Facing threat to shellfish industries, Maine doing pretty much nothing

"Mayday," the Portland Press Herald series on the effects -- now and moving forward -- of the rapid warming of the Gulf of Maine, came out two years ago and concluded that Maine wasn't doing enough to confront the threat, particularly in regards to ocean acidification, which is something experts say can actually be mitigated at the state- and local-level. So what's happened since?

As I reported in yesterday's Maine Sunday Telegram, the state government has essentially done nothing, with legislators choosing not to fund the key recommendations of the bipartisan panel they'd convened to study the problem, or even to enable it to continue working. Leadership and action on the issue has been left to a scrappy group of volunteer scientists and conservationists concerned about the problem.

With Maine's fishing and aquaculture industries at risk, there's some choice words from experts on the issue. Details herein.

For more on the problem, consider reading the "Mayday" series (which was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting) and, especially, the parts on ocean acidification and state inaction.