Tag: Mack Point

WERU News Report 1/28/15

Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Engineer/Reporter: John Greenman

Interactive news report covering issues with a local connection and taking calls. Today: Many Searsport veterans of the successful fight against a massive LPG tank in that town had just started a process of coming together with other residents to look at what kinds of economic development they DO want in town, when suddenly they found themselves faced with another proposed development that is raising alarms. We’ll be getting all the latest on that with our guests in the studio (Peter Taber and Harlan McLaughlin) and taking your calls as well. Before we start on that topic though, we want to take you to the University of Maine Trustee’s meeting on Monday where they made history by becoming the first land grant university system to vote to divest from coal.

WERU News Report 3/11/14

Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Contributing Producer: Carolyn Coe

Segment 1:
The Maine House of Representatives voted to pass LD1252 “An Act To Improve Maine’s Economy and Energy Security with Solar and Wind Energy” by a margin of 95 to 47 earlier today. The bill will now be taken up by the Senate. (Audio from the house floor pre-vote)

Segment 2:
In other news from the state house today, cell phone labeling legislation also moved forward after lengthy debate on the house floor. LD1013 “An Act To Create the Children’s Wireless Protection Act” would require more prominent warning labels on cell phones sold in Maine, of the “health effects associated with nonthermal effects of cellular telephone radiation”. Here is some of the house debate on that issue

Segment 3:
WERU’s Carolyn Coe traveled to Washington, DC for the annual AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) conference this month.
-People gathered outside the annual AIPAC conference to demonstrate against AIPAC’s support for continued illegal settlement building and the occupation of Palestine, and to call for diplomacy, not war, with Iran.
-Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink, cites evidence that AIPAC’s influence in the US Congress is lessening, a little.
-The situation in Gaza remains extremely difficult. Most attempting to travel to Gaza in solidarity with Palestinians for International Women’s Day were stopped at the Cairo airport and deported.

Segment 4:
In other news, over the weekend, the members of Maine Lobstering Union – Local 207 voted unanimously to oppose the expansion dredging of Searsport Harbor. There has been a great deal of controversy—and even contradictory information—about plans to make the channel there 5 feet deeper. Supporters say the depth needs to be expanded to 40 feet to accommodate larger ships and increase shipping traffic. Opponents have pointed out that Portland harbor is the same depth as Searsport currently, and does a great deal of business, and that there is already a deep water port in Eastport.
Most of the opponents of expansion dredging have voiced support of routine maintenance dredging, but there is concern about the Army Corps of Engineers plan to dump the dredged materials elsewhere in Penobscot Bay. While the ACoE recently stated that the materials are clean, and would not pose a risk to the fisheries in the bay, recent testing of the sediment near the adjacent docks has revealed a long list of heavy metals, carcinogens and endocrine disrupters – many present in levels many times above the reporting levels…

WERU News Report 11/6/13

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

31 Maine Legislators have signed onto a letter to the US Army Corps of Engineers, requesting a Comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement or “at the very least a Supplemental Environmental Assessment” for the controversial Searsport Harbor dredging project. If completed, the project would allow access for larger ships. It would also result in the need to dispose of what has been estimated to be close to 1 million cubic yards of sediment – sediment from an area that has seen more than 100 years of chemical companies, industrial spills and questionable disposal of waste along the shoreline. The dredged material would then be dumped elsewhere in Penobscot Bay, possibly in a dump site between Belfast and Islesboro. This has raised serious concerns about the potential impacts on the environment and the fisheries in the area.

State legislators and representatives from the Maine Chapter of the Sierra Club and Islesboro Island Trust held a press conference at the Belfast Boathouse this morning, to explain their concerns. (Coverage of the press conference, and interviews with Marietta Ramsdell of “Friends of Sears Island”, and Ron Huber of “Friends of Penobscot Bay”

WERU News Report 9/18/13

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Today we’re following up on a news story unfolding on the coast in Searsport. Chemical companies have been located on the coast there, at Mack Point, and Kidder Point- near Sears Island –for more than 100 years. A group called Friends of Penobscot Bay has recently obtained records revealing a history of chemical spills, and raising serious questions about the disposal of highly dangerous by-products, possibly in layers up to 14 feet deep, on the shoreline. State and Federal agencies are starting to get involved in the investigation. Plans to dredge the harbor at Mack Point have hit a snag as area lobstermen voice their concerns about what might be stirred up and released into Penobscot Bay.
We spoke with Ron Huber, director of Friends of Penobscot Bay, earlier today, to get an update on the situation, including what they are finding as they sift through the old DEP records they uncovered

FMI: http://penobscotbay.blogspot.com/

WERU News Report 9/11/13

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Production assistance: John Greenman, Carolyn Coe, Matt Murphy

Segment 1: Maine’s Aging Population – state and federal policies – press conference in Bangor organized by Food&Medicine, featuring several local speakers.
Segment 2: An alternative to the official story about what happened in Syria, raised by Lawrence Reichard at a speak out in Bangor last week.
Segment 3: Toxic “layer cake” at Kidder and Mack Points in Searsport? Interview with Ron Huber, Friends of Penobscot Bay

WERU News Report 12/7/11

Broadcast Time: 4pm

Program Topic: An update on the Liquified Propane Gas tank facility proposal for Mack Point (Searsport)

Key Discussion Points:
What questions and concerns are being raised about the project by local people?
Why are people organizing in opposition?
Where is the project in the approval process and what steps are being taken to slow things down?

Guests by name and affiliation: Astrig Tanguay, local business owner and organizer with “Thanks But No Tank”

FMI: www.thanksbutnotank.org http://www.facebook.com/pages/Searsport-LPG-Tank-Protest/177114419044869

Host: Amy Browne
Engineer: Amy Browne