It takes about 13 minutes to drive from Schemengees Bar and Grille in Lewiston to the Papermill Trail/Miller Park boat launch in Lisbon. The fastest way is along Route 196, leaving the area locals call Lincoln Street Flats, cutting southeast across the city, past businesses, homes and places of worship and into neighboring Lisbon where the road crosses the Androscoggin River.

The tree-lined streets look quintessentially New England this time of year with the leaves’ red-orange hues.

It’s not known if the Lewiston shooting suspect, Robert Card, took that route after his deadly rampage at the bar and a bowling alley on Wednesday evening. But investigators found his Subaru abandoned at the boat launch shortly before 10 p.m. that night.

He hasn’t been seen since. 

With the search for Card now extending into a third day, investigators face a massive challenge: the suspect in Maine’s deadliest mass shooting has escaped in a state with an estimated 17.5 million acres of forest land and numerous rivers, vast expanses of uninhabited land dotted by small communities, farms, logging roads and two lane highways. 

More than 350 law enforcement officials in Maine were taking part in the manhunt, said Mark Latti, spokesman for Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Authorities spent Friday conducting extensive searches by air and boat, said Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuck.

Divers with the Maine State Police, Warden Service and Marine Patrol were getting ready to search a small section of the wide and meandering Androscoggin River, which stretches from Maine’s western border at the town of Gilead, through downtown Lewiston, until it meets the Kennebec River and eventually the sprawling Atlantic Ocean. 

A utility is using its dams to lower the water-level of the river in the area, but Sauschuck made it clear that would not be law enforcement’s only area of focus.

But the message from authorities on Friday was clear: they need the public’s help to locate a man they consider armed and dangerous. So far, more than 530 tips have come in from the public.

“Every minute this goes on we’re more and more concerned,” Sauschuck said. “That’s why we’re working 24/7.”

Maine has been here before

Maine’s vast wilderness and forest lands have shielded suspects from capture before. As the search dragged on Friday, the challenges ahead to locate Card evoked memories of past manhunts.

In 2015, Robert Burton, accused of killing his girlfriend, eluded capture for about nine weeks before he gave himself up. He lived in the woods in Piscataquis County, in central Maine, county officials and the Bangor Daily News said at the time.

It was the longest manhunt in state history. Tracking dogs and electronic road sign warnings were used in the extensive manhunt for Burton, the newspaper said. State police said he was suspected of hiding in the woods and stealing provisions from nearby campsites, Reuters reported at the time.

Three years later, it took officers from 200 jurisdictions during a four-day manhunt in the woods of Maine in April 2018 to locate John Williams, who was later convicted of fatally shooting Somerset County Sheriff Eugene Cole, Maine media reported at the time.

In Pennsylvania last month, convicted murder Danelo Cavalcante, 34, escaped from prison and avoided capture for nearly two weeks despite a massive manhunt to apprehend him. The New York Times reported it was a federal aircraft that detected a “heat signature” — an object giving off more heat than its surroundings — that eventually located him.

Robert Card knows the area 

Robert Card’s family has lived in Bowdoin for generations, and members of the family own hundreds of acres in the area, The Associated Press reported. Officers were at a home believed to belong to Card’s brother Thursday night. 

“This is his stomping ground,” Richard Goddard, who lives near the family, said of the suspect, according to the Associated Press. “He knows every ledge to hide behind, every thicket.”

Like the rest of Maine, Androscoggin and Sagadahoc counties, which were under shelter in place orders until Friday as police searched for Card, are heavily wooded, with a majority of their landmass covered by forest. 

Of Androscoggin County’s roughly 307,000 acres, 63% consists of forests, according to a 2018 report from the U.S. Forest Service, compared to 60% of land in smaller Sagadahoc County.

Overall, 89% of Maine is covered by forest land, excluding water.

“We do look at all of these situations as if the individual could be there,” Sauschuck said of the focus areas for the search. “And if that’s the case, you’ll see tactical teams at some point” dressed in casual clothing “just because they’re out in the woods and they’re going to be out crawling around.”

Dense underbrush and downed trees are a couple complicating factors in searching through Maine’s varying woodlands and topography, said Bryan Courpois, a veteran search and rescue volunteer and president of Pine Tree Search and Rescue.

Gridded searches over a set tract of land can be bogged down by searchers having to stop and check underneath trees. The search can be much more efficient if the members of the team know each other well, Courpois said. That situation could be complicated when law enforcement personnel from multiple jurisdictions are on the scene. 

“It’s also sometimes dictated by the experience of the ground searchers and how well that particular group has worked,” Courpois said. “If there’s some people on our team that I’ve worked with a number of times … we can probably cover an area more efficiently than we could if we had some less experienced people.”

