Eel Liberation Part 2--Androscoggin River

Coming on the heels of their victorious effort in January to get the Maine Board of Environmental Protection (BEP) to agree to hold a full adjudicated hearing on the impact to American eels of turbines of a hydroelectric dam on the Kennebec River
Ed Friedman and his Merrymeeting man and women today pose the same question to the BEP but this time on behalf of the eels that are lost to turbines on the Androscoggin River.
Click HERE for a pdf file of Ed Friedman's remarks today before the Maine Board of Environmental Protection.

Good luck today, Ed & companions! anyone who looks into the eyes of the eels of Maine cannot but wish him the best.

Stay Tuned.

Maine eels huggers gain public hearing!

Eel defenders Friends of Merrymeeting Bay and won a key victory today when the Maine Board of Environmental Protection (BEP voted to hold a full adjudicated hearing on the impact to American eels of turbines of a hydroelectric dam on the Kennebec River. The eel huggers are asking for immediate down & upstream passage for catadromous eels through dams on that river and the Androscoggin River as well for the movement of anadromous fish.

The BEP decision to hold the meeting went against the recommendations of the Maine DEP staff, so it was a figure that had to be fought for. Happily, as one meeting attendee put it: "The DEP staff, and the dam owners kept digging a deeper and deeper hole for themselves." Let's hope they and DMR which likewise has been silent in the face of the well documented heavy eel slaughter at the turbines, dig a hole big enough to let this important animal pass safely from freshwater Kennebec to the Gulf of Maine. Two fins up for Kathleen McGee, Ed Friedman and the others waging this critical campaign for wild Maine.

Salmon fly fishery on the Penobscot?

State proposes salmon fishery reopening on the Penobscot River.
An Atlantic Samon Commission plan to allow a limited flyfishing season will be released in February with public hearings in March.
Atlantic Salmon Commission says studies show a one month winter flyfishing only catch and release fishery won't seriously harm recovery efforts especially as survivability is believed to be better when the water and air is cold, than warm.

NGO's Atlantic Salmon Federation and Trout unlimited have waded in. ASF "studying the plan", but Trout Unlimited is voicing doubts about the wisdom of a fishery in the midst of a restoration. But reserving judgement.
Penobscot River salmon not on ESA. Under a state/fedeal agreement, fishing was drasticly curtailed. State official
Pat Keliher agrees Maine salmon are not restored but says a case can be made for the public awareness positivity of a very limited fishery.

Links:
Atlantic Salmon Commission
Atlantic Salmon Federation (Maine)
Trout Unlimited (Maine Council)

Gulf of Maine: The Way (marine) Life Ought to Be

Get smart on Fisheries. Learn how abundant the fishes living in Maine rivers, bays and offshore were before the twentieth century's mechanized fisheries and pollution laid them waste.

How? Read more than 100 remarkable reports published by late 19th century researchers working for the Smithsonian and the U.S Fish Commission, as they explored and documented the fishing grounds off New England, the Maritimes, and Atlantic Canada, and the salmon rivers of Maine. And the fisherfolk who harvested them.

Sears Island - Maine DOT, Sierra Club, Islesboro Trust plans for island future?

The Waldo Independent. November 2 2005
DOT island plan blasted. By Peter Taber

The state Department of Transportation (DOT) once more stands accused of operating in bad faith with respect to the largest uninhabited and undeveloped publicly owned island on the East Coast.

This week environmentalists and neighbors who want to save Sears Island from intensive commercial and industrial development said they plan to take their concerns about the DOT's activities to Gov. John Baldacci. They said they'll remind him in an open letter of the assurances they said he gave them last year that all interested parties would be fully included in planning for the future of the island. Full story Click Here

Sears Island - economist, scientists discuss possible futures.

ARE THERE COSTS TO NOT PROTECTING SEARS ISLAND? A Symposium, to be held November 5th, 2005 from 9am to 4:30pm at the Troy A. Howard Middle School, in Belfast, is cosponsored by Penobscot Bay Alliance, Islesboro Island Trust and the Maine Chapter of the Sierra Club.

Keynote address “The Nature of Resources and the Resources of Nature: an ecological economic framework for managing the Sears Island ecosystem, by Professor Jon Erickson, Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont.

Local and regional scientists and fisheries experts, Ted Ames of Downeast Groundfish Initiative, Brian Beals, Curtis Bohlen, Lobster Conservancy's Diane Cowan, and Charles Curtin will examine Sears Island and Penobscot Bay in light of this economic perspective.

