Bigelow Scientists Get NASA Grant

Bigelow Laboratory scientists Dr. Joaquim Goes and Dr. Helga do Rosario Gomes have received a $1.18 million grant from NASA to investigate the effects of global warming on marine life in the Arabian Sea.

According to Goes, the genesis for this three-year, multi- investigator project was their recent study, "Warming of the Eurasian Landmass is Making the Arabian Sea More Productive," published in the prestigious journal Science, which showed how climate change was causing large and widespread blooms of phytoplankton in the Arabian Sea.

Phytoplankton are tiny ocean plants that form the base of the ocean food chain. Goes and his colleagues found that since 1997, the Arabian Sea has been experiencing record increases in phytoplankton because of intensification of monsoons. Using data from several NASA satellites, they were able to track a trail of evidence, which led them to conclude that the blooms of phytoplankton were being triggered by the meltdown of snow over the Himalayan-Tibetan mountain range, caused by global warming.

They also will study how global warming will influence rainfall patterns over Southwest Asia. This study is important in light of increasing incidences of large-scale fish mortality off the coast of Oman, and erratic rainfall over the Indian subcontinent and elsewhere in Southwest Asia.

Established in 1974 in West Boothbay Harbor, the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences has been a research center for oceanographers and marine scientists worldwide. The nonprofit laboratory’s primary focus is the biological productivity of the world’s oceans.

- Boothbay Register

www.boothbayregister.maine.com

JEFFERSON

Businesses object new road postings will be damaging

The unexpected posting of weight limit signs on state roads in and around Jefferson threw local businesses into a tailspin earlier this month as they calculated the economic effect of not being able to haul goods for the next two months. The state roads in question have not been posted in the past.

Businesses that rely on the roads for moving freight received no warning, other than the sudden appearance of a weight limit posting on Route 218.

The posting prompted an uproar that brought Department of Transportation Commissioner David Cole to Jefferson on March 16.

"We should have communicated better," Cole said. "We’re down here doing it now."

Crammed into the log cabin office at the NC Hunt Lumber Mill on Route 215, about 25 local businessmen and a legislator told Cole they wanted more than better communication.

They wanted the commissioner to stop the postings.

Were the state to follow through with posting routes 215, 126 and 32, Rob Hunt said, his family mill and building supply store on Route 215 would become part of a DOT "Bermuda Triangle" in which trucks could not get in or out.

Cole said he would delay posting the roads while he consulted with engineers.

"Their job is to preserve the road," he said.

Cole said his job as commissioner is to be consistent when applying road-posting policy across the state.

"It’s an ongoing community issue, because we’re not going to rebuild these roads overnight."

In the meantime, truckers were asked to use caution when hauling on the potentially soft roads, as frost melts in the roadbeds. Last week, state roads in Jefferson remained open, including Route 218, from which the DOT agreed to remove the posting.

- The Lincoln County News

www.mainelincolncountynews.com

HANCOCK

Coastal Recycling grows with focus on fun, service

Laughter isn’t what most people expect to hear when they go about delivering and sorting their newsprint, cardboard, soup cans, milk jugs, pickle jars, margarine tubs and other reusable refuse at their community’s recycling center.

But guffaws and good humor filled the drafty interior of Coastal Recycling Center on Route 182 recently as forklift driver Wen Willey, clearly enjoying herself as she buzzed about, swiftly shifted and stacked 4-foot-high metal cages brimming with paperboard.

Her co-workers Joyce Levesque and Cindy Armstrong, meanwhile, helped a steady stream of residents put their egg cartons, baby food jars, tuna fish cans, condiment bottles, aluminum pie plates and other recyclables into the proper bins.

Friendly and good-humored, the female trio is the dynamic force behind one of Maine’s two smallest regional centers focused only on recycling solid waste.

Coastal Recycling, a nonprofit corporation serving six eastern Hancock County towns and similar in size to the Unity Area Regional Recycling Center, has steadily grown since its founding in 1991.

Its eastern Hancock County operation, which handles recyclables for Hancock, Franklin, Sullivan, Sorrento, Gouldsboro and Winter Harbor, processed and marketed 566 tons of reusable refuse last year, compared to 417 tons in 2003, according to the Maine Resource Recovery Association.

Coastal Recycling, which received a 2005 Environmental Merit Award from the federal Environmental Protection Agency for its program that diverts hundreds of tons annually from the landfill or incinerator, is finishing a 3,000-square-foot addition, enabling the grass-roots organization to boost its future capacity.

"As a regional organization serving six small coastal communities, they have been highly successful at getting grants to expand their recycling capability and provide better service to citizens over the years," Hank Tyler, senior planner at the Maine State Planning Office, said earlier this month.

"Joyce and her crew run a strong program that provides good service. They are also proud as punch of being strong and serving the public well."

- The Ellsworth American.

www.ellsworthamerican.com

EASTPORT

Community college poised to become marine center

Exactly 30 years to the month since the establishment of the Marine Trades Center in Eastport was announced, a new phase in the boat school’s life is taking shape.

The city of Eastport is expected to acquire the property and buildings from the Maine Community College System on July 1 as part of the transition that will allow Husson College of Bangor to offer boat-building classes at Eastport in September.

Renamed the Maine Marine Technology Center, the facility will be a public-private partnership that not only will continue to offer boat-building instruction but will serve as a center for economic development programs for the marine industry on Cobscook Bay.

Husson plans to recruit a first-year class for next fall and will be sharing the facility during the year with the Washington County Community College, which has been providing the educational programs at the Marine Technology Center and will be teaching the second- year class.

The operating costs for the facility, which last year amounted to $425,000, including personnel, will be split among the participants. Eastport City Manager George Finch said no local property tax dollars are being used in the process.

"This is a very exciting time for the city, as the events about to unfold are part of the long-term strategy of taking our destiny in our own hands," Finch said.

"The transition of the property and facilities of the Washington County Community College’s Eastport campus back to the city for the creation of the Maine Marine Technology Center will breathe new life into what we have known locally for 30 years as the Boat School in Eastport," he said.

- The Quoddy Tides

www.quoddytides.com