The search area 

Investigators were focused Friday on a boat launch on the Androscoggin River, using a remotely operated vehicle, or ROV, underwater to search. Divers will join the search as early as Saturday.

“They’re using, right now, a remote-operated vehicle, a ‘submersible ROV,’ which they operate with a tether from the shore and basically it’s got propulsion and the ability to change depth … They’re also going to be physically in the water with scuba divers,” Latti said in an interview with The Maine Monitor.

Latti stood on Route 196 by St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Lisbon near the search area along the Androscoggin River. Police would not let anyone closer to the boat launch down the road.

Overhead helicopters with the Maine Forest Service and New Hampshire State Police were also supporting the search for Card, Latti said. He said he did not know if the helicopters had any heat detecting equipment onboard, although the Portland Press Herald reported crews were using thermal imaging to scan the water. 

That heat-detecting technology becomes less effective if a body has been submerged in a cold river like the Androscoggin, a dive rescue expert told The Maine Monitor.

Whether by air, walking along the shoreline or remotely from land each approach comes with a trade-off between the area that can be covered and the level of detail that search ultimately provides.

“The helicopters that were above can cover a lot of ground, but they can’t focus as well as somebody walking along the shoreline,” Latti said.

When dive rescue and recovery teams start searching for a person, whether dead or alive, they rely on evidence and witnesses to determine where that person was last seen in relation to the body of water, said Justin Fox, a veteran diver for Colorado public safety agencies and president of Dive Rescue International.

Without evidence of where a person enters the water, a search area expands significantly, Fox said. Rather than closing in on a certain location, investigators have to first rule out where a person is not.

“I think that there’s a lot of unknowns in this instance,” Fox said of the kinds of information investigators in Maine have at this time. 

Should Card have drowned in the Androscoggin, then any targeted location effort might have to extend miles downstream with the flow of the river.

“There’s also the potential for the water to move a [drowning] victim,” Fox said. “So instead of sinking straight to the bottom, if there’s a current significant enough to move them, then they would also have to search downstream of the point last known.”

Card’s whereabouts were still unknown by Friday afternoon.

“He could be anywhere at this point,” Kenneth Gray, a retired FBI Special Agent and a senior lecturer at the University of New Haven’s Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences, told the Boston Globe. “He could be in Canada. He could be down in Massachusetts. He could be anywhere in the Northeast.”

New Hampshire State Police have sent SWAT team members to assist with ground searches in Maine, said an agency spokeswoman. 

Detectives with New Hampshire’s major crime unit are also helping investigators at multiple crime scenes. The Special Enforcement Unit is providing air support with its helicopter, she said. 

Troopers were also providing mental health services to people involved in the shooting, and shuttling blood donations from New Hampshire hospitals to Maine hospitals.

“New Hampshire State Troopers will continue to remain vigilant and visible, especially along our Maine border until this situation is resolved,” said Commissioner Robert Quinn in a press statement. “We will provide additional resources as requested by law enforcement partners.”

What the experts say

Edward Davis, who was Boston’s police commissioner during the 2013 Marathon bombings, said the situation was somewhat similar to what occurred in his city during a days long manhunt for the suspects. 

One big difference: greater Boston is an urban environment, whereas the area being searched in Maine is largely rural.

The bombings happened on April 15, 2013 and the second suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was not located until April 19. He was hiding in a boat parked in a Watertown backyard. 

During a manhunt, Davis said investigators typically set up a grid around the area to organize the search. They also scour social media and interview acquaintances to understand where the suspect might go.

Investigators would also see if the suspect had a second “switch car” or a boat they could use to evade police. They would use the suspect’s cell phone to track their location and look at surveillance video to locate them.

Card’s cell phone was found in his home by law enforcement, the Associated Press reported. Investigators also found a note.

Scott Sweetow, a longtime firearms instructor and military reservist who is now president of S3 Global Consulting, LLC, said it was apparent to him that Card had military training and knew how to handle a weapon. But he was optimistic he would be found.

“The average SWAT officer (federal, state or local) is likely to be far more proficient with long guns than this guy, and also part of a well trained team,” Sweetow said. “It may take some time, but they will eventually catch this guy.”

The story Maine’s vast rural expanse complicates the search for Lewiston shooting suspect appeared first on The Maine Monitor.

Mass shootings at a bowling alley and bar that left 18 people dead in Lewiston on Wednesday evening have brought Maine’s complicated relationship with guns and how to regulate them to the forefront once again.

In the past three years, state lawmakers have proposed nearly four dozen bills to regulate the sale, carry and liability of guns in Maine, but most have not passed the Legislature. A “yellow flag” law enacted in 2019 lets law enforcement take guns away from someone they suspect of posing a threat to themselves or others, but officials concede it is underutilized.

