Four dams, the Kennebec River and the future of US Atlantic salmon in the balance

While the pandemic has been raging across the world, a high-stakes battle over the future of one of Maine's largest river systems has been playing out in an obscure federal online docket, one with the future of Atlantic salmon in the United States in the balance.

In this week's Maine Sunday Telegram I wrote about the relicensing battle over one of four dams on the lower Kennebec River that stand between salmon, shad, alewives and the pristine habitat of the Sandy River in Western Maine which, oddly enough, is where I learned to swim and spent a lot of my summers staying cool in as a kid. The struggle is between Brookfield Renewable, a subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management, the $100 billion Canadian venture capital firm, (which wants to do technical fixes to let the fish better pass the dams) and the state of Maine, conservationists, and recreational fishing interests (which want at least one and preferably two or three of the dams to be torn down.)

Details in the story.

Talking with CBC-Nova Scotia about the 400-year backstory to the 2020 election

The rest of the world is trying to understand what's going on with the United States and its (currently not quite resolved) election. 

So I very much enjoyed sharing the backstory (via the American Nations - American Character - Union trilogy) with CBC-Nova Scotia this morning for their longform Mainstreet program. It broadcast today, but can also be heard as a podcast here.

Last week I spoke with CBC-New Brunswick  (about Maine's role) and Denmark's Zetland Magasin about the grand American backstory.

Hope you're all getting more sleep than I am. But if you live in the United States, I very much doubt it.

Talking American Nations and the 2020 election with Denmark's Zetland Magasin

The world is watching as the U.S. staggers towards the highest stakes election since the 1870s Tuesday, and some reporters have been drawn to American Nations, American Character, Union and even The Lobster Coast for an explanation as to what is going on. Two stories came out yesterday.

Denmark's Zetland Magasin has this longform feature on American Nations and how it explains what's going on in this country. I enjoyed speaking with editor Jakob Moll and seeing my work rendered in Danish, the language of an eighth of my ancestors. Ny Holland! Det dybe sud! Great stuff.

Friday's Le Monde carried this feature on the disunited States, with a nice name drop (in excellent company) for my latest book, Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood. There are some scenes that take place in Paris, so perhaps a few readers there will discover the book.

On Monday, CBC-New Brunswick broadcast their story on Maine's second district, the topic of this post here at World Wide Woodard.

How New Brunswick stopped Covid-19 in its tracks

The Canadian province of New Brunswick has weathered the pandemic with zero deaths and no long term care outbreaks and is currently down to just two active cases and no hospitalizations. There was a sixteen day period in late April and early May when they didn't have any active cases at all.

How did a province of 750,000 with an aged population manage to outperform its neighbors -- including Maine, Nova Scotia, and Quebec -- to virtually contain a global pandemic? As I reported in Saturday's Portland Press Herald it was a combination of acting very early, closing its borders with the United States and with other provinces, not being as close to major hotspots and, well, a lot of dumb luck.

Enjoy.

How Gov. LePage spent his final year in office

Maine's erstwhile governor, Paul LePage, often tried to keep his travels secret, even taxpayer-funded trips, like his stays at the Trump International Hotel in Washington or his trade mission to Montenegro last summer, which wasn't disclosed to Maine's media until after it was underway.

So as soon as he left office, I requested his entire calendar for 2018 via a public records request. It took four months to get it -- and two more months to secure supporting materials on some of the trips -- so it's only now, a half year into a new administration that the public can learn what previous governors would have told them ahead of time.

A summary of what the documents revealed appeared in yesterday's Portland Press Herald, and is available online here.

For more on how shortcomings with Maine's public records laws allow public officials to thwart transparency, consider this piece from January.

Six years after lawmakers reverse ban, alewives have banner run in St. Croix River

For seven years now, I've reported on the strange saga of the alewives of the St. Croix River, which forms the border between the US and Canada in eastern Maine and southwestern New Brunswick.

They're the key forage food fish of the river system and near-coastal ocean, but back in 1995, the Maine legislature decided to order the fishways closed to them in the St. Croix, on the behest of guides for smallmouth bass, an introduced species they feared would be harmed by the native fish (an assertion lacking in compelling scientific evidence.)

In 2013 -- under heavy lobbying by everyone from the U.S. and Canadian federal governments to the Passamaquoddy tribe and Maine lobster fishermen --  lawmakers finally repealed the law and the fishways were reopened.

