdog.”

Our report is meant to lift the veil of denial that hangs over the Texas gas patch. The reports of health and safety effects across two dozen counties are real, not coincidences or isolated examples. Current laws make it hard to tie a specific illness to a specific well, but residents of these communities know that where drilling goes, problems follow.

We make some specific recommendations for policy change at the state and federal level, but the most urgent change—in Texas as elsewhere—is in attitude: Regulators and elected officials must protect residents whose health and safety are threatened, rather than industry profits. Too often citizen reports of health effects from drilling are disregarded as merely anecdotes or coincidences. But when so many people, across Texas and across the country, report the same symptoms following the same industrial activities, something is wrong. If we can fix it in Texas, we can fix it anywhere.

• Health and Toxics
• Fracking Gone Wrong: Finding a Better Way
• gas
• fracking

Finding A Better Way

Fracking (aka, hydraulic fracturing or industrial gas drilling) is a dangerous way of getting oil and gas and a shortsighted energy strategy. It’s poisoning our air and water and on its way to jeopardizing the health of millions more Americans.

We can find a better way—one that protects our health and gives us clean, safe energy sources that never run out.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Video Supplements:

A Citizen’s Tip Guide: Find your way to protect things from fracking.
Meet the Oil & Gas Twins: About the animation’s dastardly villains.

Action Alert:

Say ‘No’ to Dow Chemical’s GE Corn Petition — Proven
in the Jungles of Vietnam as Part of Agent Orange!

Access the action alert at: http://www.cornucopia.org/2011/12/action-alert-say-no-to-dow-chemicals-ge-corn-petition/

Dow Chemical is seeking USDA approval for a genetically engineered (GE) version of corn that is resistant to 2,4-D, a herbicide that was used in the formulation of the highly toxic defoliant Agent Orange. Agent Orange (half 2,4-D by composition) was extensively used in Vietnam by the military to destroy forests and crops.

Dow’s Christmas gift for America was formally announced, by the USDA, in the December 27, 2011 edition of the Federal Register. If the federal government wants to bury something in the news, and burn up part of our window to publicly respond, you can bet they’ll do it around the holidays. The public has 60 days to comment on Dow’s petition for deregulation, and can do so online at:

http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=APHIS-2010-0103-0001

Weeds are increasingly adapting to Monsanto’s genetically engineered line of crops that rely on the use of a different herbicide, glyphosate, which Monsanto markets as Round-up®. This is leading competitors, like Dow, and proponents of GE agriculture to look for weed killing alternatives. Herbicides more toxic than Round-up® appear to be next up in the pipeline.

2,4-D, a systemic herbicide, is used on many types of broadleaf weeds. It is a chlorinated phenoxy compound that has caused serious eye and skin irritation among agricultural workers. According toinformation compiled by Cornell University, rats fed 2,4-D produced “fetuses with abdominal cavity bleeding and increased mortality.” And 2,4-D may cause infertility, birth defects, organ toxicity and neurological effects.

As Dow’s GE corn is resistant to the herbicide, it is possible that the plant may absorb 2,4-D residues into its structure, and then transfer those chemicals, or their related metabolites, to livestock and humans consuming corn or milk, meat and eggs produced from the GE crop.

The USDA also just announced the proposed approval for a new strain of drought resistant corn, and a soybean, Soymega™, both from Monsanto. The Obama White House appears to be giving Monsanto and Dow, and other biotechnology corporations, everything they want while the public, according to polls, is overwhelmingly concerned about genetic engineering and losing control of our diets.

Thanks for speaking out in defense of a sane food production system. We hope you will be proactive by doing the following to protect your family:

1.  Exclusively purchase organic products in the supermarket. They are the only food items that are legally prohibited from using GMOs with oversight sanctioned by Congress and independent watchdogs like The Cornucopia Institute.

2.  We hope you also consider signing the following petition, asking President Barack Obama and USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to consider the widespread public opposition to further release of novel genetic organisms in our environment. Given the immaturity of the industry, the long-term impacts to health and the environment are simply unknown. The petition also calls for mandatory labeling of GMOs giving consumers the right to choose. Click here to read and sign this petition.

The Cornucopia Institute P.O. Box 126 Cornucopia, WI 54827 www.cornucopia.org

Maine’s numerous pegmatite quarries have long been important sources of industrial minerals, gemstones, and specimens for manufacturers, museums, and collectors. Perhaps the most famous is Mount Mica, North America’s first gem pegmatite mine. Mount Mica is located about a mile east of Paris in Oxford County. Gem-quality tourmaline was discovered there in 1821 and was intermittently produced through the late 1970s.

