At a special Town Meeting Jan. 25, about 360 residents of Phippsburg voted down a proposed 180-day moratorium on housing subdivision approvals. Although they rejected this solution by an approximately 60/40 vote, townspeople are concerned about escalating growth in the town. Many people voted against the proposed moratorium because they felt it was unfair that
East Boothbay yard builds Navy prototype
Hodgdon Yachts in East Boothbay, along with the help of Steve Von Vogt, president of Maine Marine Manufacturing in Portland, and researchers at the University of Maine, is building a Navy medium-range craft called the Mark V.1. While the Maine boatbuilding industry is a leader in the recreational boat market, it has not constructed small
Coastal Mainers Feel Oil Price Sting
The effects of record-high oil prices have reverberated throughout coastal Maine. This past year, the average price for a gallon of gasoline in Maine rose from $1.98 a gallon to $2.40, with a summertime spike to over $3. Heating oil similarly rose 53 cents per gallon, a thirty-five percent increase from the year before. Declining
Wrong Crab
To the editor: …My oldest son, who is a commercial lobsterman, tells me that the photo on the front page of the February issue is not a green crab, but rather an Asian Brown Crab that came to Maine on the BIW dry dock. I agree that it sure doesn’t look like a green crab.
Wrong Crab
To the editor: You probably already know this by now, but the crab shown in the picture in your “Aliens Invade!” article is an Asian shore crab, not a green crab. Elizabeth Stephenson Darling Marine Center Walpole
Great American Shrimp
If you live in Maine and think of shrimp as those sweet little Pandalus borealis sold from trucks by the side of the road during winter, think again. Even though the fishery served for generations as a winter mainstay for many state harvesters, Maine’s little shrimp are scarcely a blip on the radar of U.S. shrimp consumption.
Gutenberg and Fish
It’s heartening to learn that two organizations, Penobscot Bay Watch in Rockland and Project Gutenberg, a national effort to make significant books available free on-line to the public, are taking an interest in historic fisheries data. Portions of the reports of the U.S. Fisheries Commission are already available and there’s more to come. These reports,
Global Connection
If anyone still believes Maine somehow functions in isolation, this issue of Working Waterfront should enlighten them. While the low price of Gulf of Maine shrimp is largely a reflection of supply — stocks are up after being down for several years — a contributing factor is a lack of processing capacity, brought on by
Maine’s boatbuilders create a network to promote their industry
Three years ago, Nigel Calder sent a “white paper” to Gov. John Baldacci about the importance of Maine’s boatbuilding industry. Based on a model from New Zealand, Calder pointed out that what Maine needs now is a network to promote boatbuilding and ancillary industries, encouraging cooperation among builders. Then the industry could soar, both nationally
The Gutenberg Project – Historic fisheries reports make the jump to cyberspace
Gutenberg would be happy.If he were alive today, the inventor of moveable type would be pleased the project that bears his name is bringing all manner of reading materials to readers, free, through a medium he couldn’t have imagined, the World Wide Web. Ron Huber of Penobscot Bay Watch in Rockland is using Project Gutenberg to make sure