Freepressonline.com news story
Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM) presented its 2013 Environmental Awards last week at its annual meeting. The awards are given to people and groups that have "made a real difference at the local, regional, or state level in protecting the health and beauty of Maine’s environment."
This year’s winners are:
• Paul Bisulca of Oxford, for exceptional efforts to reopen the St. Croix River to alewives. Since 1995, ancestral breeding grounds of the St. Croix River have been closed, and the native alewife population dropped from millions to less than a thousand a few years ago. The restoration of alewives is considered critical in rebuilding Maine’s groundfishing industry.
• Thanks, But No Tank (TBNT) received the NRCM People’s Choice Award for exceptional efforts in mobilizing citizens and preventing the construction of a 22.7-million gallon, 14-story high liquefied petroleum gas tank and terminal proposed for Searsport.
• Tar Sands Citizen Groups in Casco, Waterford, Harrison, Otisfield and South Portland were recognized for defending the air, land and water by leading community efforts to pass a municipal resolution in opposition to sending tar sands through Maine’s crude oil pipeline. Currently seven Maine towns along the route of the Portland-Montreal Pipeline have passed local resolutions stating their towns’ opposition to sending tar sands through the 63-year-old pipeline. In addition, NRCM recognized the ongoing efforts by citizens in South Portland to change South Portland’s zoning to prohibit the export of tar sands oil.
To read the full citations presented to each award winner, go to www.nrcm.org/2013EnvironmentalAwards.asp.
