Virtually visit lobster homes in 3 Penobscot Bay harbors. Sunday March 6th Rockland

For Immediate release   2/19/16

Contact: Friends of Penobscot Bay  207-691-7485

Lobster-rich Penobscot Bay: Seeing is believing

ROCKLAND.  For more than a century, Penobscot Bay has been the salty heartland of the wild Maine lobster. On Sunday March 6th, from 2 to 4pm, join the Friends of Penobscot Bay at Stella Maris House in Rockland  as they inspect the lobster habitats of Rockland Harbor, Searsport Harbor and Rockport Harbor, using underwater videos they've made and acquired of the bayfloors of these places.

Since the 1840s Penobscot Bay has dominated New England's lobster fishery.   Come see lobsters hanging out beneath rocks and algae, sunken -into mud burrows, hiding hastily from an approaching video diver. Inspect the lobsters'   "prairie dog town"-style burrow communities

 

"West Penobscot Bay's lobster fishery alone brings in  around $130 million at the dock yearly", said Ron Huber executive director of Waterkeeper Alliance affiliate Friends of Penobscot Bay.   "There's an economic multiplier up to about 650 million dollars circulating within Penobscot bay  area communities.  Lobsters are our area's real renewable resource!"

The Friends of Penobscot Bay believe that keeping this fishery healthy requires keeping the watery homes of Penobscot Bay's lobsters - from the intertidal hideouts of juvenile lobsters to the bay's  sunken boulders and mudfloors.

"Seeing is believing" Friend's leader Huber said. "Come to Stella Maris House in Rockland  on  Sunday March 6th from 2-4pm and get to know the lobster habitats of Rockland Harbor, Searsport Harbor and Rockport Harbor" 

Stella Maris House is located at 148 Broadway, Rockland, adjacent to St Bernard's Catholic Church. Plenty of parking. Snacks will be served.

For more information, contact Friends of Penobscot Bay at  207-691-7485 or by email at coastwatch@gmail.com

 

Friends of Penobscot Bay: a Waterkeeper Alliance affiliate. Caring for Maine's biggest Bay

Maine Ocean Acidification meeting 11/23/15 Audio MP3s

On November 23, 2015, a meeting was held  of governments officials, businesses and NGOs involved in Ocean Acidification research, education and advocacy.  Susie Arnold of Island Institute moderated the meeting. Listen below to  excerpts from the meeting on updates on research and monitoring.  (mp3s)  Or save them to your desktop or phone.

Introductions   5min 27sec

Nick Battista, Island Institute 3min 32sec

UPDATES
OA Updates 1 Bigelow Lab. 7min 30sec

OA Updates 2. 8 minutes

OA Updates 3 Mook Sea Farm. 3min 30 sec

OA Updates 4  Richard Nelson. 3min 30sec

MONITORING DISCUSSION
OA Monitoring 1. 6min 21sec

OA Monitoring 2, 3minutes

OA Monitoring 3.  10 minutes

OA Monitoring 4. 10min 30sec

OA Monitoring 5. 5min30sec

OA Monitoring 6. 8min 45sec

OA Monitoring 7. 7min 30sec

OA Monitoring 8. to end of meeting 8min 9sec

GAC Chemical: Documents show DEP did not test waste site before declaring it safe.

Group asks Attorney general's office to investigate allegations of attempted deception by DEP official.

SEARSPORT State officials took no samples and made no tests before concluding earlier this year that highly acidic industrial wastes eroding into Stockton Harbor in Searsport pose no threat to people, pets, or wildlife.

This according to documents released to Friends of Penobscot Bay under the Maine Freedom of Access Act (FOAA) by Maine Department of Environmental Protection's Eastern Maine Regional Office director Susanne Miller.  (Summary of documents and list of persons mentioned in them.)

