Coastal Conversations 2/26/24: Coastal Storm Impact

Producer/Host: Natalie Springuel

Coastal Conversations: Conversations with people who live, work, and play on the Maine coast, hosted by the University of Maine Sea Grant Program.

This month:
The January 10 and 13, 2024 storms, along with compounding record high tides, storm surge, and strong southeasterly winds, caused much damage throughout the Maine coast, including the loss of many piers and wharves, erosion of roadways, and destruction of private and municipal coastal access infrastructure.

On today’s show, we share portions of a January 16th information session about storm impact and response with leaders from the Departments of Marine Resources, Economic & Community Development, and Maine Emergency Management Agency. The online information session, hosted by the Island Institute just three days after the storm events, reflected the early nature of storm response.

One thing emphasized during the show is that the state needs everyone who experienced storm damage to report their losses. Whether you are a waterfront business owner or homeowner, your information will help ensure that the level of aid from FEMA and others is in line with the actual needs on the ground.  You can still report damages by dialing 2-1-1 or visiting the Department of Marine Resources website to fill out the forms online.

If you want to hear the complete information session (the show will only re-broadcast a portion of it), and access other storm related resources, please check out the Island Institute and find a link to “January 2024 Storms” on their home page. We are grateful to the Island Institute for sharing this important information with our listeners.

Guest/s:
Commissioner Pat Keliher, Maine Department of Marine Resources.
Commissioner Heather Johnson, Maine Department of Economic and Community Development.
Kim Hamilton, Director of the Island Institute.
Anne Fuchs, Director, Mitigation, Planning and Recovery, Maine Emergency Management Agency.

About the hosts:

Natalie Springuel has hosted Coastal Conversation’s since 2015, with support from the University of Maine Sea Grant where she has served as a marine extension associate for 20 years. In 2019, Springuel received an award for Public Affairs programming from the Maine Association of Broadcasters for the Coastal Conversations show called “Portland’s Working Waterfront.” Springuel is passionate about translating science, sharing stories, and offering a platform for multiple voices to weigh in on complex coastal and ocean issues. She has recently enrolled in audio production training at Maine Media Workshop to dive deeper into making great community radio.

Catherine Devine is the recipient of the 2023-2024 Cathy and JIm Gero Acadia Early Career Fellowship in Science Communication at Schoodic Institute. She is the producer of season 2 of Schoodic’s Sea to Trees podcast and a graduate of New York University.

Coastal Conversations 2/24/23: On the Water in Belfast Harbor

Producer/Host: Natalie Springuel

Coastal Conversations: Conversations with people who live, work, and play on the Maine coast, hosted by the University of Maine Sea Grant Program.

This month:
High School students on a fishing boat deploying spat collectors, or mesh bags, into the water column to collect baby scallops. Science teachers and their students hauling line onto a work boat to examine the growth rate on their kelp farm. Locals learning from a seasoned Maine guide to row a traditional dory, emulating how generations of Maine fishermen and sailors have moved around the harbor. The composition of mariners in Belfast Bay may have been changing in the last few decades, but their passion for these waters is no less real.

Today, our show features four people who are involved in really cool work connected to our local seas, either as teachers, students, or guides. All four of our guests happen to be women, and each of them bring to their learning and their work a commitment to the protection of this place and its people.

Today we hear from the owner of DoryWoman Rowing, as well as a high school student, and two science teachers, who all use the local waters as their classroom, their workspace and their happy place.

Guest/s:
Nicolle Littrell, founder of DoryWoman Rowing, Open Water Rower, Licensed Maine Guide, Filmmaker and Photographer.

Lindsey Schortz, Science instructor and member of the team for the Belfast Marine Institute at Belfast Area High School (BAHS) and a teacher at BCOPE (Belfast Community Outreach Program in Education), an alternative high school program.

Genna Black, Science teacher with the Marine Institute at Belfast Area High School

Mia Fay, high school senior in the BCOPE program (Belfast Community Outreach Program in Education), Belfast Area High School’s alternative high school program.

Other credits:

About the host:

Natalie Springuel has hosted Coastal Conversation’s since 2015, with support from the University of Maine Sea Grant where she has served as a marine extension associate for 20 years. In 2019, Springuel received an award for Public Affairs programming from the Maine Association of Broadcasters for the Coastal Conversations show called “Portland’s Working Waterfront.” Springuel is passionate about translating science, sharing stories, and offering a platform for multiple voices to weigh in on complex coastal and ocean issues. She has recently enrolled in audio production training at Maine Media Workshop to dive deeper into making great community radio.

