Working Waterfront

Portland pier dredge could use new technology

On a raw spring day at the beginning of May, a geotechnical team drilled into the ocean floor in the shallow waters just east of the U.S. Coast Guard station in South Portland. The team was getting borings to help determine if the site is appropriate for Maine’s first… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Right whales may be bypassing Gulf of Maine

The right whale, one of the world's largest and most-endangered marine mammals, is in a slow, precarious recovery. Population estimates hover around 500, a modest gain from the early 1990s, when the species numbered fewer than 300. International law prohibited hunting right whales beginning in 1949, and U.S. law designated… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Paul Anderson succeeds Robin Alden at fishery nonprofit

The Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries (MCCF) has named Paul Anderson as its new executive director. Anderson will begin working at the Stonington nonprofit in September and will fully assume executive director duties Jan. 1. Anderson will succeed founder Robin Alden as executive director, who is stepping down after 14… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The ticks don’t care

In the 1980s and 1990s when I was teaching at Unity College, the outdoor recreation professors drilled a memorable sentence into every generation of student: “The woods don’t care.” It meant that along with being remarkably beautiful, the forest is remarkably dangerous. The oaks and cathedral-like firs do no more… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Weather, The Great War and a homeward bound schooner

Let’s start with the weather. It’s April, that often cruelest of months, as this is being written. In Maine, April is a flirt, flashing a warm, beckoning smile one day, and spitting snow the next. This winter followed the pattern of last year’s, easier on the snow and cold—though in… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Native wisdom measuring Maine, verse by verse

Booker’s Point by Megan Grumbling. Denton, Texas: University of North Texas Press “Come to a fork, you gotta take/it, they say” When I was growing up on Long Island, New York, my parents hired a local man, Fred Grimshaw, to look after our property. He knew how to do everything—trim hedges,… SEE MORE

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Warmer waters pushing northern shrimp out of Gulf of Maine

By Susie Arnold, Ph. D. and Heather Deese, Ph. D. This winter was the fourth consecutive year of a moratorium on fishing for northern shrimp. Management of the fishery remains a subject of discussion. The small, sweet northern shrimp are an Arctic species, and are at the southernmost extent of… SEE MORE

Tenants Harbor lobsterman Hale Miller harvests seaweed in Muscle Ridge Channel in Penobscot Bay.

Working Waterfront

Landmark ruling blocks access to seaweed harvesters

A March 16 Washington County Superior Court ruling will allow private landowners to block harvester access to rockweed in the intertidal zone. The ruling is likely to be appealed to the state’s Supreme Judicial Court. The plaintiffs, Washington County landowners Kenneth and Carl Ross and the Roque Island Gardner Homestead Corporation,… SEE MORE

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Dancing with the woodcock as a rite of spring

In the cold damp beginning of April, I walked out to check my garden, looking for any signs of life. Where were the snowdrops I planted last fall? I thought they would be up by now. Still, I know spring is on its way by the activity of the early… SEE MORE

Students hold a “blade” of kelp they’ve grown.

Working Waterfront

This teacher treats his students like research assistants

In his classroom at the Edna Drinkwater School in Northport, John Van Dis asks questions before he knows their answers. It’s an unusual approach for a teacher to take, but for a science teacher, it makes sense. Van Dis believes his grade 6 and 7 students should learn the way… SEE MORE