A new phase of tourmaline mining began when Gary and Mary Freeman, owners and operators of Coromoto Minerals, LLC, acquired the Mount Mica property in 2003. Coromoto’s plan to systematically mine the entire pegmatite by following it underground has proven to be highly successful and has dispelled predictions that the production potential of Mount Mica was exhausted.

In the first eight years of mining, over two hundred pockets (essential for the formation of exceptional mineral specimens and gem-quality rough) have been discovered, yielding spectacular specimens of gemmy green, blue-green, pink, and multicolored tourmaline and other pegmatite minerals that rival the best material that Mount Mica has produced in its 190-year history.

Fourteen of the finest specimens from the Freemans’ private collection are now on long-term display at the entrance to Back to Nature in a new exhibit titled Tourmaline and the Rich Legacy of Mining at Mount Mica.Among these are several that are among the best crystals ever produced from Maine, including an 18-centimeter-tall, tricolored tourmaline crystal sitting on a base of white albite feldspar; the 22-centimeter-tall top portion of a 54-centimeter pink tourmaline crystal with a thin black cap; and a 9.5-centimeter-tall, perfectly clear, blue-green tourmaline crystal sitting on a base of skeletal smoky quartz.

The Freemans’ collection will be on view in Back to Nature through December 2015. For an ongoing, online narrative of mining activities during the last several years at Mount Mica, visit the Coromoto Minerals website.

A detail of the new exhibit case featuring specimens mined at Mount Mica is shown above. Pictured at the center is Loren Merrill in a 6 x 3.5 x 2-meter pocket found in 1904. Mary Freeman is shown at the bottom right in a January 2005 photo. She is pictured just after recovering a stunning tourmaline crystal group from the Mount Mica mine. That specimen and thirteen others are included in the museum’s exhibit.

Street address
Maine State Museum
230 State Street
Augusta, Maine 04330

Mailing address
Maine State Museum
83 State House Station
Augusta, Maine 04333-0083

Hours
Tuesday – Friday – 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Saturday – 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Sunday – 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. (open on Sundays through November only)

The museum is closed on Monday and all state holidays

Admission fees
Adults – $2.00; Children 6 – 18 – $1.00; Children under 6 – free; Family maximum charge – $6.00; Senior citizens (62 and older) – $1.00; Charge for special tours or programs – $5.00; No admission or program charge for school groups.

PLEASE NOTE: Admission fees must be paid by cash or check only; we do not accept credit cards.

Phone 207-287-2301 Fax 207-287-6633 TTY 888-557-6690

DEP is now seeking public input which will be submitted along with the report to the Maine Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Environment and Natural Resources on January 16.

AUGUSTA – The Maine Department of Environmental Protection is recommending the Legislature reevaluate product stewardship in the state after calculations concluded it has cost more than $2.5 million in the last decade to remove just over 400 pounds of mercury from the environment.

In its second annual report to the Legislature on product stewardship implementation published this month, the agency analyzed the effectiveness of the state’s statutory take-back programs created to keep compact fluorescent lights, vehicle switches and thermostats that contain mercury, electronic waste (televisions and computer monitors) and batteries out of the waste stream and ensure their proper handling and recycling or disposal.

With three full-time DEP staff solely focused on product stewardship with up to four additional employees supporting their efforts, in the past decade 112 pounds of mercury has been recovered in Maine from vehicle switches, 263.7 pounds from thermostats and 32.23 pounds from light bulbs.

The $2.5 million plus 10-year program cost-largely for staff salaries and collection infrastructure is a calculation the department considers conservative, and doesn’t account for the amounts spent by the State Planning Office for data management and report creation, by Efficiency Maine for outreach related expenses or by municipalities.

Even without those additional expenditures factored in, that works out to around $6,000 per pound for removal of mercury from Maine’s environment. A pound of mercury can be purchased on the market for around $10.

In its report, DEP says the programs can and should be improved to increase protections for public and environmental health while decreasing state spending. As part of those cost reduction recommendations, the agency recommends that legislation be developed for 2013 to sunset select product categories that no longer pose a risk because of changes in manufacturing or the success of collection efforts and that economies of scale be created by combining outreach and permitting of remaining product programs.

Other recommendations for the Legislature to consider from the DEP’s report include proposing no new product or product categories to be added to the product stewardship program in the current legislative session; working more collaboratively with industry groups for unified promotion of the programs and encouragement of public participation; and making metrics that show quantity of toxins removed and total costs a more integral component of regular program review.

DEP is now seeking public input which will be submitted along with the report to the Maine Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Environment and Natural Resources on January 16.

