Environmental Issue in Maine

Orrington Mercury Problem Lingers

--Aimee Dodge
5/2/10

The mercury problem in the town of Orrington has remained a major topic of discussion for the past few decades. Recently, the people of Orrington have been putting up a bigger fight to get something done about the toxic situation that has remained, for the most part, unchanged. Although most of the contaminated buildings, tanks and piping that were used for chlorine, pesticides and papermaking have now been removed, the people of Orrington are still working on the five landfills that still remain on the site.
In 1986 the U.S. Department of Environmental Protection ordered Mallinckrodt to develop a “corrective action” plan under the guidance of the EPA after received repeated reports of pollution problems. In 2000 HoltraChem, the last resident of the property, went into bankruptcy leaving Mallinckrodt responsible for the pollution issue. They signed an agreement in 2001 to have the contaminated buildings and mercury removed from the site. The company originally planned to dig up all of the landfills and encapsulate the waste on-site with constant monitoring. Two years later the Maine Department of Environment Protection officials took over the cleanup project from the federal government and decided to see all five landfills and any hazardous soils gone. DEP issued an order in 2008 that required the removal of 360,000 tons of contaminated soil. Mallinckrodt hired an engineering firm to carry out the DEP order but only 73,200 tons of contaminated soil were removed. Landfill 2 was recapped and the remaining landfills were left untouched.
The plans and orders brought forth by the DEP for the resolution of the pollution problem would cost around $200 million dollars. The plan would ensure the removal of all five landfills which would in turn would remove the need to maintain the groundwater in that area. On the other hand, Mallinckrodt’s plan would save around a $100 million but would also require the area to be continuously monitored. The plan would leave 40 tons of mercury in four landfills, it would not reduce the long-term pollution risks to local groundwater and it would hinder redevelopment options. . The mercury-contaminated sludge lagoon along the Penobscot river continues to leak about half a pound of mercury in the river each year.
As of late April the citizens of Orrington were getting ready to vote on a clean-up plan for the Mallinckrodt site. While most of the residents favor the proposed clean-up plan that is backed by DEP, the selectmen are supporting a plan proposed by Mallinckrodt and it’s consultant. Orrington resident, Laura Bouzan said, “ I look at the DEP and the state of Maine as protecting my interest as a citizen and the interest of all of us. Why are we deciding that the DEP knows less than the company?”

Check out some additional information:
Mercury Pollution and It's Effects
http://www.mpbn.net/Home/tabid/36/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3478/ItemId/11535/Default.aspx
http://www.mpbn.net/Home/tabid/36/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3478/ItemId/11866/Default.aspx 
http://www.maine.gov/dep/rwm/holtrachem/index.htm
http://www.bangordailynews.com/browse.html?content_source=&category_id=&
http://www.maineville.com/detail/141808.html
 Mercury Poisoning Effects

Love Your Air

Clean Air in Maine

by Aimee Dodge
4/23/2010

Air quality has become a concern to many in recent years.

The following are some links on air quality that you should can check out:

• http://www.environmentmaine.org/clean-air

• http://www.environmentmaine.org/reports/clean-air/clean-air-program-reports/danger-in-the-air-unhealthy-levels-of-air-pollution-in-2003

• http://www.environmentmaine.org/legislature/testimony/clean-air/clean-air/l_r_-2527
• http://www.environmentmaine.org/legislature/testimony/clean-air/clean-air/ld-615-standards-for-automobile-emissions
• http://www.maine.gov/dep/air/regulations/proposed.htm
• http://www.maine.gov/dep/air/regulations/docs/123fctsht.pdf
• http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/ba101350cde255eb85257359003f5338/af95df412b4c8e64852570e4007a89a6!OpenDocument
• http://www.nrcm.org/project_cleanair.asp
• http://www.catf.us/
• http://www.maine.gov/dep/air/lev4me/index.html
• http://www.umaine.edu/waterresearch/news/pdfs/Clean%20Air%20Act%20Reduces%20Acid%20Rain%20Jan.%2003.pdf

Oh, What Fun Sports Can Be...

Kenduskeag River Race

By Aimee Dodge
4/17/2010

The 44th annual Kenduskeag River Race took place today, starting at 8:30 a.m. Although the sky was over cast and the temperature chilling, 479 boats made their way from Kenduskeag Village to downtown Bangor, 16.5 miles total.