According to FOPB, Miller polled all DEP bureaus on their oversight of GAC Chemical. “Result? Not a single DEP staffer has GAC's eroding shoreline waste dumps on their plate", said Ron Huber of Friends of Penobscot Bay. "No one has tested anything there. Miller's claims that all's fine with GAC's toxic erosion is a bunch of hot air." he said. "In short, the empress has no clothes."

"Has discovery of this lack of oversight stimulated action by Maine DEP? Yes, but seeming only to cover up. Not deal with it."

Huber said people need not wonder why the LePage administration is sanctioning the ongoing poisoning of a harbor cove and all the people who innocently fish, clam, dig worms and beachcomb there.

"It appears that polluter GAC Chemical Corp's CEO David Colter is simply too cheap to order a reasonable clean up of the company's legacy mess," Huber said. "Maybe he's concerned about shareholder blowback for "wasting" company money on nature." 

"But," he continued, "with his political connections to the Blaine House, that's one form of waste that Mr. Colter need not worry about."

Not all in DEP are unhappy with that. DEP's Eastern Maine Regional director Susanne Miller also seems an enthusiastic supporter of polluter-coddling and an opponent of transparency in government

"Miller is one of those revolving-door industry officials hired by DEP Commissioner Patty Aho to weaken the agency on behalf of big industry", Huber said. "Forcing GAC to face its pollution woes and pay to remediate them would be a black mark against her when she returns to her former employer Hitachi Corp or elsewhere in industrial consultant-land. So instead of the transparency needed to get the company to be accountable for his wastes, Miller chooses opacity as a way to let GAC Chemical pollute in peace."

Worst of all, Huber said, Miller is abusing the state's Freedom of Access Act. "She repeatedly lied about her phone logs when we asked for them under the Act. She finally produced a small number of cellphone call records, and has now admitted that there are more groundline phone records that she failed to disclose.  If we can't trust Miller to be truthful when responding to a FOAA request, how can we trust her word on anything she's doing?"

FOPB has asked the Attorney General's office to investigate Miller's deceptions and determine if she "willfully" violated the act. See attached copy of email  While the fine is small and would be paid by the department, not by Miller, Huber said, "we hope that the agency will transfer her to another job where she won't be such a threat to nature - and to democracy."

Friends of Penobscot Bay: People who care about Maine's biggest bay.

www.penbay.net * coastwatch@gmail.com * 207-593-2744

Acid Testing GAC Chemical's Stockton Harbor shore, August 4, 2013

On August 4, 2013, Friends of Penobscot Bay carried out pH testing of water and soils on both side of the first cove of Stockton Harbor near GAC Chemical.

( See photos of the pH tests being done here. (includes closeups of  pH meters at sites.)

The tests were not intended to be conclusive. They were carried out to see if there are anomalies or changes in acidity of the soils and sediments tested at various distances from the abandoned sulfuric acid plant (the bldgs above the "6" in the photo below).

Summary 

Test gear: Ferry-Morse "Electronic Soil Tester" and  Luster Leaf's "Rapitest." 

Narrative: The testing began on the end of the sandbar in the cove facing the old acid plant (1,2), crossed over the cove to the intertidal flats on the shore side of the cove (3,4), sampled three areas of the eroding bluff, (5,6,7)  then the gravelly beach shoreline(8) and two areas of mudflats close to and "downstream" from the abandoned facility (9, 10) Area 10 was tested multiple times.  

Results See photos of the pH tests being done here. (includes closeups of the pH meters at sites.) The pH was near neutral (pH 7) in areas 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5.  A lower pH was found  in site 6 above the concrete debris under the old sulfuric acid factory & storage tank.  Acidity increased sharply in the gray eroding material at area 7 on the steep path leading  from the shore to the old factory  (pH 4.5 to 4.8).  Readings in the  gravelly beach & mudflat directly below Area 7 and bayward were as low as pH 2.2.

A great deal of sulfuric acid  must have leaked from the old plant  (believed to have been shut down in the early 1970s) and its storage tank for it to still be leaking into the soils and shores and the intertidal flats!