$15. pre-registration. Includes Lunch and a reception
For more information or to register call Leanne Krudner at 761-5616 or send an email to maine.chapter@sierraclub.org. web site information available www.maine.sierraclub.org.

Sears Island is the largest undeveloped island in Penobscot Bay, the largest unprotected island on the East Coast and it provides five miles of coastal access for the public. The island comprises a myriad of habitats including beaches and rocky shores, softwood and hardwood forests, fern meadows, grassy meadows, salt marshes, ponds and freshwater wetlands. Such a diverse tapestry encompasses a wide variety of species not usually seen within the same zone. On a daily basis the island hosts multiple opportunities for recreation, such as walking, swimming, kayaking, bird watching, fishing, and picnicking.

Developers planning Big Box sprawl on Rte 1, Thomaston

Get involved! Developers are planning major Big Box projects on Route 1 in Thomaston (possibly a Super Wal-Mart.) A group of citizens is working to impose stricter size-limits in town, to try to keep the Box-wannabes out.
Anyone willing to get involved and/or wanting to be on
the e-mail list should contact Daryl Hahn at hahn14@verizon.net.

The NEFMC Habitat Committee

Keep up with what the New England Fishery Management Council is doing regarding the protection of natural marine habitats in the Gulf of Maine and on Georges Bank.

FMC 's stinking waste: Rockland's problem?

Reports have serious quantities of hydrogen sulfide gassing off FMC's seaweed pulp wastes lying unmixed at the surface of rockland's spongy landfill. Gas masks are now de rigeur for attendants, and residents are stifled. The writer recalls desperately filtering the sour sulfurous air through his pillow, sleepless nights on Limerock Street in the early 1990s. Learn just how poisonous these gases are, and who in the state and federal agencies are supposed to rescue Rockland from its dump funk. Click Here

BEP takes over Dragon Taming

The Maine Board of Environmental Protection agreed today to take over jurisdiction of Dragon Cement Products' pollution permits for its cement kiln dust and clinker waste piles! A public hearing will be held in Thomaston or Rockland at a later date for the board to take testimony and vote to either accept or reject dragon's permits, or order them a whole new set of conditions.
Listen to key speakers at the BEP meeting

The Board members apparently felt that the company and Maine DEP were using legal loopholes to avoid taking action on the company's permit applications, and were also declining to respond to community requests to be involved in the state's decisionmaking process.

BEP holds October 6, 2005 public hearing on Dragon's waste permits.

Maine Board of Environmental Protection orders October 6 public hearing on Dragon's waste permits.
Read story, listen to audio recordings of meeting here

AUGUSTA. The Maine Board of Environmental Protection held a public hearing on whether they should take over over decisionmaking on Dragon Cement Products' pollution license. The hearing was held on October 6, 2005 at the Holiday Inn's Ground Round, on Civic Center Drive, Augusta. 

The Board responded to a petition by citizens group Neighbors for a Safe Dragon stating that the Maine Department of Environmental Protection's Waste Bureau was refusing to act on Dragon's Cement Kiln Dust waste license application, meanwwhile allowing the company to continuing discharging CKD into the air and groundwater.

The Board of Environmental Protection members voted unanimously to hold a hearing to take testimony from Neighbors for a Safe Dragon, Dragon Cement and the interested public. The meeting was  held October 6th in Augusta.

At the hearing, the Board was skeptical of explanations made by Maine DEP solid waste division official Paula Clark for allowing the Dragon to operate an unlicenced unlined 840,000 ton cement kiln dust landfill for the last decade without a license and wanted to know why the company was allowed to build a major addition to the industrial complex with no public notice or review. 

Members of Neighbors for a Safe Dragon are jubilant, saying that the people finally get their chance to be heard.

On Sept 22nd, Maine's Board of Environmental Protection to quiz state's Dragon-licensers.

Dragon's toxic test well data

Thomaston cement maker Dragon Cement Products' pollution licensing problems go under the spotlight on Sept 22nd, when the state's top citizen environmental board asks the Dept of Environmental Protection's pollution officials to explain why Dragon continues to be allowed to pollute the region's watershed, aquifers and neighborhoods without being licensed to do so.