889 people took to the river, ranging in ages from twelve to seventy. The race was completed first by Trevor Maclean, clocking a time of 2 hours, 19 minutes, 5 seconds. He received a canoe shaped plaque to commemorate his trip down the river. Although finishing first is exciting, most of the excitement today was located at the infamous Six Mile Falls. Every year countless numbers lose the river race to the rapids located there and this year was no exception. While watching the boats go through the falls, at least a quarter of them got dumped into the 40 degree water. People on shore clapped for those who made it through and cheered for those who didn’t.
Although the largest crowd for the event was gathered around Six Mile Falls, there were spectators all along the river. In the small parks along the river, closer to downtown Bangor, people had set up lawn chairs and in some cases portable grills to watch and celebrate the race. Another spot where people gathered were the portage points, points during the race where participants were required to take their boat out of the water and move it via land downstream to avoid particularly dangerous parts of the river. Spectators stood around and watched as cold and tired paddlers hauled their crafts out of the river and carried them up steep inclines and across roads.
Even though the weather was less than favorable for water activities and the river was low, both participant and spectators had a good time. The race, overall, had a good turnout this year.

Start Your Social Media Engines!

The Effects of Social Media
By Aimee Dodge

Social media outlets like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Wikapedia, and Flickr are changing the way disaster situations are received and handled. They have played a major role in disaster response efforts over the past decade. Social media outlets allow people and organizations access to niche audience and enable multinational corporations to engage with employees in ways that have never been possible before.

Within hours of an earthquake striking Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, social networking sites were forming groups to support those effected. The New York Times created a Facebook page and Twitter account just to cover the news and current happenings in Haiti. The New York Times is only one of many news sources that created social networking accounts to get information out to more people. Through the use of social media networks, organizations not only succeeded in engaging and informing people, they also succeeded in mobilizing them. Eight days after the earthquake donors had contributed more than $355 million to aid Haiti through 35 U.S. nonprofit groups, according to Chronicle of Philanthropy.

The ability to instigate action is one of the most important aspects of social media. With the ability to make a single donation in one single rapid movement, social media promotes impulse donating. People are no longer left wondering how they can help because today’s social media and networking makes it easier than ever. All one has to do is send a text message or follow a link to a fund raising page to make a donation. Mailing donation requests is not a reliable means of reaching people. The majority of donations made to the relief effort in Haiti were made via the web.

Social media allows people to create communities and start movements. The day after the Haiti earthquake multiple Facebook groups had been formed to help Haiti, many having more than 100,000 members. People also used their Facebook accounts to let their friends know that they had donated to the relief effort and where they could go if they wanted to donate as well.

Speeches, etc.

University President Celebrates New Facility Opening

By Aimee Dodge

3/26/2010

University of Maine President, Robert Kennedy, celebrated the opening of Orono Spectral Solutions new facility today. Kennedy praised OSS and the many other spinoff businesses that have been produced through research at the University.

Kennedy announced that Maine ranks first in the United States for spinoff businesses created, the University of Maine being the leader in creating new businesses from research done on its campus. Orono Spectral Solutions “is an excellent example of the kind of opportunity that can grow from university research,” stated Kennedy, during his speech.  Orono Spectral Solutions started in UMaine’s Laboratory for Surface Science and Technology. Kennedy went on to say that the LASST lab is a great incubator for ideas and that “the lab’s interdisciplinary nature fuels the kind of collaborative thinking that can lead to the big ideas that can become economic development opportunities.”

Orono Spectral Solutions is a small, high tech company currently supported through several contracts with the Department of Defense. They focus on developing innovative absorbent materials and sampling methods which enable trace level detection of chemical/biological agents in both air and water backgrounds. Currently, the company is pursuing commercial opportunities in the areas of air and water quality monitoring.”OSS is making its mark in the sensor industry, which is a critical research area with concern to homeland security and human health.

President Kennedy sounded sincere when he said that the University of Maine is proud of its association with OSS. The creators of OSS live only a mile away from the campus where they created their successful business. “Orono Spectral Solutions represents a great example of how we can , as a state, finds ways to keep the best and the brightest right here in Maine.” 

