This week on TalkingFish.org: read about sea scallops in the last edition of the Local Summer Fisheries series, public support for opening the St. Croix river to alewives is evident in a Bangor Daily News editorial, and read about what's new in New England's fisheries in the weekly Fish Talk in the News. read more..

Recently, Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation attempted to make recycling easier for Rhode Islanders by creating “single-stream recycling.” Now households do not have to separate paper from plastic – everything can go in the same bin and other items can also now be recycled, such as plastic cups, tissue paper and just about any plastic container 2 gallons or less in volume. Sounds simple and great, right? Sadly, it hasn’t caught on yet. read more..

Champlin’s Marina may be CLF’s oldest active case. Originally filed in 2003, the case has been to the Supreme Court (more than once), Superior Court (more than once), and the Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) (more than once). The most recent hearing before CRMC was Tuesday evening, July 31, 2012. Here is how this came about. In January 2011, the full CRMC voted unanimously to deny Champlin’s a permit to expand its marina in Block Island’s Great Salt Pond. Champlin’s appealed to the Superior Court, as it had a legal right to do. In the Superior Court, Champlin’s filed a brief raising a curious issue: Champlin’s claimed that it had suffered a violation of its equal protection rights because CRMC had granted a permit for Payne’s Dock to expand, but read more…

“Watch the doors. Doors are closing. There is more service immediately behind this train. Please wait for the next train. Doors are closing.” I find I am hearing this message more and more on the MBTA. So when the transit agency announced yesterday that average weekday ridership topped 400 million trips in FY2012, setting a new record, I was not the least bit surprised. read more..

Not a moment too soon, the Massachusetts Legislature has enacted important new clean energy legislation that will maintain the state’s momentum in advancing clean renewable energy solutions like wind and solar energy. We breathed a sigh of relief as the final favorable votes were taken on July 31 – the very last day of the Legislature’s formal 2-year session – sending to Governor Patrick’s desk An Act Relative to Competitively Priced Electricity. The legislation includes key provisions that are essential for ensuring Massachusetts reaches its renewable energy targets. And this highly welcome development comes in the nick of time, just as existing programs are hitting their limits. This means we can avoid a sokaslar slowdown and keep the wind blowing behind the state’s clean energy revolution. read more..

A week ago I had the pleasure of attending an event to celebrate the restoration of a tidal river. The Winnicut River – primarily located in Greenland, NH – is now the only dam-free river in the Great Bay estuary. Thanks to the hard work of the Winnicut River Watershed Coalition and numerous state and federal agencies, the project includes a new fish passage and, in addition to the dam removal, a restored shoreline. read more..

Summer is truly a blessed but all too short season in Maine. That is particularly true this year, when weather has been particularly magnificent after a very wet spring. But that has not been the case for most of the rest of the country which is in the grip of one of the worst droughts in over a century and suffering from more bouts of extreme weather. A number of recent articles and columns brought this point home to me in dramatic terms, including this piece about the impact of such extreme weather on basic infrastructure like roads, drinking water sources and power supply.In the face of this evidence of a changing climate and its threat to some of our very basic building blocks for our way of life – read more…

Environmental issues span the globe. When it comes to nuclear power, global action is needed. That’s why it was a privilege for CLF advocates to meet with a number of environmental lawyers from Japan, many of whom are members of the Japan Environmental Lawyers Federation. The tragedy of Fukushima shows the need for the US to stop giving nuclear power a free pass. Just yesterday another mishap at the accident-prone Vermont Yankee facility resulted in the draining of some of the radioactive cooling water. Enough already. Our conversation addressed how environmental groups operate. We also touched on some of the litigation tools available to protect our environment from the risks of nuclear power – from problems with the storage of waste, the possibilities of accidents, and the economic problems that nuclear read more…

This week on Talking Fish, read about lobsters in the latest Local Summer Fisheries post, learn about seafood festivals in New England this summer and fall, and read the latest Fish Talk in the News. read more..

Peer-to-peer (“P2P”) car-sharing is gathering some major mainstream steam in New England and the rest of the country. RelayRides, originally founded in Cambridge and now one of the major players in the P2P car-sharing space, has officially begun a partnership with General Motor’s OnStar service that will give millions of vehicle owners the ability to start making money off their vehicle in seconds. The new partnership has the potential to benefit not only the region’s environment, but also its economy and residents – cars owners and not, alike. For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, P2P car-sharing works by providing a platform, usually a web-based car-sharing service, that connects renters with a short-term need for a vehicle directly to a vehicle owner willing to rent out their personal vehicle read more…