Coastal Conversations 1/27/23: Gouldsboro, Maine

Producer/Host: Natalie Springuel

Coastal Conversations: Conversations with people who live, work, and play on the Maine coast, hosted by the University of Maine Sea Grant Program.

This month:
This episode features two distinct stories about Gouldsboro, Maine:

STORY 1: Gouldsboro, a working waterfront community at a crossroads
Today’s show features the second episode of this year’s From the Sea Up podcast series focused on Maine’s working waterfront towns. We’ll be headed to Gouldsboro, A historic fishing town with over 50 miles of coastline. In 2020, the Norwegian-backed company American Aquafarms proposed putting two closed-pen salmon farms, totaling 120-acres, in Frenchman Bay between Gouldsboro and Bar Harbor. Although American Aquafarm’s initial application for an aquaculture lease was terminated by the Maine Department of Marine Resources in the spring of 2022, a question about the future of Maine’s waters took hold in many rural coastal communities.
In this episode, From the Sea Up producers visit South Gouldsboro, a small and active working waterfront with stunning views of Cadillac Mountain and the proposed lease site. With perspectives from a seaweed farmer and cultivator, Sarah Redmond, as well as Jerry Potter, a longtime lobsterman, and Sebastian Belle from the Maine Aquaculture Association, this episode explores the identity and needs of one working waterfront community, and asks the question: What kind of working waterfront do people want to see here in the future? And what role does aquaculture play in that future?
This story is brought to you by our radio storytelling friend Galen Koch, whose podcast series, From the Sea Up, has been featured on Coastal Conversations before. Galen brings the past and present together to help us make sense of Maine’s complicated future. This is the second in a working waterfront series we will keep sharing over the next few months.

STORY 2: Gouldsboro: a legacy of sardines
You heard the narrator in our first story talk about American Aquafarms’ purchase of the Maine Fair Trade lobster processing facility in the Gouldsboro village of Prospect Harbor. While American Aquafarms’ intention is to someday convert the lobster processing operation into a salmon processing facility and hatchery, this plant was in the business of packing sardines for nearly 100 years. As the era of Maine’s sardine industry was coming to an end in the later part of the 20th century, and sardine packing plants were closing one by one up and down the Maine coast, the Stinson’s Sardine Cannery was the very last hold out. It’s final owner, Bumble Bee Foods, shuttered the sardine operation for good in 2010, making it not only the last sardine cannery in Maine, but the very last sardine cannery in the whole of the United States.

In 2011, the year after the sardine plant closed, oral historians from “Oral History and Folklife Research, Inc” sought to honor and document the Stinson Sardine Factory legacy by interviewing a number of former employees. In our second story today, we share some clips from two of these interviews with women who worked as sardine packers.

Guest/s:

STORY 1
Sarah Redmond, Springtide Seaweed
Jerry Potter, lobsterman
Sebastian Belle, Maine Aquaculture Association

STORY 2
We’ll hear a short clip from the interview with Arlene Hartford, followed by a slightly longer clip from the interview with Lela Anderson. Both women were interviewed by Keith Ludden in 2011 and the full collection is available here

Other credits:
STORY 1
From the Sea Up is made possible by the Fund for Maine Islands through a partnership between Island Institute, College of the Atlantic, Maine Sea Grant, and the First Coast. Click here to hear past episodes and for more information

STORY 2
Thanks to the folks at “Oral History and Folklife Research, Inc” for permission to air these clips. You can access their full collections here. And thanks also to production assistant Camden Hunt, for helping edit the audio clips for this segment of today’s show. If you want to hear more about sardines, check out the Coastal Conversations for our August 28, 2020 episode called “Stories of the Sardine Industry” which features these clips and many more

About the host:

Natalie Springuel has hosted Coastal Conversation’s since 2015, with support from the University of Maine Sea Grant where she has served as a marine extension associate for 20 years. In 2019, Springuel received an award for Public Affairs programming from the Maine Association of Broadcasters for the Coastal Conversations show called “Portland’s Working Waterfront.” Springuel is passionate about translating science, sharing stories, and offering a platform for multiple voices to weigh in on complex coastal and ocean issues. She has recently enrolled in audio production training at Maine Media Workshop to dive deeper into making great community radio.