The report can be found online at http://maine.gov/dep/publications and public comments can be submitted by January 15 to Ron Dyer, Director of the Bureau of Remediation & Waste Management at 17 State House Station Augusta, Maine 04333-0017 or by email at ron.dyer@maine.gov.

AWW Chief Ranger Kevin Brown reports that Churchill Lake appears to be especially dangerous this week, with only about 3 inches of ice across the lake. Chamberlain Lake became free of ice during the recent rain storm.

Three inches of ice will hold a snowmobile and a fisherman, but it is difficult to determine where the ice might be thinner. Traveling from one place to another could be very dangerous at this time, Brown said.

The chief ranger said it is important to be very careful near areas that normally have moving water, such as, thoroughfares, mouths of brooks, and springs. “Check the ice thickness often,” Brown said. “Never travel alone when the conditions are poor.”

AWW rangers went out on Wednesday, Dec. 28, and measured the ice on the Allagash headwater lakes. The following ice thicknesses were reported:

• Telos/Round Pond: 3-5 inches, with open water.
• Chamberlain: open water throughout the main body of the lake.
• Round Pond (T9 R13): 3 inches, with slush and open water.
• Churchill: 3 inches, with some open water and slush.

“We are expecting many people to be out ice fishing on the first weekend of the season, which starts Sunday, Jan. 1,” Brown said. “Excellent early season brook trout fishing draws out the anglers who have been patiently awaiting opening day.”

The weather has been extremely mild so far this winter. Telos and Chamberlain lakes did not skim over until late in December, and Chamberlain has opened again, the chief ranger reported.

For specific advice on ice conditions and areas to avoid, visitors should check with the AWW ranger at Chamberlain Bridge or call the dispatch center in Ashland between 8 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday through Friday, at 207-435-7963, ext.1

The AWW provides: winter campgrounds at the Chamberlain Bridge and Kellogg Brook; public drinking water, vault toilets, and snow plowing. A groomed snowmobile trail is marked from the Chamberlain Bridge parking lot to the south end of Chamberlain Lake and to Round Pond/Telos lakes.

The AWW is a 92-mile-long ribbon of lakes, ponds, streams, and river that wind through the heart of northern Maine’s vast commercial forest. The waterway became the first state-administered river to be designated by the United States Department of Interior as a component of the federal Wild and Scenic River Program. This designation was the culmination of an effort began in the early 1960s, to protect the outstanding natural character, unique recreational opportunities, and historical significance of the Allagash River and its associated lakes and ponds.

For more information about the AWW or Maine state parks, go to: www.parksandlands.com

Season’s Greetings!  As 2011 draws to a close, I want to thank all of our members and partners for a phenomenal year of growth and for helping us shape and focus our strategic vision.  We are actively engaged in transforming our entire organization to live fully into our mission “Empowering Maine People to Power Maine’s Economy” by focusing on the education, wellness, innovative capacity, and engagement of Maine’s greatest economic development asset – our people!

Have a happy and blessed holiday season.  We look forward to working closely with you in 2012 to truly transform Maine.

Laurie G. Lachance
President and CEO

P.S. BREAKING NEWS! We are very excited to announce that we received our third year grant request from the Environmental Funders Network for MDC’s Green Downtowns program, linking the natural and built environments in Maine’s town centers.  This grant will enable us to continue and expand the great work we have been able to achieve so far.

Education 

Mike Dubyak, Chairman and CEO of Wright Express, kicks off

MDF’s 2012 Leadership Unplugged Series on Thursday, February 9 at Bowdoin College.  Mike will be speaking on the importance of increasing interest and competency in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education for Maine students.
Action: Register now.

A new Maine Employers’ Initiative member company, PowerPay LLC is working with MDF staff and the University of Southern Maine to shape an internal Leadership Development program that enables employees to use these credits toward continuing their education.  The company is also working with USM to help employees determine if their previous work experience will help them qualify for additional college credits.  Wright Express led the way with a similar effort last year, which led to 9 employees returning to school. Action: Employers interested in exploring similar efforts should contact Maggie Drummond at 626-3124 or mdrummond@mdf.org.

The Downtown Institute kicks off the 2012 five-part schedule on January 20th in Augusta.  Sessions will focus on leadership and entrepreneurial development, creative small business strategies, fundraising, and more.  Stay tuned for the full schedule and locations.

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Health and Wellness 

MDF was pleased to join the Maine Health Management Coalition Foundation, the Daniel Hanley Center of Health Leadership, Maine Health Access Foundation, Aligning Forces for Quality, Maine Medical Association, Maine Osteopathic Association, AARP, and Maine Quality Counts in sponsoring T.R. Reid’s week-long visit to Maine.

