Maine Owl

Saturday April 19, 10am–4pm
U Maine Field House, Orono

The Weekly had a good front-page story today:

14th annual HOPE Festival set
By BDN Staff - Bangor Daily News

ORONO, Maine - The 14th annual HOPE Festival - Help Organize Peace Earthwide - Saturday, April 19, at the University of Maine Field house will offer activities for all ages to celebrate Earth Day, their connections to the Earth and to each other and to learn how to reduce their "carbon footprint."

The festival will feature a Green Expo, live entertainment, films and a fair with more than 80 organizations.

After the opening ceremony with Penobscot Elder Arnie Neptune and drumming with Eh Pit Sisok (Little Women) from Indian Island, attendees may browse information tables and pick up buttons, bumper stickers and T-shirts. Activities include:

• The lively jazz of A-Train, 11:15 am
• International Student Dancers, 12:15 pm
• The peaceful music of the UMaine Classical Guitar Ensemble, 1:45 pm
• The amazing juggling of Zackary Field, 2 pm
• Nasruddin Puppet wisdom stories, Richard Merrill, 3 pm
• In the children’s area, youngsters will learn and play with miniature solar panels provided by the Maine Energy Education Program and learn how to start an environmental club from Green Team Maine... [and much more!]

More information from the Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine HERE. Some pictures from previous events HERE and HERE.

Federal budget bill also includes $25.5 million in LIHEAP heating assistance


Veazie Dam, January 4, 2007 (Maine Owl photo)

Following up on previous posts, President Bush has signed a $555 billion budget bill that includes probably $10 million for the Penobscot River restoration project and $25.5 million in LIHEAP funds for Maine winter heating fuel assistance. The Bangor Daily News today finally has something on the Penobscot River story within this front-page article:

$555B budget aids Maine:
Funds for Penobscot River fish habitat, LIHEAP in package
By Kevin Miller - Friday, December 28, 2007 - Bangor Daily News

The omnibus $555 billion budget bill signed by President Bush this week contains much-needed assistance for Mainers struggling to heat their homes and millions of dollars for local conservation projects, including fish passage in the Penobscot River.

Maine’s congressional delegation had made home heating assistance a top priority during budget negotiations. The federal spending package approved by both Congress and the Bush administration contains $2.6 billion for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

Maine will receive a minimum of $25.5 million in LIHEAP funds in the current federal fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. It also will be eligible for a portion of the $586 million in emergency LIHEAP funding which the administration can dispense at its discretion.

Members of the Maine delegation are asking the president to release the emergency funding immediately to help low-income families offset the rising costs of heating oil. More than 48,000 Maine households typically receive money from the federal program.

Proponents of several high-profile land conservation projects also were pleased with provisions of the federal budget.

For months now, those involved with a historic plan to remove two dams and bypass a third on the Penobscot River have been working with Maine’s delegation to secure $10 million for the project....

The omnibus budget bill also contains $3.25 million in Forest Legacy funds to buy a working forest easement from GMO Renewable Resources on 24,500 acres near Great Pond in Hancock County.

Maine already had received $2.2 million in Forest Legacy funds for another part of what is known as the Lower Penobscot Forest project. Combined, the two phases will prohibit development on more than 42,500 acres stretching from the Sunkhaze Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Milford to the west branch of the Union River....

Wow. That last statement of policy embodied in the act funding the Lower Penobscot Forest project is a staggeringly huge plus for our area. Why isn't our local media all over this one? Why was the Boston Globe ahead of them? I'm happy Congress (with the strong support of Republican Senators Snowe and Collins) managed to pull this off and get the Administration to go along.

Of course one always needs to be suspicious of Bush, as he has tended to use Maine as his environmental facade. And Collins could use some environmental cred in her re-election fight with Rep. Tom Allen who is the Democrat challenging her for her Senate seat. Of course, Allen is 100% behind this project as well. Well, it's all happy consequences for us, the inhabitants of this area.

On the LIHEAP front, it amazes me how both Snowe and Collins (correctly) abandon "free market" principles with respect to the home heating catastrophe brewing here in Maine this winter. The money will go a long way to helping those worst off. My question is, why don't we put some real liberals in those Senate seats? The state obviously requires public resources to assuage the horrors of the 21st century American economy.

