Working Waterfront

Why we must modernize the bottle bill

Step into your local redemption center and what you will see is the beating heart of Maine’s most effective recycling and litter prevention program. These hard-working businesses hand sort thousands and thousands of bottles and cans—perhaps redeemed by your child’s classroom or sports team—ensuring a strong, successful market for recycling… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Feds learn about community, in-person

Kathleen Billings, Stonington’s longtime town manager, articulated some deep truths to representatives of the Northern Border Regional Commission (NRBC) during a recent visit. “This is our home,” she said. “Once you are on an island, there’s a different culture to it. You have to be self-sufficient. You have to figure… SEE MORE

Kelp harvest underway. PHOTO: JACK SULLIVAN

Working Waterfront

Aquaculture: A bigger picture

Aquaculture is the fastest growing food production sector in the world. The United Nation’s sustainable development goals identify aquaculture as playing a key role in development that safeguards “food security, livelihoods, human dignity, and natural resources.” As we find ourselves needing to produce more food to support a growing population,… SEE MORE

The opening session of the 2023 Artists & Makers Conference.

Working Waterfront

When artists gather, sparks fly

The staff at the Island Institute’s Archipelago store and gallery again presented its Artists & Makers Conference this year after a pandemic pause, celebrating the theme “Together Again!” More than 100 attended to take in eight sessions, live music, Pecha Kucha-style storytelling presentations, and more. The vibe at the conference… SEE MORE

An aerial view of North Haven, looking west. PHOTO: WILLIAM TREVASKIS

Working Waterfront

The spider web that is town government

Reflections is written by Island Institute Fellows, recent college grads who do community service work on Maine islands and in coastal communities through the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront. In a town the size of North Haven, all projects, tasks, functions, and dilemmas are interconnected. A select board… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

How a bill becomes law, Maine edition

The other day, I found myself in Augusta attending a legislative committee hearing and conversing about how a bill becomes a law with somebody who was at the legislature for the first time. So here is the short story: Bill ideas, or really just bill titles, need to be submitted… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Clam ‘garden’ sows sustainable future

Reflections is written by Island Institute Fellows, recent college grads who do community service work on Maine islands and in coastal communities through the Island Institute, publisher of The Working Waterfront. My alarm clock rings, I turn over and look at the time—it’s 4:48 a.m., still dark, very breezy, and… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Pondering the poverty question

I grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in a small ranch house on a quarter-acre of land in suburban New York. When I was ten, my parents doubled the size of the house with a first-floor addition. “Poor people” were those who lived on the other side of a two-lane… SEE MORE

Front Street Shipyard's multihull boat is still in the design process.

Working Waterfront

Will lobstermen ever embrace multihulls?

Along the Maine coast, spring arrives with an explosion of daffodils, the sound of peepers, and a pilgrimage of spotted salamanders crossing darkened roads. Life also returns to boatyards that provide winter homes to Maine’s lobster fleet, as fishermen ready their boats for another season on the water. To the… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Feds ordered to re-work whale rules

In a major victory for Maine’s lobster industry, a federal appeals court in June ordered the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to go back to the drawing board and re-work the most recent federal regulation to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales. In its decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals… SEE MORE