Reid, author, journalist, and Princeton professor, reached more than 80,000 Mainers on his visit.  Reid highlighted the fact that the U.S. spends the highest percentage of its gross domestic product on health care yet ranks 37th out of 191 in performance.  Hundreds of Mainers are engaged in reading and discussing his book “The Healing of America:  A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper and Fairer Health Care.”

Action:  Click here to join the conversation.

MDF has also kicked off our own employee wellness program.  Working with MaineGeneral’s Workplace Health program, we have all established our own personal wellness goals that we will be working diligently toward.  Just in time for the holidays!

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Innovation
The second in the 2012 Leadership Unpluggedseries features Mike Duguay, Director of Development Services for the City of Augusta.  Mike is a cornerstone of the Kennebec Valley Entrepreneurial Network, which provides connections and resources for current and aspiring entrepreneurs.  Mike will speak to the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship to the future of Maine’s economy on Wednesday, March 14 at Colby College.Action: Register now.

Read about MDF member Axiom Technologies and CEO Susan Corbett (Leadership Maine rho class) efforts to bring technology to Maine farmers and fishermen.

Coastal Enterprises Inc. wins $5.5 million in Wachovia Wells Fargo NEXT award loan and grant funds for its community development work.

Downtowns provide exciting opportunities for entrepreneurs and pop ups (temporary retail businesses set up in vacant storefronts). Sanford Downtown Legacy’s Holly Villageis combining local crafters with empty first floor space this holiday shopping season.  Holly Village, open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, features over 30 local crafters and small business entrepreneurs in two vacant Main St. storefronts.  Holly Village is an innovative solution to increase foot traffic downtown and celebrate greater Sanford’s creative community.

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Attraction and Retention
Through his work with the Immigrant Business Advocacy Coalition, Mark St.Germain (omicron class, Leadership Maine, and president of St.Germain Collins) is continuing his Leadership Maine project team’s efforts to increase opportunities for Maine’s future workforce.

Maine’s historic downtowns are crucial to our economy and quality of life.  Measuring economic indicators is a cornerstone of the Main Street downtown revitalization program.  Our Main Street Maine communities have topped 1,000 net new jobssince we launched in 2001!  Action: Follow the link for details and breakdown by community.

“Take ME Downtown for the Holidays” is our 2nd annual statewide public awareness campaign supporting small businesses and festive events.  Thanks to Al Perry and our friends at Cumulus Media (WMME FM, WEBB FM, WTVL AM, and WJZN AM), a 30-second Public Service Announcement is being aired throughout central Maine. Action: Listen here and then visit your local downtown this December.

Attracting, retaining, and engaging new populations in Maine’s economy will be the topic of our third Leadership Unplugged session, featuring Chuck Hewett, Executive Vice President and COO of the Jackson Laboratory, on Tuesday, April 10, at Husson College.

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Action:  Become a member today!

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Maine Development Foundation
295 Water Street, Suite 5
Augusta, ME 04330
P: (207) 622-6345 F: (207) 622-6346
W: mdf.org E: mdf@mdf.org and on Facebook

A product of a collaborative, inclusive two-year process led by department webmasters Karl Wilkins, Karen Anderson, Mary Breton and Paula Ripley, we hope you find that the new website projects a more accessible, approachable and assistance-oriented environmental protection agency and affirms DEP’s commitment to cooperation and to transparent, open government.

Among the new site’s user-friendly features: – To convey our culture of cooperation, contact information takes a prominent position throughout the site, including on the homepage and on every page in the footer.

- Information organized by function – like permitting and rulemaking – and media – like air, water and waste management – so even those with limited knowledge of the agency and its internal structure can still easily find what they are looking for.

- Intuitive, consistent navigation for improved usability.

- Answers to the most frequently asked questions (like “How do I clean up a broken CFL?” or “How do I make an environmental compliant?”) featured on the homepage and on each environmental media landing pages.

- Streamlining of the former site and its 5,000 plus pages and 30,000 plus files by 80 percent, resulting in more accurate search results, getting users to what they are looking for with fewer clicks and with less clutter along the way, and allowing the department to better manage the existing pages for currency and content.

- Clean design that reflects the professionalism our department’s work has long proven.

In the coming weeks, the department webmasters will be working to repair any links broken during the migration. We ask for your patience throughout this process as we realize some parts of the site may be slow, or not working at all. Please trust this is only temporary. If you are unable to find the information you need using the new site, we encourage you to search by subject matter at http://maine.gov/dep/subject.html or if you need additional assistance, please write to the department ator contact your local DEP office and the receptionist or on-call staff will assist you.