Coastal Conversations 12/23/22: Maine Holiday Seafood Celebrations, Past and Present

Producer/Host: Natalie Springuel

Coastal Conversations: Conversations with people who live, work, and play on the Maine coast, hosted by the University of Maine Sea Grant Program.

This month:
In honor of the holiday season, our show features “Maine holiday seafood celebrations, past and present.” We are excited to talk with three women from coastal Maine who write about food and history, about Maine and nature, about travel and much more.

Our guests will share ideas for seafood recipes to treat your family and friends over the holidays. They will help us explore how the perceptions of seafood in Maine have changed over the decades and centuries, from the Wabanaki to the New England Colonists, from the mid- 1900’s to the present. From their perspectives as cook and authors, our guests will explore modern day issues such as wild fisheries and aquaculture. And most of all, they will get you excited to experiment with seafood in the kitchen this holiday season.

-Seafood recipes and cooking tips
-New Englander’s changing thoughts about and appreciation for seafood
-Three cooks perspectives on fisheries and aquaculture in Maine

Guest/s:

Sandy Oliver, food historian, food writer and columnist, from Islesboro in Penobscot Bay
Marnie Reed Crowell: conservationist, natural history writer, poet and scallop cookbook author from Sunset on Deer Isle
Nancy Harmon Jenkins: writer, historian, cook, traveler, and storyteller from Camden

About the host:

Natalie Springuel has hosted Coastal Conversation’s since 2015, with support from the University of Maine Sea Grant where she has served as a marine extension associate for 20 years. In 2019, Springuel received an award for Public Affairs programming from the Maine Association of Broadcasters for the Coastal Conversations show called “Portland’s Working Waterfront.” Springuel is passionate about translating science, sharing stories, and offering a platform for multiple voices to weigh in on complex coastal and ocean issues. She has recently enrolled in audio production training at Maine Media Workshop to dive deeper into making great community radio.

Coastal Conversations 10/28/22: Eastport- Maine’s Easternmost Town

Producer/Host: Natalie Springuel

Coastal Conversations: Conversations with people who live, work, and play on the Maine coast, hosted by the University of Maine Sea Grant Program.

This month:

The town of Eastport, Maine, has weathered many changes in the last decades, transitioning from empty sardine factories to a vibrant multi-use working waterfront positioned to respond and adapt to an uncertain future. This month we feature two stories from Maine’s easternmost town: “Eastport: Reinventing a Waterfront,” a recent episode on the From the Sea Up podcast, and “The Drama of Eastport Tides,” an older (2017) but timeless episode from the Salts and Water podcast.

Our first is called “Eastport: Reinventing a Waterfront.”
In the far eastern corner of Downeast Maine there’s a 3.7 square mile island. Connected to the mainland by a causeway and road that passes through the Pleasant Point Passamaquoddy Reservation, Sipayik, this island is home to the town of Eastport, population 1,300. Once the most prominent sardine canning village along the coast, Eastport’s last sardine factory closed in 1983. With that, a century-long industry was gone. In this episode we learn how Eastport has transitioned from a waterfront of empty factories to a vibrant multi-use working waterfront positioned to respond and adapt to a very uncertain future.
This story is brought to you by our radio storytelling friend Galen Koch, whose podcast series, From the Sea Up, has been featured on Coastal Conversations before. Galen brings the past and present together to help us make sense of Maine’s complicated future. This is the first in a working waterfront series we will keep sharing over the next few months.

People and organizations Featured in this story include: Tides Institute, Hugh French, Moose Island Marine, Dean Pike, Eastport Port Authority, and Chris Gardner.
This story is part of the podcast series From the Sea Up

A note from producer Galen Koch:
Thank you for listening to From the Sea up. This episode was written and produced by me, Galen Koch and assistant producer Olivia Jolley for the Island Institute. Nicole Wolf takes the beautiful photographs that accompany this episode. From the Sea Up’s Senior Editors are Isaac Kestenbaum and Josie Holtzman. Additional audio editing on this episode by Liz Joyce and Claudia Newall. Special thanks to Camden Hunt, Hugh French, Dean Pike, Chris Bartlett, and Chris Gardner for their help and participation. And thanks to the Salt Institute and Pamela Wood, Hugh French, and Lynn Kippax Jr, who together researched and wrote the 1983 journal publication, “Eastport: For Pride.” Most of the music in this episode is by Cue Shop. From the Sea Up is made possible by the Fund for Maine Islands through a partnership between Island Institute, College of the Atlantic, Maine Sea Grant, and the First Coast. Past episodes and more information are available here

Our second story Is called “The Drama of Eastport Tides”
The defining feature of the easternmost point of America is the dramatic tides of the Atlantic Ocean at the coast of Eastport, Maine. Learn why incredible natural feature exists and visit one of the largest confluences of whirlpools in the world. Hear from the Salts—people with deep connections to the sea, whose lives are shaped by this natural wonder.