Maine ranks in the middle of the pack among other states when it comes to gun safety laws, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control group, and the laws in place appeared to have done little to stop the suspect in the mass shooting in Lewiston.

Maine does not require a permit to carry a firearm in most cases. State lawmakers have rejected proposals for background checks and limits on accessories that make guns more easy to shoot. It also does not have a ban on assault weapons, unlike two other New England states.

Kristen Cloutier, who lives in Lewiston and is the Assistant House Majority Leader, said the shooting in her hometown was “surreal and heartbreaking,” and called for “bold” legislative action to address gun violence.

“This has only strengthened my own resolve to do whatever I can to help prevent similar tragedies like this from happening again in other communities. As a state, we must do more to address gun violence and keep ourselves, our families, our friends and our neighbors safe,” Cloutier wrote in a statement to the press. 

“Words are not enough — they never have been. We must take bold action,” she added.

The Maine Gun Safety Coalition immediately called on state lawmakers to pass an assault weapons ban calling the events in Lewiston “horrific, senseless tragedies.”

Rep. Rebecca Millett (D-Cape Elizabeth), a member of the state’s Gun Safety Caucus, said it was very difficult to talk about the mass shooting in Lewiston, after spending years fighting “bad gun bills” and trying to advance gun safety laws.

“The years I had to listen to my colleagues stand and say we don’t need gun safety legislation and Maine is the safest place in the country. To have my worst nightmares happen, is just devastating,” Millett said in an interview with The Maine Monitor. 

Details emerge about man alleged to have shot 18 people 

A manhunt was underway Thursday by police to find the man suspected of firing multiple shots at two locations, killing 18 and wounding 13. Photos released by law enforcement show a man carrying a semiautomatic style rifle.

The suspect, Robert R. Card, 40, of Bowdoin, has a history of mental health problems and is a trained firearms instructor, according to the Associated Press.

Card is a petroleum supply specialist and Sgt. 1st Class in the Army Reserve, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army confirmed to the Portland Press Herald Thursday. The spokesperson told the newspaper that Card enlisted in 2002 and has received multiple awards but has not been deployed in combat.

Maine State Police Thursday issued an arrest warrant for Card on eight counts of murder. Col. William Ross said during a press briefing the counts will increase once the 10 other victims are identified. Ross said Card is considered “armed and dangerous,” and urged people not to approach him but to call 911 or tip lines 207-213-9526 or 207-509-9002.

The Sun Journal reported that Card had spent two weeks at a mental health facility this summer. It is unknown if Card was voluntarily admitted or involuntarily committed to the facility.

People who are involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital by a district court may not own or possess firearms in Maine, according to state law. Violating the law is a class D misdemeanor crime.

The Associated Press reported Thursday that police took Card for an evaluation in mid-July after military officials grew concerned about his erratic behavior while he was training with the U.S. Army Reserves at the Military Academy at West Point in New York, according to an official who spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the information. The official told the AP that military commanders called the New York state police, who took Card to the Keller Army Community Hospital for evaluation.

When asked at a press briefing why Card was able to access a gun despite his reported history of mental health challenges, Mike Sauschuck, commissioner of the Maine Department of Public Safety, said “those are all valid questions and certainly questions that we are looking into now, but not questions that we can answer today,” given the ongoing manhunt.

Maine grapples with foreseeable harm

Maine legislators passed the “yellow flag” law in 2019 that allows police to petition a court to remove guns from a person that a medical expert says presents “a likelihood of foreseeable harm” to themselves or others either because of suicidal or violent threats against others.

The Associated Press reported that Maine’s yellow flag law is weaker than so-called “red flag” laws found in some 20 other states. The Maine law requires police first to get a medical practitioner to evaluate the person and find them to be a threat before police can petition a judge to order the person’s firearms to be seized, the AP said.

It was not clear Thursday if the law came into play regarding the suspect in the Lewiston shooting.

Maine’s yellow flag law is underused, police acknowledge. Maine Public Radio reported that the law was used two dozen times in the first two years it was in effect. Earlier this year, law enforcement noted that the law is “not being used on a regular and responsive basis” and cited a lack of available medical professionals to complete the assessments, according to a report.

Barbara Cardone, spokeswoman for the state judicial branch, said Thursday involuntary commitment orders and petitions under the “yellow flag” law are confidential court records. She declined to say whether any such court records existed for Card. 

“All of these kinds of records are confidential, so I cannot provide you with any information,” Cardone wrote.

Edward Davis, who was Boston’s police commissioner during 2013 Marathon bombings, said the weapon in photos released by police appeared to be an assault-style rifle, most likely an AR-15 or an M-4, which is the military version of the AR-15. 

Davis, who now runs his own security company, noted that he spends time in Maine and has had tense conversations with Mainers about gun ownership. 

