Virus misinformation
Gov. Paul LePage has made fearmongering and deliberately arousing public fear and alarm for political gain a hallmark of his re-election campaign. He sent in the state police, supposedly to “protect” us from an individual who has broken no laws and harmed no one, the effect of which will surely be to increase people’s fear and panic and further alienate and polarize neighbor against neighbor.
I thought he was against government intrusion into our lives; instead it appears he wants to turn Maine into a police state. What happened to constitutional rights? And I don’t even want to get started on how this will simply contribute to the nonsensical media frenzy currently sweeping the nation and, sadly, the county I call home.
Thank goodness for reasonable people such as Fort Kent Town Manager Don Guimond and Police Chief Thomas Pelletier. The rational viewpoints and compassionate opinions those two have publicly displayed the past few days make me proud of my connections to the St. John Valley town. My hope and belief is that there are many more like them in Maine who can help us find our way out of the misinformation, panic and fear that has spread its way throughout our fair state. Now that’s an epidemic that truly needs fighting.
Paul Lamoreau
Presque Isle
National park benefits
A few years ago, David Louv’s book, “Last Child in the Woods,” alerted us to the changing lives of Americans and our children, the increasingly plugged-in state of youth, and the newly defined “nature deficit disorder.” His frightening study is being echoed in more and more mental health research and by medical professionals bemoaning obesity and diabetes as the legacy of changing life habits. We must offer inviting ways to get our population out-of-doors.
Visiting national parks is a wonderful way to build family values, to teach what is important and to cultivate a sense of beauty and adventure. If we in Maine can add one more great national park for families to imprint on and learn to love, where they can experience unplugged wildness and the peace of being in a quiet place, we will have helped the world, our country and our state of Maine. In the shadow of Gov. Percival Baxter, we can leave a lasting “legacy of a lifetime.”
Wilderness is fast dwindling and fragmenting, even in Maine, the most heavily forested state of the Lower 48. The offer we are getting from Elliotsville Plantation, Inc., is an incredibly generous one, and an opportunity to save a fleeting landscape and create a nest egg for the citizens of Maine and their children.
Cloe Chunn
Waldo
Stop overfishing
The Gulf of Maine today contains between 0 and 5 percent, depending on species, of the fish that were here when the first otter trawls began fishing in 1905. Beam trawls had already fished much of the flounder out of Provincetown Harbor. In 1902, 65 beam trawls took 1,419,809 flounders out of Massachusett Bay. The flounders averaged 1 pound each, and no other species were taken. All of these beam trawls were in Barnstable County, 30 of them in Provincetown Harbor. By 1919, 310 Massachusetts otter trawls, 191 of them in the shore fisheries and 119 in offshore fisheries, took 19 species weighing 58,478,200 pounds. By 1938, 351 Massachusetts trawls, averaging 29.78 yards at the mouth, took 41 species weighing together 399,746,600 lbs. And that doesn’t include the catch by gill nets, seines, weirs, pound nets, traps, hooks, spears and dipnets. And these figures don’t include the hundreds of millions of pounds of smelt, alewives, shad, menhaden, tomcod, cunners, eels, etc. taken in rivers.
See where we’re going here? We’re lucky there are any fish left at all. A rational way to approach restoration of this ecosystem would be to buy up and scrap all mobile net gear and forbid its replacement for at least three decades. Once it’s gone too far to rebuild itself, it will not come back for many centuries; the web of interdependent species is far too complex to reconstruct out of hatcheries.
William Leavenworth
Searsmont
Preserve bridge beauty
In view of the upcoming public hearings about the replacement or renovation of the bridge over the Blue Hill Falls on Route 175 in South Blue Hill, we would like to express our views. We feel that the existing bridge is a graceful arched structure that is beautiful to see. In addition, the situation of the existing bridge close to the water enhances the experience of the falls.
We remember our introduction to the bridge about 10 years ago when our sailboat was moored in Blue Hill harbor. A cousin and her husband picked us up for dinner and drove us down to the bridge late in the twilight of a September night. The sound and sight of the rushing water on a falling tide was unforgettable.
We have continued to return to the Peninsula since then and are now residents. We often drive out of our way to go by the falls and are particularly pleased to see so many people stopped by the road in the summertime to enjoy the bridge and view the falls. We fear that a larger bridge (which might be high off the water) would make it impossible to experience the unique combination of bridge and water that so many people frequently enjoy.
We hope that whatever repairs are needed could be accomplished without disturbing the exceptional beauty and location of the present bridge.
Cathy Thompson
Ed Manuel
Sedgwick
Finish Ebola mission
I have become very offended with the state of our medical providers as of late. I have always believed that our doctors and nurses were bound by an ethic to care for the sick and to combat health dangers to the best of their ability.
Kaci Hickox has, in my opinion, endangered the welfare of the citizens of this state. Her actions speak very poorly of her character and exposes her lack of caring for those that come in contact with her. I certainly hope that she is not infected with the Ebola virus, but common sense and the safety of others should be paramount in her mind.
I do applaud her for traveling to the infected areas to help those unable to help themselves. Wouldn’t you think that upon return voluntary isolation for a period to ensure her health would finish the mission? Thank you to all that intend to and have helped fight the Ebola virus, finish the mission for your country’s sake.
Wayne LeVasseur
Bangor