Letters to the Editor

‘Going green’ in Maine could impact deer herd

To the Editor:
    After reviewing the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) analysis of the Bingham wind project, I felt like the state was being bought out by First Wind to put in the largest wind farm in the state.
    The project will permanently affect four separate deer wintering areas (DWA), with a total of 21.54 affected acres. First Wind proposed to minimize the impact of one DWA by using single pole structures in a 21-foot-wide corridor through the DWA. What about the other three DWAs?

    Unfortunately, Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) accepted a one-time benefit package of $37,550 that they said would offset the impact to the DWAs. Without the wintering areas for our deer in this area, the herd will not survive a Maine winter.
    The Maine Natural Resource Conservation Program (MNRCP) also accepted $600,087 from First Wind, even though the program does not require any compensation.
    Any State Department or program of the State, that represents the people of Maine, should not accept money from any corporation. It is a true conflict of interest.
    Sportsmen of Maine were sold out.
    We’re going green.

Richard Harris
Fairfield

Men should take a stand for families

To the Editor;:
    There is a movement to address the important issue of increasing funding for Head Start, childcare, and pre-K.
    These programs are a good first step for children to succeed in school.
    There are too many children living in single-parent homes that these programs will help.
    We would not have so many single parents if men and women would take on the responsibility of staying faithful to their marriage vows.
    Children look up to their parents for guidance. Children need love and discipline; they need mothers and fathers.
    There are too many children growing up in broken homes and it could be one of the reasons schools and parents start looking to the Maine Suicide Prevention Program on how to prevent suicide.
    The heart of the problem starts with men and women turning their backs on God.
    They look to Hollywood on how to live by seeking a life of pleasure and are going to all means to live as they do; and then they learn when it’s too late that way of living was wrong and children are the big losers.
    I was told the reason more men don’t speak out on moral issues is that they have an image to uphold and worry what other men will think of them.
    You should worry more on what God thinks of you and you will not fear man.

Joseph Riitano, Sr.
Sangerville

The need for affordable and safe child care

By U.S. Sen. Susan Collins
(R-Maine)

    Child care for working parents is essential to families here in Maine and around the country. For years, the Child Care and Development Block Grant Program (CCDBG) has assisted low-income parents in affording child care. The support provided by this program enables parents to obtain safe, reliable, and affordable care for their children while they work or go to school to improve their own skills and education.
    Twenty-six hundred children from 1,800 families in Maine receive federal child care subsidies through the CCDBG program. Particularly during these difficult economic times, this program goes a long way in helping so many families. That is why I was pleased to recently support Senate passage of a bill to reauthorize this important program, which received overwhelming bipartisan support.
    I have seen first-hand the impact of high-quality early learning on a child’s ability to succeed in school. Educare Central Maine, located in Waterville, which I have visited, is a state-of-the-art early learning center that serves more than 200 mostly low-income children from birth to age five. Almost half of those children come from families that are eligible for assistance, and many rely on the CCDBG voucher to help cover the cost of tuition. Educare is a great example of quality child care in the State of Maine, and of the real impact of CCDBG funds at work in our communities.
    As I saw at Educare in Waterville, the CCDBG vouchers that allow parents to choose the best child care setting for their children is an important aspect of this program. Vouchers give parents the flexibility they want to make the best decisions about the kind of care they want – whether that is at a child care center, at a family care home, or with a relative or friend. The voucher program helps keep these decisions in the hands of parents.
    I am also pleased that the Senate reauthorization bill would require coordination among the Early Learning Advisory Councils and Head Start and IDEA programs. Aligning these systems will help improve the quality of all services offered for infants, toddlers, and preschool aged children.
    High-quality early learning experiences help ensure that children are well-prepared for school. This bill improves the current program by making sure those providers receiving CCDBG funds are qualified, receive training, and are regularly inspected and monitored.
    The bill also includes provisions from the Child Care Infant Mortality Prevention Act, a bipartisan bill that I coauthored last year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics, half of the approximately 4,500 sudden infant death syndrome cases in the United States are entirely preventable with effective training and implementation of correct sleep practices.
    The CCDBG Reauthorization Act includes sudden infant death syndrome prevention and safe sleeping practices among the new health and safety training topics for CCDBG providers. Child care is not only important to the developmental health of children, but also to the well-being of their parents. When parents know that their children have a place to go where they will be safe and where they will learn, then the parents have the peace of mind and opportunity to earn a living to support their family.
    Balancing the need to work with the need for child care can be very difficult. At times, a parent’s salary could be almost completely offset by the cost of child care, and this burden is particularly heavy for low-income families. This bill will help more parents get the support they need while reinforcing the need for high-quality child care in healthy and safe environments.

