From a bird blind on Seal Island, I watched as puffins zoomed in from the sea with a rainbow of fish drooping from their beaks.
They carried copper and golden juvenile haddock, redfish and…
#MaineMonitor
Gravity is a friend of wastewater treatment plants, which is why the facilities are typically placed at low elevations, often along Maine’s extensive coastline.
Placing them in low-lying…
A new analysis shows that more major power outages across Maine, the Northeast and the U.S. are happening as a result of bad weather.
The data from the nonprofit …
In the past year and month, record-breaking weather extremes in line with the expected impacts of a warming world have brought disruption, destruction and even death to all corners of Maine.…
23 nursing homes have closed in the past decade in Maine
Within the last decade, 23 nursing homes in Maine have closed, prompting long term care advocates, providers and industry leaders Wednesday to urge lawmakers to provide additional funding to…
The deadly shooting in Lewiston turned attention to the gun policy positions of Gov. Janet Mills, who has opposed bans on assault-style rifles but backed other gun safety measures in a state with…
After enduring record-high electricity supply rates this year, most Maine households will start seeing some welcome relief in January, based on recent declines in other New England states and…
As voters decide whether to take over their transmission and distribution utility companies, we’re providing Mainers with some history of the power system in the region — and clearing up some…
It was an audacious plan. Build a major marine terminal in Casco Bay for supertankers to unload crude oil into a pipeline running underground from Portland to a 250,000 gallon-a-day oil refinery…
The 50th anniversary of Project Puffin has just ended, with researchers fully realizing how their quest has morphed from saving one bird to playing a part in saving the planet.
Its purpose…
As the number of Mainers dying from drug overdoses appeared to be going down in the first half of the year, recovery experts and state officials are increasingly looking to…
The Harraseeket River recedes slowly but steadily around Chad Coffin’s metal skiff, until the boat is beached on a partly exposed mudflat. Coffin and his daughter, Bailey Pennell, are already out…
NRA endorses LePage, gives improved grade to Mills
After a downgrade in her first campaign, Gov. Janet Mills’ ranking with one of the most prominent gun lobbying organizations increased this year without much fanfare — reflecting the changing…
Copy cat demands for data mirror those in other states
Clerks across the state have just nine weeks until the pivotal 2022 elections. But their tasks increasingly include responding to misinformed election data requests rooted in national efforts to…
Registered voters who did not vote in the past two federal elections have 20 days to verify address
Yes, the state of Maine is mailing notices to some registered voters asking them to verify their address ahead of the November election. But the state’s top elections official says voters should…
The situation has created myriad health problems
For seven years, off and on, Cheryl Harkins lived out of her car and in a homeless encampment in Portland. Harkins, who is 100% disabled related to degenerative conditions, said her legs would…
Boaters under 25 would be required to pass safety course
Most boaters under age 25 will be required to pass an education and safety course before January 2024 to operate on Maine’s lakes and rivers because of a bill passed by the state Legislature this…
Maine needs visionary, collaborative approach to address browntail moths
After five years enduring a rain of toxic hairs from browntail moth…
legislative advocate for children is optimistic about pending reforms
Maddox Williams. Hailey Goding. Sylus Melvin. Baby Harding.
Two Maine toddlers and two babies died in their homes last summer.
Walking trails, bicycle paths and other improvements are under consideration
Sue Ellen Bordwell rarely saw another bicyclist during her commute on Route 1 from Yarmouth to the University of Southern Maine in the 1990s.
“Then one day there had been this little…
As the holiday season approaches during the state’s worst surge of COVID-19, Maine health experts say testing is one of a variety of ways to stay safe, but rapid at-home tests remain expensive and…
In more than 30 years, Maine has never reached its goal of recycling 50 percent of the state’s solid waste. Even figuring out how much progress it’s making — and how state agencies might help…
opinion: Making the grid more climate resilient will take planning grounded in science and localized power generation
In the wake of Ida, a hurricane …
As COVID-19 continues, Maine’s battle with opioid addiction rages on
Maine lost 18,000 years of life last year to opioid overdoses. That’s what Oliver Bradeen, executive director of Milestone Recovery in Portland, calculates based on average life expectancy and the…
Maine is still in an outbreak, but a cool, wet spring could knock down the irritating insects.
Next summer may be just as itchy and painful as this one.
After one of Maine’s worst browntail moth seasons, there are signs already that 2022 could continue a years-long outbreak of the…
AUGUSTA — The Maine Monitor has a new editor and executive director: Eric Conrad, a veteran Maine journalist and communications professional.