Now, six years on, the river's alewives have seen a record run -- nearly half a million fish, or double 2018's level and five thousand times the 2002 run of 900. I had the story in Monday's Portland Press Herald.

Cruise tourism impacts in Maine, a series

Over the past four months I've been at work on a series on the impact of cruise ship tourism in Maine, where most ports of call have a smaller year-around population than the compliment of the larger ships themselves. The results have been appearing in the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram this week, with the final part in today's paper.

The bottom line for Maine communities: taking an ad hoc, reactive approach to cruise tourism has considerable dangers, but if you plan, prepare, and negotiate properly, you can get the outcomes your citizens want, rather than the ones that will just happen to them.

The full series -- Pier Pressure -- consists of five articles over three days, and they're all here for your convenience:

Day 1: "Some in Maine fear cruise ship tourism has gone overboard" (featuring Bar Harbor and the global, business, and historical contexts Mainers should know about.)

Day 1 sidebar: "No discharge fight comes to Acadia region" (Maine has the weakest marine discharge protections in New England, but there's a good explanation for why.)

Day 2: "Long touted economic benefits of cruise tourism far overstated" (How assumptions have been way off for passenger spending and net economic benefits in Portland, Maine.)

Day 2 sidebar: "Lone Portland passenger study made assumptions, overestimated economic impact" (A flawed 2009 study led city officials and residents to unrealistic expectations.)

Day 3: "Cruise ships trigger identity crises for a small city in Maine" (on Rockland and solutions generally for Maine ports.)

Photos by the ever-awesome Greg Rec.

Bar Harbor voters decide today if they want to buy an abandoned ferry terminal so as to ensure it becomes a multi-use facility, not a cruise ship mega-pier. [Update, 6/13/18: They approved the purchase by a more than five-to-one margin.]

In an unrelated note, my thanks to peers and colleagues in the Maine media for kindly recommending me to Pine Tree Watch's list of Maine's Most Trusted Journalists. The others so honored are my Press Herald colleagues (and, remarkably, immediate newsroom desk-neighbors) Mike Lowe, Eric Russell, and Bill Nemitz; Lewiston Sun-Journal managing editor Judy Meyer; Maine Public's Steve Mistler, Don Carrigan of WCSH-6/WLBZ-2, and the Bangor Daily News's Erin Rhoda, Chris Cousins, and Jake Bleiberg. All of us well know this is not an exhaustive list, as Maine is blessed with a great and varied press corps.

Maine's US Senators seek federal response to warming Gulf of Maine

Last week I reported on Canadian researchers having found record-warm water pouring into the primary deepwater entrance to the Gulf of Maine and Maine scientists confirming that they've seen similar, Gulf Stream-derived water filling some of the Gulf's deepwater basins -- all worrying signs that the region's stunning long-term warming trend is continuing.

Earlier this week, I had this update: US Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Angus King (I-Maine) have written the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration asking for a beefed-up federal research and monitoring response to determine causes and effects. The rest of Maine's Congressional delegation -- Rep. Bruce Poliquin (R-ME2) and Chellie Pingree (D-ME1) -- said they also strongly support the senator's actions.

Details herein.

For more on the warming of the Gulf, consider this comprehensive Press Herald series on the issue, plus this follow-up on how little the State of Maine has done to address it.

Record-warm deepwater pouring into the Gulf of Maine, researchers find

In today's Portland Press Herald, I wrote about a Canadian research team's discovery that record-warm Gulf Stream water is pouring into the Gulf of Maine, probably because of a weakening of the normally dominant, very frigid Labrador Current flowing down from Greenland via Atlantic Canada. The water - at depths of more than 200 feet - was a balmy 57F earlier this month, 11 degrees above the norm for this time of year, and other scientists say such water has been filling deepwater basins inside the Gulf for months.

Exactly what will happen next is uncertain, but the fear is that when the water upwells to the surface -- usually during winter - it could contribute to another "ocean heat wave" like the one in 2012 the wrecked havoc with just about everything in the Gulf and set off a chain of events that had New Brunswick lobstermen detaining trucks filled with Maine lobster at the gates of Canadian processing plants.

[Update, 5/2/17: Prompted by this story, US Senators Angus King and Susan Collins have asked NOAA to take action.]

For more on the warming of the Gulf of Maine and the possible consequences, consider my 2015 Press Herald series "Mayday." I last wrote on the situation -- and Maine's lack of response -- in November.

