Penobscot Bay Report: Recent Episodes
The Friends of Penobscot Bay
Penobscot Bay Report audio documents the presentations, speeches, testimony and interviews of people, agencies businesses and NGOs whose decisions, actions and inactions affect the well being and productivity of Penobscot Bay seafood species and their ecological cousins in and around Maine's biggest bay - for better or worse.
3 minute video taken on November 28, 2012 recording elderly Searsport resident Ben Crimado being forcibly removed from the public hearing being held at the Searsport District High School on the controversial DCP Midstream liquified petroleum gas port and tank plan.
The DCP application was ultimately rejected by the Searsport Planning Board
On May 7, 2019 WRFR's Penobscot Bay Report got a 30 minute briefing from longtime landfill activist Ed Spencer of the group Don't Waste ME. Topic? Why it is important to end the flow of demolition and construction waste from Massachusetts, New York and other states, and how his organization is going about doing so. And how YOU can help!
At the July 16, 2019 meeting of Rockland's Harbor Management Commission, Committee Chair Louise MacLellan-Ruf and several members of ad hoc citizen group SHIP engaged in an often bitter argument against each other for more than half an hour. Subject -how decisions were being made about the future delineation and dimensions of the Rockland city boa tchannel
Drone Flight along the SW Stockton Harbor, Maine, coast, Plumes are from the abandoned sufuric acid plant onshore behind a tree screen.
On July 6, 2019 Adrienne Caldwell appeared on WRFR Community Radio's Penobscot Bay Report. Adrienne is a long time water defender and is Penobscot River Liaison for Friends of Penobscot Bay.
Today she spoke with producer Ron Huber on the Five Freedoms recommended for all farm animals - as well as a 6th one that Caldwell thinks needs to be added to the list., Have a listen and find out what it is. The recording is 14 minutes long.
UMaine marine scientist Robert Steneck gave the above titled lecture in Belfast June 14, 2018 at Waterfall Arts.
meeting of Yachting SOlution with local citizens concerned about the impact of the project
Listen to opponents of LD1667 at a hearing held by the Legislature's inland fish and wildlife committee January 19, 2018. The bill would require the Commissioner of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to block the entry of sea-run alewives, eels & lampreys anadromous fish into Sheepscot Pond in the Town of Palermo through June 30, 2021. The bill was voted Ought Not to Pass
On January 9, 2018, the Maine Public Utility Commission told representatives of the would-be floating offshore windfarmer Maine Aqua Ventus at its recent monthly meeting to go back to the drawing board with its application. Saying too many significant changes have taken place in the project's ownership and proposed turbine size, and Maine's along with superior utility rates for solar, compared to offshore or onshore wind
First 31 minutes of the Penobscot Bay Report and Gulf of Maine Monitor for January 13, 2018. Key topic: President Trump's plan to lease waters off Maine - including inside Penobscot Bay and the greater US coasts to Big Petroleum. Also features Portland Fish exchange weekly report
Host Ron Huber reviews and reports on: *New oil & gas plans for the Gulf of Maine. * Updates on University of Maine's Offshore Wind project. * A lobstering bill under review in Augusta * Cruise ships expansion projected for 2018.
FMI coastwatch@gmail.com
On March 29th, the Maine Legislature's Environment and Natural Resources committee decided NOT to hold a worksession on LD 901"An Act To Amend the Laws Governing the Determination of a Wind Energy Development's Effect on the Scenic Character of Maine's Special Places"
BACKGROUND The bill sets max distances for requiring visual impact assessments of windmill proposals: 8 miles from a scenic resource of state or national significance, except that for certain specified scenic resources of state or national significance; within 15 miles from certain listed scenic resource of state or national significance.
But what about Monhegan? This island community- its economics overwhelmingly based on scenic tourism - is NOT included. Why? Because a state study of Monhegan's scenic resources was never completed. Thus, Monhegan has no "scenic resources of state or national significance"at all! What? Stay tuned.
Maine bill could allow ocean windmills to dominate Gulf of Maine viewsheds AUGUSTA. A bill coming before the Maine Legislature today could prevent the citizens of dozens of coastal towns from objecting to having their ocean viewsheds dominated day and night by ocean windfarms if siting within eight miles of their shores.
This due to the bill's use of a thirty year old never-completed scenic survey - no groundtruthing - of scenic viewsheds from Cape Elizabeth to South Thomaston of "state and national significance".
LD 901 "An Act To Amend the Laws Governing the Determination of a Wind Energy Development's Effect on the Scenic Character of Maine's Special Places" enshrines an outdated and never completed complete list of coastal Maine's 'official' scenic locations as the only locations deserving of a minimum 15 mile distance for viewshed protection
Ron Huber executive director of Friends of Penobscot Bay warned that LD 901 would effectively prevent the citizens of more than a dozen coastal towns from objecting to having their ocean viewsheds dominated by turning windmill blades by day and by blinking red lights at night.". Huber also noted the potential for the floating windpark to affect the energetics of the Eastern Maine Coastal Current,an issue recognized by ocean wind proponents and regulators
In Huber v BPL, 2011, Knox County Superior Court Justice Jeffrey Hjelm was forced to make the absurd-on-its-face declaration that Monhegan lacks scenic viewsheds of state or national significance, including the island's immensely popular Lobster Cove and Christmas Cove, beaches reachable solely on foot.