For more information about Orono Spectral Solutions visit their website: http://www.ossmaine.com/index.php

Job Cuts in Bangor, Update

Aimee Dodge
March 19, 2010

Job Cuts in Bangor, Update

Two weeks ago Eastern Maine Medical Center announced that 48 workers were going to be let go. With 23 of those people nursing staff, new concerns are coming to light was to what will happen in the nursing student s graduating this spring. One person states that this is not what they would call an “employment crisis”.
The American Association of Colleges of Nursing reported that they have seen an “easing of the nursing shortage”. This is due to recession cutting costs. Healthcare facilities all across American have been eliminating nursing positions and in some cases eliminating nurse to help solve budget crises. The AACN says that the nursing industry has stabilized because of the recession, but they also expect nursing demands to increase in the near future.
Although the AACN talks about the economy’s effect on the current job prospects in nursing, they also encourage people to continue in nursing. They state that there are nursing positions all across the country. Nursing graduates should think about broadening their ideas on where they would like to work; there is a good possibility that they will have to seek employment outside their present state of residence.
At the University of Maine, nurses are prepped to interview for and enter the job market before they graduate. Chief Nursing Officers from surrounding health institutions offer advice on interview tactics and job prospects. They also convey that nursing students should look outside their preferred areas to work in and their desired areas of specialty, intensive care vs. geriatrics.
Even though jobs are being cut in the Bangor area, people are still hopeful that there are jobs out there for graduating nurses. Temporary or out-of-state positions may be the only options for some at the moment which may be hard for some new nurses hoping to stay in the area due to family. Only time will tell.


Sources for this article wish to remain anonymous.
http://www.aacn.nche.edu/Media/pdf/Economy.pdf
http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/138213.html

News

Aimee Dodge
February 26, 2010

Job Cuts in Bangor, Who’s Next?

The unemployment rate in Bangor is 7.10%, just lower than the national average, and jobs in the area have decreased by 0.60%. Although the unemployment rate is below average, it is still a major area of concern for local people out of work and looking for jobs.
The Bangor area has been hit hard since the recession came to Maine. One of the largest employers in the area, Easter Maine Medical Center, has already cut 24 filled positions and eliminated another 52 unfilled ones. The medical center told the Bangor Daily News that the measure was “essential to ‘getting EMMC back on track.’” They may be planning another round of cuts in the near future. Eastern Maine Medical Center is not the only major employer in the area that is folding under the recession pressure. Penobscot Bay Medical Center announced recently that they too will cut positions. They plan to cut ten positions and reduce hours for several others. They may be cutting more positions in the near future as well. Movie Gallery, a movie rental franchise, recently filed chapter eleven. They are in the process of shutting down not only the six stores in Maine, which includes two stores in Bangor, but eight hundred stores across the country. Movie gallery stores employ between ten and twenty workers on average. Other local businesses, including music clubs and restaurants, have also started cutting positions or have closed down completely. Club Ice, which recently opened, is now closed, to many people’s surprise.
The recession is far from over so the question is who will be next to cut positions. Wal-Mart is a large employer in the Bangor area as well at St. Joseph Hospital, who has worked very hard in recent months to cut cost within the hospital. Will these major employers be cutting next?

News Release

Aimee Dodge
February 19, 2010
News Release
For Immediate Release

Awarding-Winning “Cats” Coming to the Collins Center for the Arts

Orono, ME – Sir Andrew Lloyd Webbers award-winning master piece “Cats” is coming to the Collins Center for the Arts on the University of Maine campus in April. This is the first time that “Cats” has come to the CCA. The production will be playing for one night only on Thursday the 22nd of April at seven o’clock in the main theater.

“Cats” is one of the longest running stage productions of all time, starting in 1981 in London’s West End. It then moved to Broadway a year later. It played for over 20 years in London and over 18 years on Broadway. It has been performed all over the world and in over 20 different languages. The musical has even been made into a motion picture for television.

“Cats” is based on T.S. Eliot’s “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats”, which was a childhood favorite of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. Webber later turned in the book of children’s poems into the masterpiece that we all know and love today. The musical is made up almost entirely of T.S. Eliot poems set to music composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber. “Memory”, the most famous composition from the musical, is one of the few exceptions, having been written by Trevor Nunn. The musical encompasses a wide variety of musical genres, from pop to jazz and from rock to classical compositions, making it a somewhat unconventional musical.

