U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Northeast Region @ flickr. Creative Commons.

There could not be a more perfect time for a Great Bay-Piscataqua Waterkeeper. Working with CLF, I view one of my key roles as rallying citizens and communities around one purpose, cleaning up the estuary. Everyone living here has an impact on the estuary in one way or another.  It is our responsibility to limit that impact and become better stewards of our environment. Whether you live near the Squamscott River in Newfields or Stratham, or near Spinney Creek on the Maine side, we all need be more involved in the decisions that will determine the future of this wonderful natural resource.

Last Friday, I attended a meeting that was designed to foster improved communication among those who care about the future of the estuary. Convened by the Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership, the meeting was part of an ongoing series of discussions known as the Great Bay Dialogue.  There are many individuals, groups and town officials concerned about the future health of the estuary, but a lack of coordination has always derailed past attempts to act as a single voice.

Twenty plus people attended this meeting representing state agencies, local government, land trusts and a mix of non-profits. In a large group, there are always differences on how to move forward. As Manager of the Great Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve for twenty-two years, I have participated in countless meetings on the management and protection of New Hampshire’s most important coastal ecosystem. So why was this one any different?

Everyone there made a commitment to work towards a cleaner and healthier estuary for one simple reason – the risk is too high if we wait any longer to act. The estuary is nearing a tipping point and once crossed, we may never be able to recover the ecosystem. The goal is to come up with solutions now that, in the long run, will cost far less than if we delay and allow the estuary to crash.

Achieving this goal will not be easy, but the more stakeholders we have involved, the greater chance of success. Clean water improves our quality of life and helps to promote a sustainable economy. From big fixes to small ones, we all have a role to play.

As Reserve manager, I helped to create the Great Bay Resource Protection Partnership. The group, to date, has invested over 62 million dollars in federal and private funds to protect and conserve land throughout the Great Bay region. Now is the time to protect that investment by increasing our efforts to improve water quality in the estuary.

Join the dialogue and help me in the fight to save the estuary from reaching that tipping point.  I can be reached at 603.498.3545 or pwellenberger@clf.org.

Sometimes, the failure to act is as harmful as an act itself.

Yesterday, I sent a letter to Patricia Aho, Commissioner of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, whose recent failure to act on water certification standards for Flagstaff Lake has resulted in the state losing its ability to have any say in the matter for the next 25 years. You can access a copy of that letter here, or read it in full below.

Documents obtained through a Maine Freedom of Access Act (FOAA) request now lead us to conclude one thing: we believe Aho’s failure to act was intentional. Consider the following two points, outlined in the letter:

• Aho had been briefed on the status of the water quality certification application for the Flagstaff Storage Project by the applicant and its attorney and had met with Mr. Mullen, the head of the lead bureau on that application;
• Aho and her staff were aware of the options available to the State with respect to the application.

As stated in the letter, “this makes Ms. DePoy-Warren’s statements of December 9, 2011 that the failure to act on the application in a timely manner was due to reorganization efforts and changed assignments at best completely uninformed and at worst deliberately false… Even more troubling is the conclusion one can logically draw” that Aho “made the decision to not act on the application and thereby waive the State’s rights to certify whether the Flagstaff Storage Project’s new license meets our water quality standards.”

This deliberate inaction is troubling. As I said in a recent joint statement, it not only hurts Maine people who use Flagstaff Lake, but also “raises real concerns about the DEP’s ability and willingness to exercise Maine’s rights to control, manage and protect our natural resources.”

For the full letter, keep reading.

January 3rd, 2011

Patricia Aho, Commissioner January 3, 2012
Maine Department of Environmental Protection
17 State House Station
Augusta, ME 04333-0017

Re: Flagstaff Storage Project #L-19313-32-G-N

Dear Commissioner Aho:

We have finished a review of records provided by your Department pursuant to a December 9, 2011, Freedom of Access Act request from our organization, the Conservation Law Foundation.  That review leads us to conclude that the Department, under your direction, intentionally waived the State’s rights under section 401 of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1341(a), to certify that the relicensing of Florida Power & Light’s Flagstaff Storage Project meets Maine’s water quality standards.  That conclusion is contrary to the assertions of the Department’s spokeswoman, Ms. DePoy-Warren, who publicly stated that the failure to act in a timely manner on the FPL application was neither intentional nor insidious.  While we will never definitively know about the latter, as set forth below, we believe the failure to act was certainly intentional.