"These viewsheds are the subjects of 100s if not thousands of paintings, sculptures poems and other paeans to the island's seascape" Huber said. But they are officially deemed insignificant because Maine Coastal Program never finalized its 1986 survey of scenic resources along the midcoast Maine coast.
Completion requires "field verification" of aerial map. This was never carried out as noted in the Monhegan scenic map from page 128 of the 1987 report.
SUGGESTION: The Environment and Natural Resources Committee should add an amendment to LD 901 specifying 35 miles offshore as the maximum visual impact distance within the bill. This takes into consideration the larger size of the latest generation of floating wind turbines.
Additionally the committee should urge and empower Maine Coastal Program to update and complete its scenic surveys of Midcoast Maine, and revisit the rest of the coasts.
This is important as the long term increase in seasonal air temperature will stimulate coastal development in Maine, as as well as offshore windpower development
Both need careful management and regulations Otherwise ocean windmills will be allowed to dominate Gulf of Maine viewsheds with no accountability to the towns and cities whose viewsheds they would economically and physically dominate."
One hopes that Maine Aqua Ventus' leaders Jake Ward and Habib Dagher of the University of Maine won't renege on their oft-repeated promises to site floating windfarms far enough from shore for the curvature of the earth to mask the renewable energy platforms' blinking light arrays.
"Dr. Dagher is an honorable man. An inventive man." Huber said Surely he'll keep his word and take up the offshoring of the power industry's infrastructure."
Listen to Rockland's City Council 1/9/17 discussing then giving preliminary approval to a draft food sovereignty ordinance however, faces a second vote on Feb. 13 before it would become a working ordinance. Rockland would be the first _city_ to adopt such an ordinance Several Maine towns have already done so.
Listen to 15 supporters of a proposed Food Sovereignty ordinance explain their support to Rockland's City Council members on January 9, 2017.
After deliberations the Council gave initial approval Monday night, 1/9/17 to enact a food sovereignty law.
The proposal will go through a second review and vote by the city council on February 13th before being enacted . The draft faces a second vote on Feb. 13 before it would become a working ordinance.
Rockland would be the first _city_ to adopt such an ordinance Several Maine towns have already done so. a dozen supporters spoke in favor of it. One councilor wondered with the proposal would violate federal supremacy authority in the subject of food safety. People from some of those towns spoke last night . Rockland's state representative Anne Beebe-Center also spoke in favor. As did I.
Ron Huber interviews Jesse Watson of Midcoast Permaculture Design on the food sovereignty movement,including draft Rockland ordinance being considered by the city of Rockland Maine. 23 minutes
This 83 minute audio recorded November 1, 2016 features Aaron Strong, newly hired Assistant Professor of Marine Policy at the University of Maine.
Strong spoke on the role of the Clean Water Act and state laws and regs in restoring and maintaining the chemical, physical and biological integrity of coastal waters in the face of acidification impacts, both atmospheric and land-sourced.
Strong describes himself as "a sustainability scientist who works at the interface of science and policy to work with communities, stakeholders and managers to develop solutions to environmental problems. Strong majored in political science and biology at Swarthmore College."
This 83 minute audio recorded November 1, 2016 features Aaron Strong, newly hired Assistant Professor of Marine Policy at the University of Maine.
Strong spoke on the role of the Clean Water Act and state laws and regs in restoring and maintaining the chemical, physical and biological integrity of coastal waters in the face of acidification impacts, both atmospheric and land-sourced.
Strong describes himself as "a sustainability scientist who works at the interface of science and policy to work with communities, stakeholders and managers to develop solutions to environmental problems. Strong majored in political science and biology at Swarthmore College."
Audio: On January 22, 2016 former Maine Chief Justice Daniel Wathen spoke for ten minutes before the Maine Legislature to describe his view of the progress of reforms at Riverview state mental hospital.
Since 2010, Wathen has been overseeing court-ordered improvements there. At the Jan 22, 2016 meeting of the Legislature's Government Oversight Committee meeting, he said his recommendations will be filed with the court in early February. He said key problem is Riverview has 51 vacant positions as of Jan 19, 2016. 47 of the 51 are direct care jobs: nurses, mental health workers, others who work directly with the mentally ill.
Wathen said filling the direct care jobs is more important then the administrative jobs.
Wathen says that the system is concealing its lack of mental health workers by designating the facility's "acuity specialists" as mental health workers. He is going to recommend they NOT count "Acuity Specialists" as mental health workers when counting and budgeting mental health worker staff.
Actuity specialists job description (summarized) "Paraprofessional work in providing emergency response to adults experiencing moderate to acute psychiatric crisis. Work includes...co-leading and monitoring the unit....recommending /implementing actions or interventions to prevent escalation of behaviors or injury to staff/client...overseeing/guiding the application of crisis prevention activities. "