(As I’ve written before, I like the idea of wind power and offshore wind farms. But the guy this story is about does provide another viewpoint that is worth considering. … But then again …. — KM)
The Herald Gazette: Environmental activist asks court to halt offshore wind power project.
(I found this Maine Public Broadcasting Network story interesting in that they are talking about using seawater, air and electricity to possibly turn the water into amonia and then fuel. It is a long-term project that could go on for a decade before you see cars running on the stuff. Still interesting, though. — KM)
Turning Seawater Into Fuel: Experiment Underway in Rockland.
Posted in Environment, Maine
Tagged amonia, desalination, fuel, Gov. John Baldacci, Matt Simmons, Ocean Energy Institute, Robert West, Rockland, seawater
Here’s the top of a story in the Lewiston Sun Journal about a former Lewiston, Maine, resident who was helping orphaned Haitian children. A link to the rest of the story is below.
Again, there was no byline attached to the story or I would have included that information.
The Rev. Marc Boisvert was already making an impact in Haiti before the earthquake felt around the world rocked the small island south of Cuba.
On Tuesday, the former Lewiston resident’s impact grew deeper when his orphanage, known as Project Hope, announced that the facility would take in another 100 children orphaned as a result of the nation’s deadliest natural disaster in history.
“With our staff of 250 and over 140 acres, we have the capacity to handle the extra children left helpless because of this devastation,” Boisvert said in a press release issued Tuesday by Free the Kids, a stateside nonprofit organization that helps raise money for the Les Cayes orphanage.
Click here for the rest of the story.
For more information: www.freethekids.org.
You have got to check out this story in the Lewiston Sun Journal. And scroll down to the bottom of the story to see a couple photos of this truly palatial ice shack. (Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever believed that I would write a sentence in which “palatial” and “ice shack” would be somehow connected.)
There is no byline on the story posted on the website or I would have added it. Below is the top of the story.
Tanya Ouellette was shopping at the corner store when she overheard a conversation about homeless people living on the frozen lake.
“Those aren’t homeless people; that’s us,” Ouellette said.
She and her husband Kevin spend night after night each winter with all the comforts of home – a full kitchen, wood floors, surround sound, two televisions, a wood stove, a bathroom complete with a shower (no hot water) and a doorbell. Their home just happens to sit on a foot of ice.
“I have the best of both worlds — ‘American Idol’ and ice fishing,” Tanya said.
Click here to read the rest of the story.
Posted in Environment, Maine
Tagged fish, fishing, ice fishing, ice shack, Lewiston Sun Journal
| (Hope this works to help promote wind power in Maine. — KM) |
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Posted in Economy, Environment, Maine
Tagged environmentalists, wind farms, wind power
(Here’s yesterday’s editorial in the Bangor Daily News about the governor’s State of the State address. — KM)
Posted in Maine
(I really, really hope they work out the noise issue. Wind power can be fantastic, but these folks shouldn’t have their lives disrupted. — KM)
Turbines turn into headache for Vinalhaven | Portland Press Herald.
TERRIER ROUGE, Haiti — Terry Johnston works through her list, using an interpreter to question the 20-year-old woman who is in her last year of classes.
“Is your mother alive? Your father?” she asks the student, Guerda Valmyr. “Mama, papa?”
“Non.”
“Do you have problems with your eyes?”
“Oui.”
“Dizziness?”
“Oui.”
“Have you had typhoid, malaria?”
“Non.”
“Do you hope to go to university?”
“Oui.”
“To study … ?”
“Nursing.”
“We need that now,” Johnston murmurs as she makes a note with her purple Crayola marker.
Johnston, of Jefferson, Maine, has been coming to this rural village about 18 miles from the city of Cap Haitien each year since 2002.
Click the link to read the rest of “Program finds Maine sponsors for Haitian children” by Matt Wickenheiser of the Portland Press Herald.
Below is the top of a story by Portland Press Herald staff writer Matt Wickenheiser and a link to the rest of the story.
Along with the story on the Portland Press Herald Web site is a letter to readers from Scott Wasser, vice president and executive editor of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram and MaineToday Media. Apparently, a couple of readers emailed complaints to the newspaper claiming it would have been better for the publication to donate the money to a charity rather than spend money to send reporters to Haiti.
The response has a tone of indignation to it, but Mr. Wasser makes very important points: covering Mainers doing good – no matter where – should be done by a Maine newspaper. Period.
And, more importantly, the coverage is sure to garner not just short-term replenishment of funds for charitable organizations, but long-term positive results for those groups that do good in Maine and beyond in places such as Haiti.