It’s time to take action on climate change

By U.S. Sen. Angus King
(I-Maine)

    Maine has a long and proud tradition of environmental stewardship. Our lakes, forests, mountains, oceans, and streams are not only a resource for outdoor recreation, but also the foundation of our state economy. Unfortunately, our failure to respond to global climate change has jeopardized the integrity of our natural environment and the sustainability of countless small businesses across the state.
    To underscore the gravity of the situation, earlier this week I joined my colleagues on the Senate Climate Action Task Force in an all-night series of speeches highlighting the consequences of climate change – many of which we are already experiencing.
    I know there are some who still argue that global climate change is a hoax, that it is not real. But the scientific evidence is telling a different story. There is an overwhelming amount of data showing that climate change is happening and that people are the cause. Since the 1860s, during the Industrial Revolution, the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has almost doubled to levels our planet hadn’t seen in three million years. And what the data tells us is that, as the level of carbon dioxide began to rise in the past, so did the temperature. And as temperatures rose, artic ice began to melt, and today it is already melting at an alarmingly abrupt rate.
    So why do we care? First, we care because these changes pose a grave risk to our economy. In 1970, the hot spot for lobsters was south of Massachusetts, south of Rhode Island, and off of the end of Long Island. Now, in 2008, our fishermen are trapping lobsters along the Downeast coast of Maine in greater and greater numbers, and they are heading for Nova Scotia where the water is colder. This northeastern migration of the lobster population has shifted the lobstering industry and in doing so, has eroded longstanding fishing communities in southern New England. We don’t want this to happen in Maine.
    Another serious impact of carbon pollution is ocean acidification; Maine is also already suffering from its effects. As carbon dioxide dissolves in the ocean, it makes the waters more acidic and inhibits shellfish from developing their shells. Our oyster farmers are already very concerned about this. These are small business-people – people who are afraid that they may not be able to pass their businesses down to their children.
    Climate change is also affecting hunting and fishing in Maine. Sportsmen and women in New England have already noticed reduced moose populations in New Hampshire and warmer streams are threatening Maine’s native brook trout.
    We also care because climate change poses a risk to our national security. In the 21st century water is going to be an incredibly valuable — and increasingly scarce — commodity. As one of the most basic life necessities, it is going to become something people fight about, something people go to war over, and climate change intensifies this problem by jeopardizing our global water reserves. We have to look no further than the drought in Southern California, and the decreasing snowpack and glaciers that no longer deliver water downstream.
    Finally, we care because climate change also represents a moral risk. We don’t own the planet, we have it on loan — and we have a moral obligation to pass it on to our children and grandchildren in as good or better shape than we received. Climate change is not the next generation’s problem, it is our problem and we need to address it. Do you want to be the person who tells your grandchildren, we saw this coming, but decided not to do anything because it would be too expensive and might disrupt some of our industries? I don’t want to be that person and I don’t think that attitude reflects the Maine approach to problem solving.
    In 1972, former Maine Senator Ed Muskie fought tirelessly to pass the Clean Water Act, which established federal regulations governing water pollution. This groundbreaking legislation made significant strides in our nation’s environmental policy, and guess what, it passed unanimously! So I don’t understand how working to protect the future integrity of our environment has become so bitterly partisan – it just doesn’t make sense.
    I recognize that the challenges posed by climate change are daunting and that the solutions are going to involve risk. But we cannot let our fear of change outweigh the imperative to take action.
Neither Maine, nor the country, nor the international community can afford the immeasurable costs of continuing to ignore the facts