As you know, for the past several years, a new license for the Flagstaff Storage Project, #L-19313-32-G-N, had been stayed by FERC based on the denial of the Section 401 water quality certification by the Board of Environmental Protection in 2004, a decision appealed and upheld by the Maine Law Court in 2007. Since then, FPL had filed an application for a water quality certification for the Flagstaff Storage Project as a placeholder while it worked with the Department staff to identify a means to meet the water quality standards identified by the Board in its original order.  The Clean Water Act provides that if an application for water quality certification is not acted upon within a year of its submittal, the State is deemed to waive its right to make or to withhold such a certification. To avoid such a waiver, the Department’s practice had been to request FPL to withdraw and refile the application. Failing that, the Department would deny the application.  FPL, as it had with its other hydroelectric projects, would withdraw its application for this project and then re-file, thereby “re-starting the clock.”  (This is a practice followed not just by FPL but by most other owners of hydropower projects seeking water quality certification from Maine.)  Thus, FPL filed its water quality certification application for the Flagstaff Storage Project with the Department on November 15, 2009, then withdrew and re-filed its application on November 16, 2010.

As you also know, action by the Department on water quality certifications applications had for many years been coordinated by a longtime Department employee, Dana Murch.  Mr. Murch announced that he would retire at the end of the summer in 2011 and documents produced in response to our FOAA request establish that he began preparing for the transfer of his responsibilities to other employees at the Department in early summer.  Specifically, in June, Mr. Murch and senior managers at the Department, including Michael Mullen, current head of the Department’s Land and Water Bureau, scheduled a series of meetings to discuss the transition of his work load. These meetings specifically included discussion of the Flagstaff Storage Project water quality certification application. Indeed, Mr Murch prepared a memorandum to the file dated July 13, 2011, concerning the history and status of the Flagstaff Storage Project and specifically noting that “Unless DEP acts to approve or deny the pending application for water quality certification on or before November 15, 2011, certification will be deemed waived by operation of law.”

On June 17, 2011, you were named acting Commissioner of the Department, subsequently nominated to take that position permanently on September 9, 2011 and confirmed on September 28, 2011 by the Senate. The documents produced by the Department in response to our FOAA request establish that shortly after you were named acting Commissioner, Pierce Atwood’s Matt Manahan, a partner at your former law firm and FPL’s attorney, contacted you to discuss FPL’s Flagstaff and Brassua Storage Projects and requested a meeting with you, Mr. Murch and representatives of FPL.  A meeting that you organized was set for August 5, 2011 at your office. On the following Monday, August 8, 2011, you sent an email to Mr. Mullen (delivered at 8:11 a.m. and read at 8:40 a.m.) stating the following – “Hi Mike – We need to talk about Flagstaff and Brassawa [sic] when you get a chance.  Thanks!  Pattie.”

A subsequent memorandum from Mr. Murch dated August 12, 2011 to DEP staff, including Mr. Mullen (who was by then overseeing all staffing of hydropower projects for the Department) attached a spreadsheet that listed the staff that would be overseeing the various hydropower projects in the state.  Ms. Dawn Hallowell was listed as being responsible for the Flagstaff Storage Project but it is our understanding that, at the direction of the Commissioner’s office, Ms. Hallowell never received that file.

Thus, by the time that Mr. Murch retired on August 31, 2011, the documents strongly support the following: you had been briefed on the status of the water quality certification application for the Flagstaff Storage Project by the applicant and its attorney and had met with Mr. Mullen, the head of the lead bureau on that application; and that you and your staff were aware of the options available to the State with respect to the application.  This makes Ms. DuPoy-Warren’s statements of December 9, 2011 that the failure to act on the application in a timely manner was due to reorganization efforts and changed assignments at best completely uninformed and at worst deliberately false.

Even more troubling is the conclusion one can logically draw that after you met with the FPL and its attorney, you made the decision to not act on the application and thereby waive the State’s rights to certify whether the Flagstaff Storage Project’s new license meets our water quality standards.  While the Department is legally authorized to make such a decision under the Clean Water Act, the manner in which this decision was made, particularly after the State had invested significant resources over the last 7 years in defending the right to determine when a project does or does not meet our water quality standards, and the subsequent response by the Department when the waiver came to light, is unacceptable.

We feel strongly that the documents we have seen to date support our conclusion.  If, however, we have not reviewed all of the relevant documents or there are other facts we are not aware of, we would be most interested in meeting with you to discuss them.  If we are wrong and this was indeed a case of a blown deadline, then the Department should be aggressively acting to ensure that FERC condition the license for the Flagstaff Storage Project to ensure that Maine’s water quality standards are met and instituting procedures to prevent such failures in the future.  If our current understanding of the situation does not change, we believe that at a minimum you should clarify that the Department decision to waive its rights to determine if the Flagstaff Storage Project met Maine’s water quality standards was in fact intentional and should include an apology to the stakeholders who were counting on the State to exercise its rights under the Clean Water Act.

