Pen Bay Report 2011's Podcast: Recent Episodes
Pen Bay Report 2012
On May 17 2012 the Waldo County Local Emergency Planning Committee held an open house in their facility in Belfast Maine that included this hour long question and answer period.
Most of the questions concerned the ability of the Emergency Planning Committee to deal with a catastrophic event at the proposed DCP Midstream LPG tank facility
Some small portions of the recording were deleted due to overwhelming truck noise in the background.
With the Maine Legislature's 2012 session approaching its end, WRFR Community Radio's Ron Huber asked Representative Ralph Chapman (Blue Hill, Brooksville, Castine, Penobscot, Sedgwick and Surry) who serves on the legislature's Marine Resources Committee, to sum up the committee's activities this year, and to describe the political atmosphere in Augusta as compared to the US Congress in Washington DC.
In the wide ranging 40 minute interview, Representative Chapman describes legislative action relating to elvers, lobsters, alewives, the right of the Aroostook Band of Mic Macs to harvest marine species, the state of the shellfishery, and how well the Maine legislature can, in a time of reduced budgets, keep Maine's fisheries as sustainable and productive as possible.
On February 8, 2012, WERU Community Radio held a call-in show about the controversial DCP midstream proposal to build a 23 million gallon liquified petroleum gas tank in the Mack Point Forest near Route One. Guests included both opponents Astrig Tanguay and Peter Taber, along with Searsport Emergency Management Director Bud Rivers, standing in for DCP Midstream. (?)
Maine solidly rejected prison industry lobbyists promoting LD 1707 "An Act To Define, Prevent and Suppress Gang Activity in the State". The bill would have increased lock-em-up penalties for being in a "gang", sharply redefining "gang" to be any assembly or three or more people that might somehow be contemplating breaking ANY known law.
Despite the blandishments and frightening scenarios set out by the there's-a-gang-under-every-bed crowd, a conservative legislature, suspicious of increasing government power to repress organizations by deeming them "gangs", gave the bill a hearty "Ought Not To Pass", killing the bill.
January 19, 2011, Camden, Maine town attorney William Kelly describes and discusses windpower ordinance development issues with Camden's Planning Board and Select Board, and attending citizens in the audience. Friends of Ragged Mountain and the Town both want to draft a whole town, large and small wind turbine ordinance to protect the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of Camden.
Reviewing other towns' windpower ordinances, Kelly concludes that Camden should not 'cut and paste' their criteria on preventing noise and visual pollution. Instead it must be custom tailored to Camden's local geography and land ownerships and uses. (40 minutes).