BETHEL - With a donation from Lighthawk, a U.S.-based nonprofit that links private planes and pilots with conservation organizations that need to see or film lands from the air, videographer Nancy Hohmann and staff from the Western Foothills Land Trust and the Portland Water District spent an early fall morning tracing the circuitous flow of waters in the Crooked River.

By John Richardson State and federal scientists, equipped with flow meters, fishing nets and red dye, began a thorough checkup of the Presumpscot River on Tuesday. The comprehensive study is the first effort in at least a decade to assess the health of one of Maine's hardest-working waterways.

Clean water protections need strengthening by Congress Memories can be short. It was only a generation ago that Maine's waters were in serious trouble.

By JOHN RICHARDSON Staff Writer Cleanup crews collected kerosene-contaminated ice from the banks of the Presumpscot River on Friday, a day after a truck overturned and spilled an estimated 1,200 gallons of the fuel on the Allen Avenue Extension bridge.

By John Richardson staff writer Two summer residents of Maine - the Bicknell's thrush and the blueback herring - were in the news this week. The thrush played a role in a new global-warming report and in a shift in wind-energy politics.