Working Waterfront

Clean energy from a meeting of Iceland and Maine

By Cameron G. Brien What is the single largest commodity the nation of Iceland produces in a single year? Is it fish? Banking? The attractive, blonde descendants of Viking shield-maidens? It is, in fact, something much more abstract than any of those things. What Iceland produces more of than anything… SEE MORE

A right whale that has recovered from wounds linked to fishing gear.

Working Waterfront

Right whale story misled readers

By Patrice McCarron I was disheartened by the article on the plight of North Atlantic right whales on the front page of April’s The Working Waterfront. The story and accompanying photo misleads the public about interactions between the Maine lobster fishery and right whales and runs counter to the Island… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

DMR wins grant to study right whale protection

The Maine Department of Marine Resources has been awarded a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to improve the data used to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales. The $714,245 grant will support a three-year project beginning this summer to improve and add data on fishing gear that… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

South Portland ponders fishing pier upgrades

By Jacqueline Weaver Proposals for South Portland’s Portland Street Pier, a long time overnight station for local fishermen, range from the modest—adding parking spaces and giving the place a facelift—to the ambitious, with a rebuilt and enlarged pier that could lead to an active fish farming program. A rough estimate… SEE MORE

An advertisement used by the Maine Office of Tourism on the theme of originality.

Working Waterfront

Tourist numbers strong in 2017, but labor shortage looms

Traverse Burnett opened his presentation at the Governor’s Tourism Conference in Portland on April 4 by showing a photo of his children on vacation on Peaks Island in September 2013. It seemed like an odd choice, indulging in a personal slideshow in front of more than 500 people. The next… SEE MORE

Business

A right whale bearing the wounds of an entanglement with fishing gear.

Working Waterfront

DMR wins grant to gather more data on right whales, fishing gear

The Maine Department of Marine Resources has been awarded a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to improve the data used to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales. The $714,245 grant is administered by NOAA. The three-year project, which begins this summer, will support work on fishing gear that… SEE MORE

The Island Institute's press conference on the Cranberry Isles getting a USDA grant.

Working Waterfront

Cranberry Isles wins $1.3 million for internet upgrade

The Cranberry Isles learned this month it has won a $1.3 million USDA grant to pay for the construction of its broadband network. The work is complete on Islesford (Little Cranberry Island), one of three islands in the five-island Hancock municipality that will have access to the network. At a… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Contrary survey results are puzzling scientists

By Susie Arnold, Ph. D. and Heather Deese, Ph. D. Given the talk on the wharves all year, it was no surprise to hear the official 2017 numbers on Maine’s lobster fishery—110.8 million pounds with a value of $433.8 million, down nearly 22 million pounds from 2016. With this large… SEE MORE

A right whale entangled by fishing gear in Canadian waters.

Working Waterfront

When right whales die, lobstermen get nervous

Seventeen endangered North Atlantic right whales died in Canadian and U.S. waters in 2017. Now scientists are saying the increase in deaths and decrease of calving rates could mean the species’ “functional” extinction in just over 20 years. The situation is alarming Maine’s lobster fishermen, because some of the deaths… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Expanding economy forces the question: Who do we want to be?

In September, we’ll mark the ten-year anniversary of a frightening moment in our country’s history. Just weeks before the presidential election that saw Barack Obama defeat John McCain, George W. Bush’s treasury secretary reported that the U.S. banking system was on the brink of collapse. A bail-out was approved by… SEE MORE