Newspapers and other news agencies must GO to where stories are happening. A major part of what journalists do is observe. And you cannot observe the devastation caused by an earthquake or the good that a Portland, Maine-based group, Konbit Sante, is doing unless you send intrepid journalists and photographers. – KM
CAP HAITIEN, HAITI — Earthquake victims from the south came in buses, piled into pickups and jammed into cars, driving almost 90 miles to find any care they could – even at Haiti’s poorest hospital.
Justinian Hospital doctors, nurses and residents worked through the first weekend treating 130 patients from Port-au-Prince, the capital city destroyed by the Jan. 12 quake, which killed an estimated 200,000 people.
With sparse resources, they helped men, women and children who had broken bones, amputated limbs and crushing emotional and psychological truama.
And members of the Portland-based Konbit Sante worked alongside them. Haitian nurses and doctors from the nonprofit were there, even a Portland volunteer who teaches English as a second language.
But as important as the all-hands effort was, it may not have been possible without the work done by Konbit Sante over the past decade.
Justinian doctors and nurses were able to work in operating rooms without fear of a blackout, thanks to electrical upgrades made by Maine electricians; children were treated in a pediatrics unit supported by two Konbit Sante-funded attending physicians; and the opening of a Konbit Sante supply depot gave the hospital access to vital materials donated to the organization.
Even so, scraping together enough to respond to the disaster has been difficult.
Click the link to read the rest of “Quake spotlights Haiti’s distress, nonprofit’s resolve” by the Portland Press Herald’s Matt Wickenheiser.
Posted in Disaster, Journalism, Maine, News and Newspapers, Newspapers
Tagged aid, earthquake, Konbit Sante, Portland Maine Haiti, Portland Press Herald, relief
George Smith yesterday again wrote in his DownEast.com blog about the decline of white-tailed deer in northern Maine.
It appears unscrupulous landowners may be just as to blame for the drastic decline of deer as are back-to-back harsh winters and predators such as coyotes and bears. (I blogged about a Chamber of Commerce in Maine that had promoted a tournament for killing coyotes. That shows the level of frustration in the region.)
Personally, one of the more stark passages in the blog read:
At some northern Maine game registration stations, more bear than deer or moose were tagged. For example, the Fish River station registered forty-seven bears, twenty-three moose, and just four deer. The Portage station tagged ninety-two deer in 2007, thirty-one deer in 2008, but only nine deer this year.
I’m pretty certain the “Portage station” is Coffin’s General Store, of which I have written before. The Mom occasionally helps out at the store and she told me in the fall that kill numbers had dropped off drastically, but 92 to nine in just two years is terrible on so many levels.
For those who are non-hunters or anti-hunting, annual deer hunting is significant to the life and livelihood of Mainers. It is a rite of passage for youngsters in which responsibility, gun safety, and an appreciation for the outdoors are taught. It also is a significant economic component for rural and remote areas of the state where unemployment historically has been high. Hunting camps and other lodging, restaurants, gas stations, guides, taxidermist and more feel the pain in a poor hunting season.
Smith writes about the loss of wintering habitat for deer and how a land sale and swap ended up costing the state some of that habitiat.
Smith, the blog’s author, lives in Mount Vernon and is described as “a columnist, TV show host, executive director of the state’s largest sportsmen’s organization, political and public policy consultant, hunter, angler, and avid birder and most proud of his three children and grandson.” He knows that of which he writes.
Click this link to go to George’s Outdoor News blog.
Posted in Economy, Environment, Maine
Tagged bear, Coffin's General Store, coyotes, DownEast Magazine, George Smith, hunting, Portage, white-tailed deer, wintering yards
(Traveling vets are all over Northern California, especially in areas where there are personal and commercial cattle ranches and dairy farms. I hope she stays busy enough to stay in business. — KM)
Traveling vet to fill void in Aroostook County – Bangor Daily News.
Posted in Maine
Tagged Aroostook County, companion animals, small animals, traveling vet, veterinarian
Here is a link to more dispatches from and about Haiti.
Austin Webbert and a group of his college classmates were relaxing at a downtown restaurant in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
It was a Tuesday afternoon, the day a 7.0-magnitude earthquake turned most of the Carribbean capital into rubble, killing tens of thousands.
Webbert’s group was taking a break from the volunteer work they had undertaken in Cit Soleil, a slum on the outskirts of the Haitian capital.
“We had just left the building and gotten into our SUV when the earthquake happened,” Webbert said. “I was shocked to see the restaurant heave up and down off the ground before slumping over.”
The 22-year-old college student from Wayne was on his fourth trip to the nation of 9 million. He evacuated to the Dominican Republic late last week, then landed in Miami on Saturday.
Click here to read the rest of “‘Earth had turned to Jell-O’ during quake, Mainer recalls” by the Kennebec Journal’s Matthew Stone.
Tagged aid, Cit Soleil, earthquake, Haiti, Mainer, Port-au-Prince, volunteer
Letters From Away 