Thank you and on behalf of the entire department, we hope you enjoy the new website,

Samantha DePoy-Warren,
Director of Communications & Education

Green, But Will it Sell?

Big news from North Carolina. Iberdrola Renewables, a subsidiary of Iberdrola Group and the owner of CMP, is poised to become a major player in the industrial wind energy plan for Maine. But before Maine embraces this foreign company and the high-impact product it is selling, there are some crucial questions which should be answered.

Wind energy is expensive in many ways-both to taxpayers and to ratepayers. Our neighbors in North Carolina are discovering the same thing.

This excerpt is from the December 15^th edition of the Charlotte Observer:

“The developer of the largest wind farm ever proposed in North Carolina says the project has stalled because no utility wants to buy the power the project would produce.

“Iberdrola Renewables, having put more than three years into a 31-square-mile wind farm near the coast, this week began notifying property owners and public officials…that the project is on hold indefinitely. If built, the Desert Wind Energy Project… would have ranked among the largest wind farms in the country.

“… the Spanish company has been unable to find a buyer for the power output of Desert Wind.”

No purchaser for the wind power? Is this due to the price it will cost? Or are there other disadvantages to wind power which make it undesirable for the people of North Carolina? Interestingly, this is the same state whose Senate voted 45-1 to ban commercial wind turbines from its mountain ridges.

North Carolina Senator Joe Sam Queen of Waynesville is quoted as saying, “We came to the conclusion in the Senate that it wasn’t worth compromising the mountains of Western North Carolina, which we draw so much of our economy, our identity from”.

Downeast Laughs …to Benefit Friends of Maine’s Mountains

Friends of Maine’s Mountains and the Gray family at the Harraseeket Inn in Freeport are teaming up with Maine’s #1 Humorist, Tim Sample, for a midwinter evening of entertainment and laughter. Join us at the Harraseeket Inn on Saturday, February 18, at 7:00 p.m. in a cozy nightclub setting in the Casco Bay Room. Tickets are $30.00 and space is limited, so please make your reservations soon. You may purchase tickets by visiting FMM’s website. If paying by check, please send to FMM, PO Box 60, Weld, ME 04285 and write “Sample tickets” in the memo. We will record your reservations. Tickets can be picked up by showing your ID at the door the night of the benefit.

Please contact Karen Pease with any questions at roomtomove@tds.net or by calling 628-2070 or 340-0066. Doors open at 6:00 p.m. and we hope to see you there. All proceeds to benefit FMM. Join us as we chase away the winter blues, Yankee-style!

Friends of Maine’s Mountains | P.O. Box 60 | Weld | ME | 04285

Like every public interest charity The Cornucopia Institute depends on the generosity of our members at the end of the year to carry out our mission.

For the first time in the history of the organic movement we are going in reverse. We are losing farmers, and crop acreage, because some folks are losing money in organics while watching their conventional neighbors cash in on high grain prices driven by demand for ethanol and a tight market around the world. And organic markets have been injured by fraud and cheating.

Simultaneously, we’re seeing corporate shenanigans undermining the reputation of the organic label by including dubious synthetics and even genetically engineered inputs.

Don’t sit back as we lose control of our food supply and see some of our best farmers economically damaged.

The USDA certified organic label is still the best option for most consumers (in addition to organic food from farmers you can make a local and personal connection with). The scorecards on the Cornucopia website help separate the true heroes from the organic charlatans—please exercise your economic clout by choosing carefully in the grocery aisles.

Your gift today to The Cornucopia Institute will support us in fighting for the integrity of the good food movement.

Of course, as an IRS 501(c)(3) charitable institution, your contributions are deductible to the full extent of the law.

On behalf of our staff, Board of Directors, and especially our farmer-membership, I again want to thank you very sincerely for your support.

Best regards and warm greetings,

Mark A. Kastel
Cofounder

P.S.: Your generous contribution at the end of this year will help us show foundations and large donors, who are considering funding Cornucopia in these troubled financial times, that there continues to be true widespread support from farmers and consumers willing to invest their hard-earned dollars in protecting sustainable and organic food and farming.

PPS: Please read the latest news about another massive factory farm Cornucopia has busted (and the additional work we all need to do to make sure the USDA protects the interests of the organic community): http://www.cornucopia.org/2011/12/enforcement-hammer-falls-on-giant-arizona-organic-factory-farm-dairy/

Mark A. Kastel
The Cornucopia Institute
kastel@cornucopia.org
608-625-2042 Voice
866-861-2214 Fax

P.O. Box 126
Cornucopia, Wisconsin 54827
www.cornucopia.org