For more information about “Cats” you can visit the official website: www.reallyuseful.com

If you would like more information about the show or if you would like inquire about purchasing tickets you can call: 1 800 622 TIXX or log on to: www.collinscenterforthearts.com

Profile Who?

Aimee Dodge


February 12, 2010



Student Profile: The Hard Working Student

Dylan Cayer meets me in the Memorial Union after a day of lectures and photocopying. From his expression it looks like it’s been a long day. As we search for a quieter place to settle down for the interview, he strikes up idle conversation. He’s a bit nervous, not having done many interviews, but he quickly gets down to business.

I first noticed Dylan in my Shakespeare class. He has an air about him that makes you curious to know him and once you talk to him you start to understand why. As a senior in the English department, he is taking on the challenge of a more than full course load, trying to complete his capstone requirements and putting in hours at the International Department. He admits that his schedule is stressful, “[it] takes a big toll on you.” His days are long, some starting mid-morning and ending somewhere around ten o’clock in the evening and leave very little time for rest or relaxation. Dylan isn’t unaccustomed to hard work; he grew up in a mill town and came to realize early in life that you have to work for what you want.

Not everything is stressful for Dylan though, in his junior year he applied for a year abroad and found himself in England and fulfilling his life-long desire to go abroad. There he took courses and immersed himself in the English culture. He talked to me about the differences between the culture he was used to and the English culture that he was exposed to and found that the social environment was more interesting and agreeable than the one he left behind. "In England, you sit down at a pub with four or five of your friends and you all get drinks,” Dylan told me as he talked about the differences between the social cultures, “but it’s all about the social aspect.” He also talked about how polite and interested the locals are in visitors, “they’ll start asking you legitimate, intelligent questions.” He also talk about the chance to experience football or soccer the way that is was meant to be experienced, "being with seventy thousand people chanting."

At the end of his current term Dylan will be graduating and though his plans after undergraduate school have changed recently, he would really like to return to England and study for his master’s degree, “I really enjoyed education there.”

What would you do?

I went on to the BBC News website for this week’s assignment and streamed the one minute news segment. The point of doing the previous was to watch and learn, paying careful attention to word usage and other interesting and note worthy things.
The BBC delivers the news with clean and concise professionalism. Always briefly and politely introducing themselves, they get into the news right away. The news casters keep good eye contact with their audience and speak clearly and conversationally, even with their British dialect. They expertly use present tenses and active verbs for events that have happened in the past 24 hours, like the incredible amount of snow that has fallen on Washington D.C. Topics like Haiti are written in past tense but only because it happened weeks ago and not because the writer thinks it’s less important. The one minute news segment used a lot of footage clips which helped along the talked about news topics and saved us all from the having to view elderly bloke covering the news desk. The news caster also keeps an unbiased and/or unemotional tone when talking about controversial and upsetting news stories, such as Haiti or bombings in the Middle East that result in deaths. I have also noticed in my many years of watching the BBC World News that the writers never seem to lean one way or another politically, which makes it an excellent source of unbiased political news.
The BBC always delivers the news well. They never have distracting backgrounds or annoying tickers running along the bottom of their screen. They keep things clean and simple, which allow people to concentrate more on the news.
I wouldn’t change anything in the news script. I think that it was well written and delivered perfectly and professionally. Check out the BBC World News for yourself at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/

The Two C's

Consolidation and covergence of media outlets is something that is constantly on the minds of people who have something to gain or lose from such an event. When Rupert Murdoch bought Myspace, with cash, people were dieing to know what he was thinking. I think we can all be pretty sure that he didn't buy it with nothing brewed in the back of his mind. Of course, Murdoch has aquired several media outlets, everything from TV to newspapers, all over the world and by doing so he made it possible to broadcast his influence all over the world in several different languages. Murdoch was instrumental in the Bush campaigne, using his media outlets to paint a picture for the public that Murdoch would approve of and would help the Bush campaigne.
Not all consolidations are leaned in one direction or an other. Sometimes, for example, two competing papers in the same town merge to save money or make money or in some cases they will merge because together they make a better, stronger paper.

Being Critical

This is a newsworthy article in my opinion.

