Diversifying to keep the boat

Tim Levesque, who has been fishing since he was 18, is diversifying. Formerly, he made a living using his 58-foot steel dragger THUNDER BAY for groundfishing, but since the new rules allow him just 65 days fishing a year, he’s had to branch out to be able to keep the boat. He has taken on

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Salmon farm plan withdrawn

A proposal to set up salmon farms in east Penobscot Bay has been withdrawn, leaving opponents of the project jubilant. Norway-based Jorn Vad has decided – for now at least – not to pursue his proposal for an aquaculture lease for salmon pens near Pickering and Scott islands, off Little Deer Isle. The Maine Department

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Continuing Commitment

This year’s budget cycle in Portland has demonstrated the vulnerability of the city’s commendable commitment to the island communities that lie within Portland’s boundaries. The position of island and neighborhood coordinator, created several years ago in response to a troubled relationship between City Hall and island neighborhoods, has found itself on the chopping block for

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“No historic memory”

David Cousens is correct. Term limits have apparently done their work at the legislature: the membership of today’s Joint Standing Committee on Marine Resources includes no one who was around when Maine’s historic (and successful) lobster-management rules were adopted in 1996. Cousens, president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, pointed out at a recent hearing on

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The Maine Land Bank

The Maine Land Bank, a proposed tax reform designed to insulate family properties on islands and elsewhere from skyrocketing property valuations, originated as a result of some hard work by folks on Chebeague Island and coastal Harpswell. Enrolling one’s property in the Land Bank program would exempt it from the state constitution’s “highest and best

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Corrections and omissions

To the editor: We need to note some corrections and omissions to last month’s article covering the Cranberry Isles Town meeting. This year the meal was hosted and prepared by Ladies Aid as is their custom to do every other year when the meeting is held on Great Cranberry Island. The fare was an astonishingly

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Pleasant memories

To the editor: I have been a Working Waterfront subscriber and an Island Institute supporter for years and plan to continue. I look forward to your publications in the mail to jog my pleasant memories of time spent on the mainland and on the islands off the coast of Maine. I do not own a

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New schooner being built in Eastport

Eastport will have the beginning of a windjammer fleet come June 2004 if plans by John Bishop and Capt. Butch Harris come to fruition. They’re building a 92-foot clipper-bowed, gaff-rigged schooner, the HALIE MATTHEW, on the grounds of the Eastport Boat School. When she’s launched she’ll join the knockabout schooner SYLVINA BEAL, owned and operated

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