Respectfully,
Sean Mahoney
Vice President and Director
CLF Maine

cc: Peter J. Carney

Maine has a new motto: We can get there from here.

As Washington has failed to advance clean energy legislation, and Governor LePage has expressed open hostility to the state’s renewable portfolio standards (RPS), I am reminded of that famous quip from Bert and I: “You can’t get they-ah from he-ah.” For Mainers concerned about Maine’s dependence on expensive, dirty fuels, and sincere in their interest in building a sustainable economy for the years to come, this quip has become a frustrating reality – a reality we can change, with your help.

CLF is a part of a coalition of groups from the private and nonprofit sectors, the Maine Citizens For Clean Energy, www.cleaneenergymaine.org,  that is working to enact a law by public referendum that would increase the amount of renewable energy generated in the state and increase our ability to implement energy efficiency measures that would reduce our reliance on oil and other fossil fuels, saving us money and helping our environment at the same time.

To do this, we need to get the referendum  on the ballot for state-wide vote in November 2012 by gathering more than 70,000 signatures from Maine voters by January 2012. The signs are strong: we have met with considerable early success, are ahead of our goals, and see evidence of strong support from Maine residents.

This year, on November 8^th, 28,000 Maine voters registered their interest in putting a citizen’s initiative on next year’s ballot to expand clean energy in Maine. The coalition, as Environment Maine said in their press release, had set a goal of 20,000 only two weeks before. In our current effort to collect 70,000 signatures, we are well ahead of our goals.

This should not be surprising, as polls of Maine residents have consistently shown strong support for energy efficiency. One poll, conducted by NRDC, showed “Nearly 80% of voters back the use and expansion of energy efficiency technologies.” Another, conducted by Portland-based Critical Insights and discussed by NRCM, “shows that Maine voters overwhelming oppose specific environmental rollback proposals now before the Maine Legislature.”

Groups in Maine have heard and are working to promote the interest of Maine voters. Already, CLF is working with a coalition of Maine businesses, workers, health professionals, citizens and public interest groups. We are joined by – Reed & Reed, general contractor, NRCM, and the Maine Renewable Energy Association, among others.

The message Maine voters have delivered so far is clear: We can get there from here.  We need your help.  Please sign a petition supporting the referendum or better yet, volunteer to gather signatures in your community.

This ballot initiative comes at a crucial time and allows for a broad discussion by the people of Maine as to the value of renewable and energy efficiency. If successful, the ballot measure would require that the current RPS be increased by 20 percent by 2020 and would ensure adequate funding from utilities for all cost-effective efficiency measures.

If you’d like to help ensure the passage of this ballot initiative, you can do two things.

First, help us gather signatures. If you haven’t signed the petition, please do so now.

And, secondly, if you’re willing to volunteer – more than willing to provide you with all you’ll need. Simply get in touch with us here at our Portland, Maine, office.

Help us, and our broad coalition, to deliver to Maine what voters want: expanded energy efficiency and, with it, a clean, clear path forward.

Millinocket, Maine – a town struggling to reshape its economy – deserves good jobs. Here at CLF, we watch and hope for the success of the East Millinocket mill and the eventual opening of the Millinocket mill.  However, at a closing price of $17 million, and at $250,000 for annual operations, the state’s recent acquisition of the Dolby landfill in East Millinocket has delivered these jobs at a price that is too high and set a precedent that is too dangerous to accept.

In an Op/Ed that appeared recently in the Bangor Daily News, I argued the importance of understanding all of the costs associated with the Dolby landfill. Let’s quickly review those costs.

First, a majority of the costs will be borne by all Maine taxpayers, regardless of the success of the mills. The Dolby landfill costs $250,000 per year to operate and $17 million to close. The state is now the sole entity legally obligated to cover those costs. While the Legislature appears poised to appropriate the necessary fund for operations (after a local town balked), no funds have been set aside for the $17 million in closure costs, nor is there any clear plan to raise those funds.

Secondly, acquisition of the Dolby landfill and its liabilities came at the cost of ignoring the Maine Constitution. Article IX of the state’s Constitution, a provision that has been in place for two centuries and is intended to keep state government from making rash decisions, was inconvenient to the timing of this particular deal. As a consequence, the administration did not even address the issue. Inconvenience is not an acceptable reason for ignoring those constitutional requirements.

Thirdly, this acquisition – the state’s second in the past few years – further challenges the state’s solid waste policy. The state has a statutory goal of reducing, reusing or recycling waste. The recent acquisition of another landfill in Old Town has created a new conflict between the landfills themselves, which must compete for solid waste to generate revenue to pay for operating and closure costs.