The action comes in reaction to a request by citizens' group Neighbors for a Safe Dragon to the Maine Board of Environmental Protection that the Board itself take over the permitting process instead of letting DEP continue to muddle along year after year while Dragon continues discharging into the environment..

In the past, the Board of Environmental Protection "assumed jurisdiction" over Maine DEP permitting process regarding runoff and noise issues from expansion of the Knox County Regional Airport, as well as over the amount of waste that salmon farms can discharge from their marine feedlot operations, in addition to other pollution challenges that the Maine DEP staff seem unable to resolve.

According to BEP's executive analyst Cindy Bertocci, the state's pollution officials are scheduled to appear before the Board at 1pm September 29th in Augusta at the Holiday Inn /Ground Round on Civic Center Drive adjacent to the Augusta Civic Center. 1:00 pm.

Board of Environmental Protection:
Purpose of theBoard
Members of the Board

DMR Bay Mgmt Steering Committee meets 9/19/05, Portland

The Steering Committee of the Maine Bay Management Study will meet Monday, September 19th 10:00 am - 2:00 pm at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute 400 Commercial Street, Portland, Maine.
Legislation describing how the study is to be carried out

CLF gives Ferraiolo Corp notice of intent to sue in federal court.

Ferraiolo Construction Company gets Clean Water Act Notice of intent to Sue 9/8/05
"Concerned with rising levels of stormwater pollution and rampant permit violations at industrial facilities in Maine, the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) today notified six concrete and asphalt plants in mid-coast Maine that it will file suit in 60 days for violations of the federal Clean Water Act.

"Statewide, fewer than 15 percent of Maine's industrial plants have federal stormwater discharge permits," said CLF Staff Attorney Steve Hinchman..." Click Here for full media release from CLF *** Village soup story

Sears Island - environmental coalition announces plans

Environmental coalition offering plan for Sears Island
By Peter Taber, Waldo Independent
A loose coalition of environmental groups from across Maine known as Protect Sears Island (PSI) this week stepped forward with announcement of plans that would permanently fill a vacuum that for nearly 40 years has prompted a succession of industrial schemes ranging from a nuclear power plant to, most recently, a terminal and gasification plant for liquefied natural gas. Read more

Georges Bank exploratory drilling to happen

One of the foul balls of the Energy Policy Act...
Exploration on Georges Bank OK'd
Critics say oil, gas survey could disrupt fishing grounds
By Rick Klein, Globe Staff | August 5, 2005

WASHINGTON -- A provision tucked into the energy bill approved by Congress last week calls on the government to conduct a survey of potential oil and gas drilling at sites along the entire US coastline, including Georges Bank off the coast of Nantucket.

The measure directs the Department of Interior to conduct an ''inventory and analysis of oil and gas resources" beneath the outer continental shelf, the relatively shallow areas beginning about 3 miles off the nation's coastline. That includes Georges Bank, a vast underwater plateau that stretches from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia and has been among the world's most fertile fishing grounds.

Energy companies have sought to drill for oil and gas on the bank for more than 30 years, prompting protracted legal and congressional battles. A ban on drilling has been in place since 1982, and the current moratorium runs through 2012. The energy bill, which President Bush is expected to sign next week, does not alter the drilling ba but lifts the prohibition on exploration, which was added during the 1990s.

More Click Here

Invader asian crabs spread downeast

A volunteer working for a Canadian researcher Dave Delaney of McGill University just found a 22 mm female Asian shorecrab (Hemigrapsus sanguineus) on the north shore of Schoodic Peninsula, (presumably Gouldsboro.

This is unfortunate news. Now the ASC has colonized the southern (Isle au Haut) and northern extents of Acadia National Park. Even more alarming, the found organism was a gravid female with only a few eggs remaining.

This is the furthest north that the lobster-threatening invasive crab has been confirmed.

The staff of Acadia National Park, especially Jim McKenna and David Manski, have been assisting in the crab-watch.

This crab has had impacts in more southern Atlantic states. (massive population growth in the intertidal, crowding out other crustaceans.)

The strategy the Canadian resaerch calls for: start a trapping program throughout Acadia and the rest of Maine to control for the invader. The invader green crab now has an official trapping fishery with a commercial license. )

Rockland Dredge Disposal Site - state to mandate more community involvement.