Bush expected to sign omnibus bill containing money for watershed protection in eastern Maine


The Veazie Dam will be removed to restore salmon run (Maine Owl photo)

The Boston Globe had this story on Sunday:

US aid may preserve huge Maine tract
By Beth Daley / Globe Staff / December 23, 2007

The mighty Penobscot River and the thick blanket of forest surrounding it is legend in Maine: Its majestic salmon runs once lured fishermen from across the country; near its lower end, spruce fir stands and kettlehole bogs define one of the state's most unusual and striking landscapes.

Now the region is slated to receive $13.25 million in federal funds to restore the Penobscot, where dams have prevented fish from swiming upstream, and to protect 24,500 acres of a remote swath of forest near Bangor that is threatened by development.

The money, in two separate line items, is part of the federal appropriations bill that President Bush was expected to sign before Christmas.

"It's fantastic to see both of these projects happening at the same time," said Deb Perkins, Maine projects director for the Northern Forest Alliance, a nonprofit coalition of groups that work to protect the 26 million acres of the Northern Forest across northern New England and upstate New York. "It takes the long view to preserve our rural heritage and our connection to the river and woodlands."

About $10 million of the appropriation will be paired with $15 million already raised by a coalition of river-related organizations to purchase three dams on the Penobscot.

The two dams closest to the sea will be removed. A third, in Howland, will be decommissioned, and a fish passage will be built to allow salmon and shad returning to the river from the sea to bypass the dam to get upstream.

The dam purchase is a cornerstone of one of the largest river restoration projects in North America along the approximately 350-mile Penobscot. PPL Maine, which owns eight dams on the river, conservation groups, the Penobscot Nation, and federal and state agencies have been working for seven years to allow the same amount of hydropower to be produced while reopening the river and its tributaries to 11 species of fish. PPL will ultimately be allowed to increase power at six dams to compensate for the loss of power at the other three.

"The Penobscot Indian people, whose homeland includes the Penobscot River Watershed, have waited patiently for many years to see the once great fishery runs of the Penobscot restored," said Chief Kirk Francis of the Penobscot Indian Nation. It is, he said, "as good a Christmas present as we could have hoped for."

The remaining $3.25 million of the federal funds will go to protect 24,500 acres in an area the US Forest Service recently declared one of the country's most threatened by development. That tract of central and eastern Maine land, known as the Lower Penobscot Forest, begins about 15 miles northeast of Bangor.

The region hosts one of the last trout strongholds in the state, and on sections of the Union River, which runs through it, people can paddle canoes for miles without seeing any other sign of humans.

The money will go to buy development rights from landowner GMO Renewable Resources, meaning that the land can still be harvested for timber but will never be sold to build houses. The agreement also guarantees the public the right to use the land in perpetuity for hunting, fishing, and snowmobiling.

"This is great news," said Bruce Kidman of The Nature Conservancy in Maine, which brokered the deal and thanked GMO for taking the initiative to sell the rights.

"If you look at a map, there is a road cutting through the property; there are a lot of for sale and subdivision signs," Kidman said. "It needs to be protected."

Once, the vast forests of Maine were owned by the same timber barons for generations.

But beginning in the 1990s, millions of acres went on the auction block. While most of the land was sold to other timber companies, some was subdivided and sold for houses, sparking fears of conservationists and state officials that Maine's vast woods would be fragmented. Bears, moose, and scores of other species in the region need large swaths of such land to flourish, and the private holdings are used by fishermen and hikers who treat it as a vast public park.

The 24,500 protected acres will become part of a much larger swath of protected lands in the Lower Penobscot Forest. Ultimately, conservation groups want to create a belt of conserved lands from Bangor to Acadia National Park...

Wow. This project takes a big leap forward. The tracts of land on the east side of the river just up from the offices of Maine Owl are essential habitat and offer wonderful waters in which to dip the canoe.

I had some initial skepticism when I reported in June 2004 about the signing of the agreement in principle between the stakeholding parties and the kick-off of the fund raising project. Then Interior Secretary Gale Norton--not an environmentally-friendly figure to be sure--came to our neighborhood near the Veazie Dam with grand promises of a strong federal contribution. Now that help appears to be at hand. Thank you Congress and thank you Bush Administration.

But one odd question I have is, Why is the Globe reporting this first, not our local media?