Maine has public-health advisories against eating fish from 14 bodies of water contaminated with mercury. By Andrea Sears Public News Service News Story March 20, 2019 AUGUSTA, Maine – Do your job, protect our kids. That’s the message dozens of mothers from 15 states took to Washington, D.C., this week. The Environmental Protection Agency has Read More
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Court Upholds EPA Power-plant Emission Standards
The case has potential air-quality ramifications for Maine, which has been described as the ‘tailpipe’ of the nation. By Pete Yost The Associated Press Portland Press Herald news story WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the Environmental Protection Agency’s first emission standards for mercury and other hazardous air pollutants from coal- and Read More
Maine’s Advanced Recycling Programs Succeeding
Keeping Mercury and Other Toxics Out of Environment NRCM news release Today, DEP officials presented a report to the Legislature’s Environment and Natural Resources Committee showing that Maine’s five advanced recycling “product stewardship” laws are a huge success and have prevented more than 45 million pounds of electronic waste and hundred of pounds of toxic Read More
State Plan Changes after Delay in Reporting Mercury in Lobster
Portland Press Herald news story by Scott Dolan, staff writer State Toxicologist Andrew Smith received an urgent message in 2011: A team of independent scientists had discovered dangerously high levels of mercury in black ducks in a marsh near the mouth of the Penobscot River. But what Smith didn’t know was that the same scientists had previously Read More
Contamination of Maine Lobster Shows Value of Regulations
Kennebec Journal editorial The lobster fishery has been the one bright spot in Maine’s seafood industry for years — at least until last week. On Feb. 18, the state Department of Marine Resources ordered a two-year shutdown of lobster and crab harvesting in a 7-square-mile region at the mouth of the Penobscot River. Mercury contamination Read More
Take Action! Clean Air Act Under Attack from U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Big Polluters
Last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed a “friend-of-the-court brief” in U.S. Appeals Court to try and stop the EPA’s lifesaving Mercury and Air Toxics Standard adopted last year under the Clean Air Act. This action makes it clear who the U.S. Chamber real friends are: big polluters. The Chamber’s claims of economic and Read More
Honoring Rachel Carson on Earth Day
I got up early one morning and happened to look out my second-story bedroom window. There in an oak tree, directly across from me, was a Bald Eagle as tall as a skateboard. We were eye to eye, and gazed at each other for a minute or so, before he spread his wide wings and Read More
An Environmental Chain Reaction
Mercury is getting into a wide range of birds from global pollution By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist Boston Globe column It was almost by accident in 2003 that David Evers fully grasped how mercury permeates and pummels the bird world. He and colleagues from the Biodiversity Research Institute were researching the Nyanza Superfund site Read More
Mean Mr. Grinch Thwarted this Holiday Season
On a recent blustery winter day, I found myself skulking and slinking around Portland’s Monument Square dressed as Dr. Seuss’ the Grinch. Sporting a three-piece, pinstriped suit and hauling bags of dirty coal over my shoulder, I spread holiday fear wherever I went. But why, you ask? I have never considered myself a Grinch by Read More
