AUGUSTA – Hunters want more land but fewer coyotes.
Environmental groups are hoping to clear the air about outdoor wood boilers and chemical flame retardants.
Developers and property owners are gearing up for Round 2 on building setbacks near sensitive wildlife habitat.
And then there are the perennial trash issues: how to generate less of it, and what to do with the waste that Mainers (and non-Mainers) produce.
State lawmakers face a slew of environmental and natural resource-related bills during the legislative session getting under way this month. Those measures will compete for lawmakers’ time and attention during a session that so far has been dominated by debate over the budget and school administration consolidation.
“It just seems like we have some very complex and somewhat controversial issues … that will really make a difference in the long term,” said Rep. Ted Koffman, a Bar Harbor Democrat who is co-chairman of the Natural Resources Committee. “So we are going to have some long hearings and work sessions to get them right.”
Members of the Natural Resources Committee can expect to delve into issues ranging from additional regulation of water withdrawal rules to implementation of Maine’s efforts to fight global warming.
Koffman ranked adoption of model rules for Maine’s involvement in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative as one of the committee’s most important tasks this session. The initiative, known as RGGI or “Reggie” for short, is a multistate compact aimed at reducing power plants’ emissions of gases linked to global warming.
But debate over greenhouse gases will likely be tepid compared to two other issues on the committee’s plate: waste management and shorebird habitat protection.
More than a dozen waste-related bill titles are already in the hopper. They include proposals to impose a moratorium on incineration facilities, to change Maine’s bottle bill and to deal with construction and demolition debris.
The committee also is expected to revisit legislation approved last year that imposes a 250-foot buffer zone between new development and habitat for shorebirds and some inland waterfowl.
Landowners, developers, bankers and contractors claim the required 250-foot setback from migratory bird habitat is ruining property values up and down the Maine coast, particularly in Washington County.
Department of Environmental Protection officials have offered a compromise that would decrease the setback requirement near shorebird feeding and staging areas and provide current landowners with an exemption window. But some lawmakers are pushing for a total repeal of the new law.
“I think we will make some significant changes,” Koffman said. “We’ll have a good conversation, I’m sure.”
On Tuesday, a coalition of nearly two dozen environmental groups held a press conference at the State House to announce its list of six legislative priorities.
The coalition hopes to hold the line on existing environmental regulations, expand Maine’s list of endangered and threatened species, and fight global warming through greater energy efficiency.
The groups called on the Legislature to support a $25 million bond for riverside community revitalization projects and increased funding for the Land for Maine’s Future program. They also endorsed legislation to phase out Deca, a chemical flame retardant found in some consumer products.
Traces of Deca, a form of polybrominated diphenyl ether blamed for health problems, has been found in the environment, in wildlife and in humans, including in breast milk.
“I think it goes without saying that a mother’s milk should not be harmful to her children,” said Amy Graham, a Farmington mother and one of Tuesday’s speakers.
Other health and environmental organizations are supporting proposals to hold outdoor wood boilers to the same air pollution standards as indoor wood stoves. Several Maine communities have adopted or are considering restrictions on the outdoor wood-fired furnaces, which critics say pose health risks to downwind neighbors.
Sporting groups also have an ambitious agenda focusing on increased public access to land, expanded hunting opportunities and wildlife management.
Millinocket Rep. Herbert Clark has caused a stir among some landowners by proposing that tax breaks under the state’s Tree Growth tax program only go to property owners who allow hunting, fishing and other traditional activities on their land.
Clark, a Democrat who submitted the bill at the request of a constituent, acknowledged that the measure’s primary target is conservationist Roxanne Quimby and other landowners who prohibit hunting and mechanized recreation on their land.
“We feel if they are not going to allow access, they should not be receiving the perks,” Clark said. Clark’s proposal is likely to encounter opposition from landowners, both large and small, who allow hunting and traditional uses but disagree with state-mandated access.
A number of other land-use bills, including several sponsored by critics of last year’s Katahdin Lake deal, are also pending. One proposal would require the state to replace lost hunting acreage on state-owned land with similar acreage elsewhere.
The Legislature’s Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Committee, meanwhile, will likely hear requests to allow deer hunting later in the fall, to expand moose hunting farther into southern Maine, and to reinstate aggressive coyote control programs.
Wildlife activists will also be back with a bill to ban recreational bear trapping in the state.
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