Trump's Canadian metals tariffs could backfire on Maine

In today's Portland Press Herald, I have a piece on how President Trump's 25 percent tariff on imported steel and 10 percent tariff on aluminum could backfire on Maine manufacturers and others, particularly if Canada isn't exempted from the plan.

Details in the story.

Also, in an unrelated update, my talk on the crisis in the world's oceans and Gulf of Maine tonight at the Portland (Maine) Public Library has again been postponed by a winter storm. The new date: April 4 at 6pm.

Right whales in crisis: speeding ships and missing calves

The disastrous year for the North Atlantic right whale, the world's second most endangered mammal after the species' Pacific cousin, doesn't appear to be abating. After seventeen of the whales have been found dead since June in New England and Atlantic Canada -- more than three percent of the total worldwide population of 450 -- scientists warned the species will be extinct in another 23 years if something doesn't change.

But the most recent news only increases anxiety about the whales: a series of speeding violations by ships in a zone of the Gulf of St. Lawrence set up by Canada to protect the whales and, separately, an absence of calf sightings on the whales calving grounds off Georgia and northeastern Florida.

I have the full story on these and other developments in the whales' odyssey in this week's Maine Sunday Telegram.

I reported last summer for the Press Herald about the right whale die off, with some additional background about the species and how its been monitored. I've reported on the species on and off for  a decade for other publications, context you can find by starting here.

Gov. LePage's support for offshore drilling at odds with every New England member of Congress

This month, when the Trump administration unveiled its plan to open virtually all areas of U.S. federal waters to oil and gas exploration, most of New England's elected leaders expressed outrage. Every member of the US Senate and US House from the five coastal New England states signed onto a bipartisan bill to ban drilling in the region, while every governor from Massachusetts to Florida announced their intention to seek an exemption. Florida's governor even got one.

The one exception: Maine's Gov. Paul LePage, who not only didn't join the chorus, he'd written a letter in August asking Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to do just what he did.

In this week's Maine Sunday Telegram I report on the controversy and how LePage's stance on drilling may complicate Maine's effort to get a Florida-like exemption.

I previously reported on oil and gas drilling in our region in late 2015, when Canada leased areas on their side of the border, at the entrance to the Gulf of Maine.

Scientists say Atlantic right whales on trajectory to be extinct in 23 years

The North Atlantic right whale, the world's second most endangered mammal after the species' Pacific cousin, has has a disastrous year here in the northwest Atlantic. Sixteen of the whales have been found dead since June in New England and Atlantic Canada, more than three percent of the total worldwide population of 450.

Scientists who study the whales met in Halifax this past weekend and warn that the animals will be extinct in just 23 years if present trends continue. They have recommendations as to what should be done and say it should be done now, not after further study. And you can read all about it in my story in yesterday's Portland Press Herald.

I reported earlier this summer for the Press Herald about the right whale die off, with some additional background about the species and how its been monitored. I've reported on the species on and off for nearly a decade for other publications, context you can find by starting here.

A final housekeeping note: for those following President Trump's voter fraud commission, I had this update, wherein Maine's member blasts the group's secrecy and evokes the law to demand he be kept in the loop on its activities.

Canada looks to Maine's governor to influence Trump on NAFTA

Governor Paul LePage may be seen as a lame duck here in Maine -- where he's alienated many of his legislative allies, betrayed the state's sacrifices in the Civil War, and attacked fellow Republican Sen. Susan Collins -- but in Canada, he's seen as a potential savior.

A savior if he can help convince President Trump not to ditch NAFTA, that is. As I reported in this week's Maine Sunday Telegram, Canadian officials -- and New Brunswick ones especially -- are hoping LePage has some pull with the mercurial president. Read on for details.

Maine: Dam owner wants to walk away, alarming lakeside residents

In Saturday's Portland Press Herald, I have a story from the eastern borderlands of Maine and the United States, where a pulp and paper company has announced it wishes to surrender ownership of two dams, a process that normally would result in their gates being left open, permanently lowering the water level of the lakes they impound.

This, as you'll read, is an alarming prospect to the communities around East Grand Lake -- Maine's eighth largest -- which could fall by six feet, turning waterfront property into interior lots and playing havoc with the local tax base, tourism economy, and ecosystem. Canada's not happy either, and they own half the lake bed and the land under one half of the most prominent of the dams. More, as always, in the story.

