Even in an effort as well-intended as Maine’s Working Waterfront Access Pilot Program, there will be differences of opinion over how best to disburse limited funds that may be used to purchase development rights to qualifying waterfront parcels. In the program’s first round this year, all six projects that completed the application process were funded.
Rockland home to help inmates adjust to outside
Dale Preston spent 18 years in a Maine prison, long enough, he said, to forget how the world worked outside. “You develop a skill set inside the prison that you survive by,” he said. After being released seven years ago, it took him a long time to readjust to un-incarcerated life. Sometimes it was little
Lobster season sinks under fuel costs, low catch
Lobsters are scarce, boat fuel costly, and other kinds of fish so scarce they aren’t worth chasing any more. That’s the gloomy picture facing lobstermen such as Dave Cousens of South Thomaston, who estimates lobsters are off by 30 to 40 percent this year. “I can sum it up in one word, it sucks,” he
Basic Lobster History
Curmudgeonly Kenneth Roberts helped generations know their past
Maine author Kenneth Roberts died 50 years ago this past July at the age of 71. As a boy, I read a number of his books, though I knew next to nothing about him as a person. I did know Roberts was a prolific writer of historical fiction and that I enjoyed the stories he
Birds, Not Bombs Corps of Engineers plans cleanup of offshore island
Seal Island, a 65-acre wildlife refuge six miles east of Matinicus, is home to nesting seabirds but off limits to visitors. That’s because this barren, rocky isle 21 miles out to sea from Rockland was a bombing target for training U.S. Navy pilots from the 1940s through the 1960s. Live explosives could still lie buried
The Reflective Season
In Maine we’re entering the reflective season, the time of year when weather conditions nudge us indoors. Readers will turn to their books; those with a bent for history or crafts or cooking will head for libraries, workshops or kitchens. If you’re into civic engagement you’re watching local government or the legislature. The pace along
Voters speak on local, statewide issues
Citizens in several coastal communities cast votes affecting the future use of their waterfronts, including plans for the redevelopment of Portland’s city-owned Maine State Pier, a planned coal gasification plant in Wiscasset, and a proposal to allow certain zoning changes in Camden. The vote in Wiscasset could kill the coal project, although its developer announced
The Long View: What if ?
The biggest `what if’ question facing Maine’s island and working waterfront communities is what if there were no more lobsters or lobster fishing? To say that the current lobster landing outlook is not good is like saying that Joe Torre or General Motors did not have a good year. We have covered Maine’s lobster industry
Parallel 44: Witches on the Piscataqua
In the marketplace of ideas, Salem, Massachusetts has long had witchcraft cornered. In the public mind, American witchery and the 1692 Salem Witch Trials are one and the same, a dour Puritan affair in which fearful, superstitious Calvinists turn on friends and neighbors in a fit of paranoia and religious zealotry. Salem has shamelessly exploited