The BBC posted an article updating the status of Guantanamo Bay. Two days ago was the deadline that the President had set to have the prison shut down but recent issues have postponed that goal.

It doesn’t talk about any famous people or an amazing water-skiing dog, the content is real and to some it’s has huge impact. Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay who are deemed “to dangerous” to be released will be spending an indefinite amount of time at the prison because of the lack of solid evidence. The demographic that the article hits is people who have family members imprisoned or even the people of the prisoners native country, it will strike a chord in the groups of people that have been working towards the freeing of the wrongfully imprisoned, and it will undoubtedly make a large number of republicans people very happy.

The article also focuses on the dismay that Obama supporters may feel by the failure of President Obama to shut down the prison as he had planned. People who don’t support the President will rejoice with the new reason to reticule him, but people are always curious to know what the President of the United States is doing because he is, of course, the President and he is the person that some of us voted for to make decisions and changes on our behalf. Many will be disappointed that Guantanamo is still open but some, as I mentioned before, will be delighted with the idea that “those people” will stay imprisoned.

The article also brings to light the controlling situation that is going on at Guantanamo Bay. Yemen prisoners were supposed to be freed immediately but only if the conditions of Yemen were conducive to the Americans. Subsequently, none of them were released because of an alleged Yemen based plot to blow-up an airline. This of course will catch the eye of some people who have been following the Guantanamo Bay news since it started making headlines. Conspiracy theorists will be all over it.

The article overall doesn't reach out to a whole lot of people, like say the water-skiing dog would, but it does carry with it a lot of good and important information for people who are closely linked to it or just keeping up with topics that are important to them. I believe that this piece was written with the intent to inform people of the situation, not necessarily because it was high rating news.

Read for yourself:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8476358.stm

What's Up With That...

Today we are going to explore a moral issue in journalism.
I was searching for information on embedded journalists when I came across an interesting New York Times article. The article, written in 2008, was about how the government is choosing to censor the information that is coming out of war zones and the ways in which succeed in doing it.

An embedded journalist is a journalist from a dedicated news source, like The New York Times or the BBC, who has been allowed to the enter a war zone and integrate themselves in with a troop in order to collect news worthy information of the goings on around them and while the troops are “active”. Since the Vietnam war the government and many media outlets have taken the severity of their war reporting down a notch or two, but how much restriction is too much?
The government uses embed rules to restrict the type and amount of media leaving a war zone. They are able to choose the media outlets they want reporting and furthermore they also choose the journalist within the chosen media outlet that will be able to be embedded with a troop. The troop leaders also have power over where the embeds go and what they are exposed to while they are in the warzone, sometimes for the safety of the journalist but also sometimes because the military commander doesn't want certain things seen and reported on. More often than not, military commanders have found ways to either hinder the news gathering process or have the journalist removed entirely from there troop.

So the question is, should the government have so much control over the media that should be coming out of war zones? Should the government be able to restrict information from the American people, the people who have given themselves or a family member or friend to the war? Should the American people be kept from a war that has sent them into a financial crisis?

Read for yourself at:
4,000 U.S. Deaths, and a Handful of Images by Micheal Kamber and Time Arango
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/26/world/middleeast/26censor.html?ex=1374811200&en=9903da4b22e064a4&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Embed Rules
http://www.defense.gov/news/Feb2003/d20030228pag.pdf

Hello...

This is the first blog that I will have ever kept up properly and that is mostly due to its being directly tied into a course that I am currently taking. I have now started CMJ 236, which is an introductory course to Journalism. The course will cover the basics of good writing, grammar and punctuation, and will instruct on writing styles pertaining to journalism and communications.


So, your question should be, “why is she taking a journalism course?”

I like journalism. So many of us read the newspaper or Google current events and extract information that we enjoy and find valuable. But, who puts the information out there in the first place? Journalists.

Journalists are in the trenches trying to find out the information that no one else knows. They dig deep and they work extremely hard to find journalistic stories and the facts to back them up, and it’s not easy. You have to respect people who write and report for major news firms all over the world because they had to work really hard to get there.

So why am I taking a journalism course? Because, I like and respect journalism and because I am not one of those people who likes to look at the thinly veiled façades that people put on; I like to go deep and find out the real facts and stories.