This either means that the administration’s claim that the Dolby landfill would be expanded to help pay for costs is highly unlikely — why would anyone pay to truck garbage to Millinocket if there is capacity in Old Town? — or it means that the application of the Old Town landfill needs to be re-examined.

Finally, as each of these arguments suggests, there is no strategy or vision for reducing the amount of solid waste we landfill in Maine, which would save all of us money.

For more a more extensive review of the costs of the Dolby mill, read my Op/Ed in the Bangor Daily News in full. You can also read some of my other blogs on this topic:

• LePage Forges Ahead in Quest for Troubled Landfill
• What’s next for the Dolby landfill?
• Maine’s Acquisition of Dolby Landfill Sets Dangerous Precedent

                Wouldn’t it be great if Maine law required that our power companies must save their customers money by investing in the cheapest form of energy, known as energy efficiency, while simultaneously ensuring that the sources of power sold in Maine increasingly come from clean, renewable energy sources?  If you agree, you are not alone. A coalition of Maine businesses, workers, health professionals, citizens and public interest groups, including CLF, feels the same way and we have initiated a referendum for next year’s election that will make it happen—with your help.

                To do so, our coalition will have to gather more than 70,000 signatures from Mainers seeking to place this issue on a ballot for state-wide vote in November 2012. This Election Day (tomorrow- November 8—VOTE!) keep an eye out at your polling place for folks collecting signatures on our petition and join our cause.

                What exactly are we proposing? To make changes to existing law that would require that a portion of our electricity bills fund cost-effective energy efficiency efforts throughout the state. Cost-effective energy efficiency means reducing the amount of electricity that we use, by investing in improvements to our industries, businesses and homes in a manner that saves more money than was spent on the improvements. On average, these kinds of investments save three times as much as they cost. If left untouched, Maine’s currently planned investment in energy efficiency will capture only 25% or so of the potential available savings. These are savings that will reduce everyone’s electricity bill, avoid the need for new expensive electricity lines and limit the amount of electricity that needs to be generated—let’s not squander them.

                We are also proposing that a requirement in Maine law, providing that at least 10% of electricity sold in the state must come from new renewable energy sources, should be increased so that 20% of our electricity comes from clean renewables. The effect of this requirement would be to increase the development of home-grown renewable energy projects that generate jobs in Maine while reducing our energy-related pollution. In combination, energy efficiency and increased renewables will mean Mainers pay less to the power company while doing more to preserve their quality of air and place.

                Why are we undertaking this? Governor LePage and the current leadership in the Legislature have made clear that, not only do they not support money-saving energy efficiency and the development of renewable energy, but they are attempting to scale back both from their current levels. We don’t think that approach is good for Maine and we believe a majority of Maine people agree with us. This ballot initiative allows the people to decide this issue of critical importance for our economy and our environment.   

                If you are interested in helping us in this campaign, please contact the CLF Maine office.

Much of CLF‘s work these days is focused on the challenge of global warming and in particular reducing immediately, structurally and effectively the release into the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and the other “greenhouse gases” causing the problem.

This is, of course, not all that we do.  But much of our work on this over-arching problem overlaps with other important work like reducing air pollution that directly harms the health and lives of people or providing good transit access to urban communities, thus providing access to jobs for residents of those communities while reducing automobile trips and emissions. Still other CLF work, like protecting and nurturing our fisheries and forests, ensures that management of those resources is mindful of the changing climate while preserving unique ecosystems both for their own benefit and to ensure that future generations will be able to use and enjoy special places and resources.

When we step up and assert the benefit to the climate of, for example, wind farms in Maine or in Nantucket Sound or energy efficient light bulbs or the need to consider the climate in considering a transmission line across New Hampshire or in a merger proposed between utilities the question comes back to us: is it worth the cost?  Often it is a cost measured in dollars but sometimes it is a “cost” in terms of a view from a house or a beach or a mountain changing.

Responding to this question presents us with two challenges: first we need to show that the result we are advocating in favor of will actually reduce emissions and then we need to show that the need for those emissions reductions outweighs the cost of taking the action we are advocating.

One good example of how we show that an action will actually reduce emissions comes from the world of wind farms.  In those cases we can present expert testimony about how deploying wind resources will reduce emissions of carbon dioxide.  And that analysis isn’t just created by our experts, it draws upon reports done by the planners and operators of New England’s wholesale electricity system – work that is sometimes summed up in official summaries and nice presentations that include informative charts like this one showing how when the system gets 9% of its power from wind that emissions drop by 9% but when it gets 20% of its power from wind the emissions drop by 24% for reasons explained in the report:

And then we turn to the question of showing that this all matters and the cost of taking action outweighs the price of that action.  In our cases, again using the wind farm example, we use expert testimony.

