The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association claims that federal law requires the EPA to regulate toxic pollutants in sludge and take steps to prevent them from harming humans and the environment.
Penelope Overton
Staff Writer
Penny Overton is excited to be the Portland Press Herald’s first climate reporter. Since joining the paper in 2016, she has written about Maine’s lobster and cannabis industries, covered state politics and spent a fellowship year exploring the impact of climate change on the lobster fishery with the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team. Before moving to Maine, she has covered politics, environment, casino gambling and tribal issues in Florida, Connecticut, and Arizona. Her favorite assignments allow her to introduce readers to unusual people, cultures, or subjects. When off the clock, Penny is usually getting lost in a new book at a local coffeehouse, watching foreign crime shows or planning her family’s next adventure.
High levels of forever chemicals in Maine birds add to concern about food chain
Researchers in Maine are trying to understand how perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are affecting fish, birds and mammals.
Major data breach involving 2 Maine firms headed to court
BerryDunn, a Portland accounting firm, and Reliable Networks of Biddeford are trading blame about who is responsible for the breach that resulted in the theft of personal information ranging from Social Security numbers to medical data of more than a million people.
Climate change is rarely mentioned in top-rated films of the last decade
A new report co-authored by a Colby College professor includes a climate scorecard for movies that found only about 1 in 10 of the last decade’s top films even mention the topic.
‘Relatively cool’ year in Gulf of Maine still 5th hottest on record
The average temperature of 52.6 degrees was 1.9 degrees above the long-term average.
Biden administration awards $123 million in grants to shore up communities against climate change
Scarborough, Brunswick and Wells are among the communities in Maine that will get funding to conserve areas affected by climate change.
House, Senate debate over supplemental budget proposal stretches into early hours
Both chambers of the Maine Legislature voted to add $60 million in storm relief into the budget proposal, but the Senate also added $7 million in additional spending on other items.
Gov. Mills urges lawmakers to pass supplemental budget, reject amended storm bill
The governor sent a letter to lawmakers outlining a path forward on two of the most significant items still before the Legislature, which is scheduled to adjourn Wednesday.
Maine lawmakers revive, then kill tribal online gambling bill
The bill had been rejected in the House and Senate, but Sen. Mattie Daughtry asked that it be reconsidered Tuesday. It passed in the Senate only to fail again hours later in the House.
Mills’ storm relief bill caught up in last-minute state budget battle
In the latest vote, the House stripped the bill’s emergency status, meaning that the $60 million in funding wouldn’t be available for 90 days, delaying repairs to areas of Maine’s working waterfront that were damaged by winter storms.