The Maine Monitor was founded in 2009, as non-…
use of contract nurses and assistants in Maine has soared since 2017
In the years before the COVID-19 pandemic swept through the nation’s long-term care facilities and overwhelmed healthcare workers, Maine nursing homes increasingly hired nurses and nursing…
Maine’s largest electricity reseller wants to pony up a $500,000 fine. The state’s utility regulator suggested pulling the plug.
A report last year recommended revoking the license of…
Waldo County official ‘frustrated’ emergency management agencies haven’t played larger role
Vaccination efforts across rural Maine to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic are going as well…
Shah: ‘matter of time’ before variant strain of COVID-19 is detected in Maine
More people in Maine now have been vaccinated for COVID-19 than have had the virus.
About 46,600 Mainers were vaccinated as of Friday,…
GOP to look for ways to reassert legislative power while Democrats eye health care and climate change
Amid a pandemic and an economic downturn, lawmakers will return to Augusta in January with a list of priorities that span topics such as healthcare, climate change and the power of the executive…
As COVID-19 cases continue surging in Maine and the first vaccination doses offer some hope, Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, spoke to health…
December has been a month of hope and concern, with COVID-19 vaccines deployed for the first time to hospitals across Maine but health officials warned that the state continues to battle “a surge…
state must dramatically expand renewable power generation and transmission
A protracted fight over the New England Clean Energy Connect plan to wheel 1,200 megawatts of hydropower from Quebec, through Maine and on to Massachusetts has dominated the airwaves for the last…
Fleeing to Maine from climate disasters
What do you do when the place you call home becomes unlivable? …
Council votes Sept. 30 on changing requirements for groundfish monitoring
After returning home for a hot meal and quick snooze following three days alone at sea, Randy Cushman wakes up at 3:30 a.m. to begin the final steps of his fish and data processing in the sleepy,…
The preacher and the outbreak
As news broke about Calvary Baptist Church’s COVID-19 outbreak, Pastor Todd Bell shined his black shoes.
Before the Sanford reverend spoke to his church, Bell took a picture of his…
Maine’s financial stability depends on further federal action
A committee of Maine economic experts and industry representatives this month outlined a $1.1 billion plan to steady the state economy in July.
The plan from the …
four experts weigh in on the metrics that paint the clearest picture of the pandemic
During the past five months of the coronavirus pandemic, Mainers and other Americans have been inundated with numbers. Confirmed COVID-19 cases per capita. Death rates. Test positivity rates.…
opinion: expect to see swings between soil-damaging rain events and more regular drought conditions
The words of University of Maine soil scientist Ivan Fernandez reveal a troubling truth.
“Never again will we have the climate system of the 20th century,” wrote Fernandez, co-chair of the…
More than 57,000 organizations and individuals formally opposed the petition
The fate of net metering in New England — and across the United States — remains unknown, but resistance to its erasure is mounting.
More than 450 organizations, 57,000 individuals and 37…
A resurgence of Victory Gardens could inspire lasting changes in food production
The home gardening boom underway is “totally unprecedented” in the eyes of Frank Wertheim, who for 33 years has helped farmers and gardeners as an educator with University of Maine Cooperative…
sea change: In crisis and starting anew
Last week’s storm decimated the trees in our yard, exposing raw tissue where limbs severed. Branches, graced by buds that will never open, lay scattered on the killing snow.
Taking in the…
More than 450 pieces of legislation are in limbo, including measures to reform Maine’s criminal justice system, following the sudden adjournment of the Legislature last week because of concerns…
Electricity rip-off: Private electricity suppliers cost Mainers an extra $132 million in seven years
Mainers have spent $132.5 million more than they needed to on electricity over the past seven years.
It’s not because of a faulty billing system or a mistake.
It’s because of a…
Maine voters affected, even with state’s good election history
The national voting season now begins in full force.
Maine will hold primaries on Super Tuesday (March 3) along with states all the way to California. Next Tuesday will be the single…
A steep climb
On the road to all-renewable power, Maine is moving like a car near the base of a long, snowy hill. It’s accelerating now, knowing it may lose momentum and traction in the ascent. One icy patch…
A breaking wave
Stonington, the state of Maine’s top fishing port in landed value, is facing seismic change. By mid-century, its lobster fishery could drop by 15 to 20 percent due to warming ocean waters, the…
In the name of resilience
During Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Hoboken, New Jersey “literally became an island,” recalled its mayor at the time, Dawn Zimmer, during a recent talk she gave in Maine. The city was 80 percent…