Changes are in the wind for how decisions are made about dumping dredge spoils in Penobscot Bay. Towns will have to become experts. A held over bill LD 1592 at the state legislature will require all towns where dredging is to take place to develop a plan for the disposal of dredge spoils. In an email sequence below, Maine Port Authority head Brian Nutter has Maine Port Safety Forum staffer Eileen Lord forward to a broad spectrum of the state maritime community an email from Jay Clement of the US Army Corps of Engineers. Titled "Dredging/Disposal and the Rockland Disposal Area" it apparently refers to the bill, which was held over by the legislature till the next session or special session.
Read the bill at this link or below pasted in below the email.
http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/bills/LD.asp?LD=1592

The last paragraph of the bill is the added language, the only change it would make in this law: http://janus.state.me.us/legis/statutes/38/title38sec480-d.html .
-BayBlog

-----Original Message-----
From: Nutter, Brian
Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2005 12:00 PM
To: Lord, Eileen
Subject: FW: Dredging/Disposal and the Rockland Disposal Area

Eileen,
Please forward this to the Port Safety Forum.

Thanks, Brian

Brian C. Nutter, Executive Director
Maine Port Authority
16 State House Station
Augusta, ME 04333-0016

Tel. 207-624-3564 Fax 207-624-3251
Brian.Nutter@Maine.gov
www.maineports.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Clement, Jay L NAE [mailto:Jay.L.Clement@nae02.usace.army.mil]
Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2005 1:42 PM
To: brian.nutter@maine.gov
Subject: Dredging/Disposal and the Rockland Disposal Area

Brian:

I didn't want to wait until October so feel free to pass this message along to the members of the forum. Apparently the legislature instructed DOT and DEP to work together on the issue of use of the Rockland Disposal Site. At DOT the POC is Chris Olsen; and at DEP it is Judy Gates or Jeff Madore. At this point in time no outcomes are pre-ordained nor has a work group or even a work plan been developed, let alone a time table. It is likely that nothing will happen until at least September. Our office would expect to be involved, particularly since we've worked with your shop and DEP for many years on dredging/disposal issues.

I may have more information by the October forum meeting or I may not. This initiative seems to have had some gas in the beginning but now the tank is empty.

Jay

----------------------End of Emails----------------------------------------------

The bill LD 1592's language. The addition of the last paragraph about municipalities is the ONLY change.

LD 1592. An Act Regarding Disposal of Dredged Materials.
Introduced by Representative KOFFMAN of Bar Harbor

Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows:

Sec. 1. 38 MRSA §413, sub-§2-C, as amended by PL 1989, c. 656, §1, is repealed:

Sec. 2. 38 MRSA §480-D, sub-§9, as amended by PL 2001, c. 248, §1, is
further amended to read:

9. Dredging. If the proposed activity involves dredging,
dredge spoils disposal or transporting dredge spoils by water,
the applicant must demonstrate that the transportation route
minimizes adverse impacts on the fishing industry and that the
disposal site is geologically suitable. The Commissioner of
Marine Resources shall provide the department with an assessment
of the impacts on the fishing industry of a proposed dredging
operation in the coastal wetlands. The assessment must consider
impacts to the area to be dredged and impacts to the fishing
industry of a proposed route to transport dredge spoils to an
ocean disposal site. The Commissioner of Marine Resources may
hold a public hearing on the proposed dredging operation. In
determining if a hearing is to be held, the Commissioner of
Marine Resources shall consider the potential impacts of the
proposed dredging operation on fishing in the area to be dredged.
If a hearing is held, it must be within at least one of the
municipalities in which the dredging operation would take place.

If the Commissioner of Marine Resources determines that a hearing
is not to be held, the Commissioner of Marine Resources must
publish a notice of that determination in a newspaper of general
circulation in the area proposed for the dredging operation. The
notice must state that the Commissioner of Marine Resources will
accept verbal and written comments in lieu of a public hearing.

The notice must also state that if 5 or more persons request a
public hearing within 30 days of the notice publication, the
Commissioner of Marine Resources will hold a hearing. If 5 or
more persons request a public hearing within 30 days of the
notice publication, the Commissioner of Marine Resources must
hold a hearing. In making its determination under this
subsection, the department must take into consideration the
assessment provided by the Commissioner of Marine Resources. The
permit must require the applicant to:

A. Clearly mark or designate the dredging area, the spoils
disposal route and the transportation route;

B. Publish in a newspaper of general circulation in the
area adjacent to the route the approved transportation route
of the dredge spoils; and

C. Publish in a newspaper of general circulation in the area
adjacent to the route a procedure that the applicant
will use to respond to inquiries regarding the loss of fishing
gear during the dredging operation.