This story was pulled out of the Coastal Conversations archives, from 2017, when well-known New England audio storyteller Rob Rosenthal partnered up with an initiative called Experience Maritime Maine to produce the Salts and Water podcast. Eastport is one of six towns covered in this series.

People and organizations featured in this story include: Butch Harris of Eastport Windjammers, harbor pilot Bob Peacock, photographer Lisa Tyson Ennis, some Eastport visitors, and of course, the tide.

This story is part of the podcast series SALTS & WATER: Stories from the Maine Coast

Experience Maritime Maine presents Salts & Water, a 6-part podcast series by award-winning producer Rob Rosenthal. These audio stories paint remarkable character portraits along the coast of Maine, through Eastport, Stonington, Searsport, Rockland, Bath, and Portland.
Meet the “women lobstermen” of Stonington, island-hop aboard a Windjammer in Penobscot Bay, and discover the salty fishmonger whose work on Portland’s piers is integral to Maine’s culture of seafood. Get to know meticulous boat builders, and learn how the dramatic tides shape life in Downeast Maine. Enjoy this podcast series.
Salts and Water is a project of Experience Maritime Maine, funded in part by the Elmina B. Sewall Foundation, Hamilton Marine, Maine’s MidCoast & Islands, and sponsored by Maine Boats, Homes, and Harbors. To hear the other stories in the series, visit Salts and Water Podcast Series

About the host:

Natalie Springuel has hosted Coastal Conversation’s since 2015, with support from the University of Maine Sea Grant where she has served as a marine extension associate for 20 years. In 2019, Springuel received an award for Public Affairs programming from the Maine Association of Broadcasters for the Coastal Conversations show called “Portland’s Working Waterfront.” Springuel is passionate about translating science, sharing stories, and offering a platform for multiple voices to weigh in on complex coastal and ocean issues. She has recently enrolled in audio production training at Maine Media Workshop to dive deeper into making great community radio.

Coastal Conversations 9/23/22: Three Contemporary Maine Writers Inspired by the Coast

Producer/Host: Natalie Springuel

Coastal Conversations: Conversations with people who live, work, and play on the Maine coast, hosted by the University of Maine Sea Grant Program.

This month:

Maine’s coastline has inspired writers and artists for generations. On today’s Coastal Conversations we are thrilled to feature three contemporary Maine writers who each have a special connection with the coast of Maine and coastlines around the world. We’ll hear their stories about the role of writing and art in their lives and what inspires their work today. Each author will share some of their recent work, including some poetry, haiku and prose.

Our featured writers today include Linda Buckmaster, writer, teacher, and self-described wanderer from Belfast, Maine; Valerie Lawson, poet, publisher and teacher from Robbinston, Maine; and Kristen Lindquist, writer, poet, and naturalist from Camden, Maine.

Guest/s:

Linda Buckmaster. Writer, teacher, wanderer. Belfast, Maine.
Linda’s most recent book, Elemental: A Miscellany of Salt Cod and Islands, is available at bookstores from Blue Hill to Portland or from the author. Her work will be featured at the 17th annual Belfast Poetry Festival, October 15th 2022.

Valerie Lawson. Poet, publisher and teacher. Robbinston, Maine.
Valerie’s poems about conserved lands at Reversing Falls in Pembroke were recently featured in the Writing the Land: Maine project. Her work will be featured at Poetry Express at University of Maine at Fort Kent on September 21, 22, 2022. Contact UMFK for more information. UMFK’s Acadian Archives to host Poetry Express Sept. 21-22 in Fiddlehead Focus/St. John Valley Times

Kristen Lindquist. Writer, poet, naturalist. Camden, Maine.
Kristen’s recent award-winning haiku e-chapbook It Always Comes Back Kristen’s Daily Haiku Blog

About the host:

Natalie Springuel has hosted Coastal Conversation’s since 2015, with support from the University of Maine Sea Grant where she has served as a marine extension associate for 20 years. In 2019, Springuel received an award for Public Affairs programming from the Maine Association of Broadcasters for the Coastal Conversations show called “Portland’s Working Waterfront.” Springuel is passionate about translating science, sharing stories, and offering a platform for multiple voices to weigh in on complex coastal and ocean issues. She has recently enrolled in audio production training at Maine Media Workshop to dive deeper into making great community radio.