I previously wrote about Eastern Maine dams when the state Department of Environmental Protection messed up during the federal relicensing process (again) and also during a debate about allowing the passage of (native) alewives up the river system, and its possible effects on (non-native) smallmouth bass.

Trump's tariffs on Canadian softwood please Maine sawmill owners

In today's Portland Press Herald, I report on how President Trump's imposition of punitive tariffs against imported Canadian softwood lumber are being seen in Maine, a state where two-fifths of the land area is a continuous softwood industrial forest bordering on Canada. It's a complex situation, but Maine sawmill owners are really happy, and its likely to benefit loggers who work for them too

I wrote about this issue back in December in the Maine Sunday Telegram, after the idea first surfaced.

Trump plan on Canada lumber trade could help Maine sawmills

Last month a Trump transition memo obtained by CNN had Canadian media and politicians expressing concerns about the effect on their country's softwood lumber industry, the people who make spruce, fir, and pine dimension lumber of the sort you frame a house with. Trump, the memo suggested, would take an aggressive stance with our neighbor to the north on its softwood lumber imports.

This had me wondering what the effect of new trade restrictions would be for Maine's softwood lumber mills and harvesters. As I report in this week's Maine Sunday Telegram, they would probably benefit, though the devil is in the details.

On Trump transition watch at the Press Herald, I last reported on how his proposal to slash NASA's earth science missions would damage Maine science.

Canada approves oil exploration next to Georges Bank, entrance to Gulf of Maine

Canadian officials have granted Statoil an oil and gas exploration lease for a parcel immediately bordering on the Georges Bank exclusion zone and located at the mouth of the Northeast Channel, the primary oceanographic intake point for the Gulf of Maine.

As I reported in yesterday's Portland Press Herald, in a related development Shell Canada has begun actual drilling in its leases just to the east. BP Canada, which holds a lease for the next set of parcels, has applied to begin its own drilling.

For more background on the Gulf of Maine, its currents, and environmental challenges, consider reading the first part of "Mayday", our October 2015 series on these issues.

Canada's new government unmuzzles scientists

In today's Portland Press Herald I have a follow-up to "Mayday," our six-day series on climate change and the Gulf of Maine.

While researching the series, my reporting efforts were repeatedly interfered with by Canadian officials tasked with preventing government scientists from freely communicating information about their research with journalists. The controversial policies -- implemented by Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper's administration -- had been condemned by the scientific community at home and abroad and had become a campaign issue in this October's federal elections.

Harper's party was humiliated in a landslide election Oct. 19, losing every single seat in Atlantic Canada to the Liberals, whose government was sworn in a few days ago. As I report today, within 48 hours, incoming Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's appointees reversed the policies, directing scientists to speak freely with the media.

Before the changes, I spoke with CBC-New Brunswick about my experiences trying to report the series in Canada.

Last week I also also the guest on the Michelangelo Singnorile show on Sirius XM radio, talking about the series. When it posts online, will add a link.

Climate change and the Gulf of Maine series concludes

Our six-day, seven-part series on the rapidly warming Gulf of Maine wraps up in today's Portland Press Herald with this story on what can and isn't being done to address the challenges here in Maine. I also wrote a companion story on the release yesterday of a new study in the journal Science linking the rapid warming of the gulf to the failure of its cod stock to recover.

Yesterday's installment focused on the baleful effects of ocean acidification already being visited on clams, mussels, oysters and other commercial shellfish species in the state. Wednesday's focused on the expanding range and population of warm water invaders like green crabs, blue crabs (!), squid, black sea bass, and some unplesant tunicates.

The full series, entitled Mayday: Gulf of Maine in Distress, can be found at this landing page at the Press Herald.

Thanks also to CBC-New Brunswick and WCSH-6 here in Maine for their interest in the series, and also to New Brunswick's largest paper, the Saint John Telegraph-Journal, which I understand plans to republish the entire series in their print editions.

For those in Maine interested in learning more about the crisis in the world's oceans, I'm giving a talk on my first book, Ocean's End: Travels Through Endangered Seas, at Southern Maine Community College in South Portland at noon on November 19th. It's free and open to the public. There will be a book signing afterward held by the campus bookstore.

Thanks to photographer Greg Rec, designer Brian Robitaille, web designer Karen Beaudoin managing editor Steve Greenlee, graphics designer Michael Fisher, and my other Press Herald colleagues for helping create such a powerful package.

[Update, 11/20/17: Two years later, the state has done very little to address the problem.]