A municipality that is adjacent to coastal waters in which
dredging operations take place shall develop a plan for the
disposal of dredge spoils.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY
Current law exempts holders of a permit issued under the
United States Clean Water Act, Public Law 92-500, Section 404
from obtaining a waste discharge license for the disposal of
dredged materials into waters of the State. This bill removes
that exemption. The bill also requires coastal municipalities to
develop a plan for the disposal of dredge spoils.

End of bill
----------------------------------------------------
The law below, exempting dredger-wannabes from needing to get state permits will be repealed by the bill as well:

38 MRSA §413, sub-§2-C
Waste Discharge Licenses.

2-C. Dredge spoils. Holders of a permit obtained pursuant to the United States Clean Water Act, Public Law 92-500, Section 404, are exempt from the need to obtain a waste discharge license for disposal of dredged material into waters of the State when the dredged material is disposed of in an approved United States Army Corps of Engineers disposal site. Disposal of all dredged materials is governed by the natural resource protection laws, sections 480-A to 480-S. [1989, c. 656, §1 (amd).]

Maine fishermen fight Navy assault ship plan.

Maine fishermen fight Navy assault ship plan.
Rockland. In an ironic departure from efforts to retain naval ships in Portsmouth, angry fishermen from one of Maine's top lobstering areas rounded on the US Navy today, filling the Rockland Harbormaster's office in a hastily called meeting and demanding that the USS Wasp , scheduled to make a courtesy call to the town during the Maine Lobster Festival, move its anchoring location from choice lobstergrounds north of the Rockland Breakwater either a half mile south (closer to the Breakwater Lighthouse) or to the anchorage traditionally used by visiting navy ships off Owls Head across the harbor which has little fishing activity.

While no Navy officials attended the meeting, the Navy's concern was said to be the existence on the harbor nautical chart of a submerged wreck that could entangle anchor lines or foul the deep draft vessel. The Wasp is an 840 foot long, 106 foot wide amphibious assault ship, drawing 26 and one half feet.

The fishermen say the carrier and its surrounding no-vessels-allowed security zone will block dozens of fishermen from their traps for up to a week.

Representatives of the US Coast Guard and Marine Patrol joined the fishermen and harbormaster at the meeting. Asked by the fishermen if they would compensate them for the lost earnings, festival promoters at the meeting said no. The harbormaster was similarly unwilling to discuss compensation.

The meeting ended with the following plan: the harbormaster will hire a professional diver to videodocument the site and a sonar sweep of the wreck area will be taken and recorded. The results will be sent on to the navy, if they show that the wreck on the local nautical chart has crumbled into the seafloor, in hopes that the Navy will review it and consider anchoring the Wasp in that area, instead of prime lobster grounds.

Regardless of the ultimate location of the USS Wasp, fishermen say that the heightened security around Navy vessels since 911 has made life a bit less pleasant whenever a navy vessel visits Rockland harbor. One harbor fisherman described the eerie sensation of being tracked by a watchful seaman wielding a 50 caliber machine gun last summer while fishing his traps near a visiting warship then.

Dragon agrees to cap its pile!

Dragon agrees to cap its toxic cement kiln dust pile!
The pressure of the NSD lawsuit and the gloomy results of water testing around Dragon's cement plant. has apparently changed Dragon's mind about their Cement Kiln Dust (CKD) pile. Carla Hopkins of Maine DEP's Bureau of Remediation and Waste Mgmt reports that Maine DEP has received from Dragon Cement Products a "submittal for a closure plan" of the company's 825,000 ton CKD pile.

Maine DEP's engineering people are looking at this and if it is approved, the capping of the dragondust pile could take place during the summer and fall 2005 construction season.

Under the plan, thirteen of seventeen acres would be capped with clay and soil and revegetated. The other three acres would be the working face that they are actively removing dust from to try different ways of re-use. This would end the addition of toxics into the air, surface water and groundwater.

The state is preparing to issue a Schedule of Compliance, establishing a strict timeline for the company to bring its operations into compliance with the law as written by MDEP's Carla Hopkins has been vetted and passed by her immediate supervisor. It is now in the hands of Bureau Birector Steve Davis; once he approves it, the Schedule of Compliance goes for the commissioner's signature. There may be a last minute change to incorporate Dragon's new pile closure plan.