Coastal Conversations 8/26/22: National Working Waterfront Network conference

Producer/Host: Natalie Springuel

Coastal Conversations: Conversations with people who live, work, and play on the Maine coast, hosted by the University of Maine Sea Grant Program.

In mid-July 2022, nearly 200 people gathered in Boston for the sixth National Working Waterfront Network conference. Working waterfronts are where people who make their living on the sea can access the water. They include ports, harbors, piers, wharves, launch ramps, mudflats, boat yards and more. The National Working Waterfront Network meets every 2-3 years to swap stories and strategies for strengthening and protecting waterfront infrastructure and working access to the coast.

At the 2022 conference, Congresswoman Chellie Pingree of Maine’s 1st Congressional District, long a working waterfront champion in partnership with Maine’s full delegation, gave a closing address during which she highlighted the importance of keeping the spotlight on these complex and critical spaces for our national economy and local, coastal culture. Voices throughout the event echoed the Congresswoman’s message, and on today’s Coastal Conversations show, we bring you some of those voices.

Today, we feature portions of Representative Pingree’s address, along with stories and perspectives from people connected to working waterfronts in Maine, Louisiana, Oregon and California. All voices shared in today’s show were recorded at the National Working Waterfront Network Conference 2022.

Guest/s:
Afton Vigue, Maine Aquaculture Association
Dominique Seibert, Louisiana Sea Grant
Jamie Doyle, Oregon Sea Grant
Michael Nelson, Commercial Fishermen of Santa Barbara, California

About the host:

Natalie Springuel has hosted Coastal Conversation’s since 2015, with support from the University of Maine Sea Grant where she has served as a marine extension associate for 20 years. In 2019, Springuel received an award for Public Affairs programming from the Maine Association of Broadcasters for the Coastal Conversations show called “Portland’s Working Waterfront.” Springuel is passionate about translating science, sharing stories, and offering a platform for multiple voices to weigh in on complex coastal and ocean issues. She has recently enrolled in audio production training at Maine Media Workshop to dive deeper into making great community radio.

Coastal Conversations 7/22/22: Landscape of Change

Producer/Host: Natalie Springuel

Coastal Conversations: Conversations with people who live, work, and play on the Maine coast, hosted by the University of Maine Sea Grant Program.

Today our show is about the Mount Desert Island-based project called a Landscape of Change. Landscape of Change is a collaborative project with the goal of compiling and publishing historical records of natural history observations on Mount Desert Island, dating back to the late 1800s, and comparing these with contemporary data to document change over time.
While the project focuses on the science of environmental change, it also explores how every-day people can collect meaningful scientific data, and how people might choose to respond to ecological change, as individuals, as artists, as natural resource managers, as activists or even as a society as a whole.

1. What are the historical records that provide the baseline from which your are able to document ecological change on Mount Desert Island?
2. What are the modern methods of data collection that citizens are involved in collecting?
3. What are the changes you have found in MDI’s natural environment in the past 100+ years
4. How can citizens and visitors become involved and learn more?

Guests:
Raney Bench, Executive Director of the Mount Desert Island Historical Society
Johanna Blackman, Executive Director of A Climate to Thrive
Jennifer Steen Booher, Artist-in-residence with MDI Historical Society.
Seth Benz, Director of Bird Ecology at Schoodic Institute at Acadia Nation Park
Catherine Schmitt, science writer with Schoodic Institute at Acadia National Park
Kyle Lima, Data Analyst, also with the Schoodic Institute at Acadia National Park

About the host:

Natalie Springuel has hosted Coastal Conversation’s since 2015, with support from the University of Maine Sea Grant where she has served as a marine extension associate for 20 years. In 2019, Springuel received an award for Public Affairs programming from the Maine Association of Broadcasters for the Coastal Conversations show called “Portland’s Working Waterfront.” Springuel is passionate about translating science, sharing stories, and offering a platform for multiple voices to weigh in on complex coastal and ocean issues. She has recently enrolled in audio production training at Maine Media Workshop to dive deeper into making great community radio.