But the bottom line is that we as a society are getting to the point where the cost of global warming is no longer a horrible possibility- it is an immediate reality, all around the world from Russia to Texas and points in between like New England.  And what we are experiencing is only a preview of what is to come and a strong reminder of the need to take action.

The Land Use Regulatory Commission has begun deliberations on the Bowers Mountain Wind project, which CLF supported as an intervener.  Sean Mahoney presented a closing statement in support of the project  (Sean Mahoney Closing Statement 10-5-11) which built upon the testimony of Abigail Krich (Abigail Krich Direct Testimony 6-10-11 and Dr. Cameron Wake (Dr. Cameron Wake Direct Testimony 6-10-11).  As with many wind power projects in Maine today, the biggest issue for LURC to resolve is the project’s impact on scenic resources in the area.  The testimony of Roger Milliken (Roger Milliken Direct Testimony 6-10-11) spoke to the push and pull of that issue eloquently.  A decision from LURC on the project is expected sometime in early November.

1. Register your materials – You must first fill out a form indicating what materials you would like to dispose of and return it to the Maine Board of Pesticides Control (BPC) by September 30, 2011.
2. Wait for your disposal date – After the BPC processes your registration form, they will send you a date (during the month of October 2011) and a location (one of four sites) for you to bring your materials. BPC notification documents should arrive to you at least 10 days prior to your drop-off date. 
3. Bring your notification papers – Don’t forget to bring your BPC paperwork with you when you drop off your materials on your designated disposal date.
4. For those of you who want to do the right thing with your old pesticides but just need a little help in finding the right way to go about it, you can find this and other information at: http://www.maine.gov/agriculture/pesticides/public/obsolete.htm

Perhaps the only good thing about tight financial times is that it forces us to carefully examine our priorities.  For the Maine DOT, that financial reality resulted in the practical and smart decision to shelve the Wiscasset Bypass project.  The preferred bypass route, meant to alleviate traffic on Route 1 in Wiscasset, ME, was shaping up to be expensive– upwards of $100 million. In addition, it would have taken decades to complete, and circumvented the charming downtown of Wiscasset, displaced over 30 homes and businesses and taken land from over 70 landowners in the process.  It would also have ended up being the second longest bridge in Maine.  All of this to alleviate the area’s traffic volume, which has actually been decreasing since 2000.

The summer crowds at the popular Red's Eats are a major contributor to the traffic congestion along Route 1 in Wiscasset, ME. (Photo credit: TripAdvisor)

The writing was on the wall in December 2010, when during a Midcoast Bypass Task Force meeting the DOT laid out the financial reality of what the Department was facing. They reported a $3.3 billion shortfall over the next 10 years and major competing needs for existing infrastructure, such as the Kittery Bridge (which requires $200-$300 million in immediate funding) and immediate repairs needed for arterial and collector highways, all competing against the sobering reality of dwindling fuel tax revenues, a lack of political will to increase fuel taxes or generate other funding mechanisms and a big unknown hanging over the federal funding program.

Yesterday, the Maine DOT Commissioner David Bernhardt announced that the ongoing studies examining a bypass route would be cancelled.  This is the second major transportation planning effort to be cancelled by the LePage Administration– the first was the Gateway 1 project that examined land use and transportation plans for 110 miles of Route 1 from Brunswick to Prospect, ME.

The cancellation of the Wiscasset Bypass may be pegged on the Bald Eagle that decided to build a nest right smack in the middle of the preferred corridor (referred to as N8c) for the bypass; but the truth is that the nest merely provided the Department an opportunity to take a step back and carefully evaluate the wisdom of spending upwards of $100 million on a bypass that would alleviate traffic congestion for a mere 6-8 weeks in the summer.  A significant amount of that congestion can be directly attributable to pedestrian and vehicle crossings in lower downtown Wiscasset.  And yet, dating far back as 1958, when the Wiscasset Master Plan– which included a call for a bypass– was first developed, proposals for a major expenditure of funds for highway expansion have been seen as the only way to solve the congestion problem.

Tighter purse strings provide us with a great opportunity here.  Budget conscious alternatives, such as a traffic signal, a pedestrian bridge over Route 1 or a tunnel under Route 1, reconfiguration of parking in Wiscasset’s downtown business community or a traffic control officer directing the flow of pedestrians and cars can now be given the common sense consideration they deserve.