“I have guns, but they need to be regulated,” Davis said in an interview with The Maine Monitor. 

The suspect in the shootings, Card, has a history of mental health problems. “We should have an absolute prohibition on anybody like that having guns,” Davis said.

Maine will now grapple with how to respond to one of its worst mass casualty events. 

Similar shootings have shaken the country, including the 2022 Buffalo grocery store shooting that killed 10, and the 2021 spa shooting spree in Atlanta that killed eight people.

“We continue to monitor the horrific situation in the greater Lewiston area as the manhunt is underway for the person of interest in the Lewiston mass shooting. We grieve for the families of the 18 who were killed and 13 injured in this senseless tragedy,” Maine House Republicans said in a news release on Thursday.

Stephen King, famous Maine horror and science fiction author, said on X, formerly known as Twitter, Thursday morning that these kinds of shootings don’t happen in other countries.

“The shootings occurred less than 50 miles from where I live,” he wrote to his 7 million followers. “I went to high school in Lisbon. It’s the rapid-fire killing machines, people. This is madness in the name of freedom. Stop electing apologists for murder.”

A tired fight for change

Everytown For Gun Safety, a gun safety advocacy group, ranked Maine 25th in the nation in terms of gun laws.

Maine law prohibits any person convicted of a crime and sentenced to a year or more in prison from possessing a firearm. People under a protection from abuse order for harassing, stalking or threatening an intimate partner or child also may not possess a gun.

State lawmakers in recent years have rejected ideas to prohibit people from possessing “rapid-fire modification” devices for guns that increase the number of bullets that can be shot at one time or to require background checks for purchasers at private gun shows.

Maine lawmakers also rejected a proposed background check exemption for people with concealed weapons permits when they go to purchase a firearm, and legislation that would regulate the manufacture, distribution and possession of “untraceable and undetectable” firearms.

A proposal that would allow certain people to carry concealed handguns on school property narrowly failed in the Maine Legislature in June. 

Several more pieces of gun legislation are expected to be discussed by lawmakers next year when the Legislature reconvenes in January.

Millett, the lawmaker from Cape Elizabeth, has a bill that would allow a person to bring a civil lawsuit against gun manufacturers for selling “abnormally dangerous” guns, because the product was “most suitable for assaultive purposes” rather than hunting, self-defense or sport, or because it converts a legal firearm into an illegal firearm, or is marketed to minors.

She said in an interview Thursday it is time for legislators to listen to the people they represent and to be proactive about gun safety.

Still, lawmakers will face barriers to getting substantial legislation passed next year while they meet for a short time and with restrictions on the kinds of bills that can be worked on.

“We had a host of bills this past session and a good deal of them didn’t go anywhere,” Millett said. “And now that we’re in the short session there’s a lot less latitude for legislators to put in any new legislation for consideration.”

At least one proposed bill that will go to lawmakers next year would restore gun rights to some people convicted of nonviolent crimes if they are not convicted or any additional crimes and 10 years have passed. Criminal law experts have already raised multiple concerns about how the bill is written.

Ten states, including Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York, have assault weapons bans. 

On the federal level, President Joe Biden again called for a ban on assault weapons following the shooting in Lewiston. 

Biden urged Congressional Republicans to work with Democrats to pass a bill that would ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. He also called for universal background checks, safe storage of guns and an end to liability immunity for gun manufacturers.

The story Mass shooting turns spotlight on Maine’s sparse gun laws appeared first on The Maine Monitor.

With residents under a shelter-in-place order, the streets of Lewiston were mostly empty for much of Thursday, but for a heavy media presence and scores of local, state and federal officials gathered at City Hall in the morning.

In the wake of shootings that left at least 18 dead in Maine’s second largest city, local residents and officials expressed shock that the nation’s epidemic of mass shootings had come to their community and grappled to make sense of the past day’s events.

“It’s just so surreal. You don’t expect this in Lewiston, Maine. We’re in one of the safest states in the country,” Lewiston city councilor Bob McCarthy said in a phone interview Thursday.

“I feel for all the families that are involved. There’s a hole that’ll never be filled,” he said.

Gov. Janet Mills at a press conference Thursday morning confirmed that 18 people were killed in related shootings Wednesday night at Just-In-Time Recreation, a bowling alley at 24 Mollison Way, and Schemengees Bar at 551 Lincoln St. Thirteen people were injured.

It is the deadliest mass shooting event in Maine history and the deadliest so far this year in the U.S., according to a database maintained by the Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University and data from the nonprofit organization Gun Violence Archive.

“Lewiston is a special place. It’s a close knit community with a long history of hard work, of persistence, of faith, of opening its big heart to people everywhere,” Mills said at the press conference, her voice hoarse from working through the night.

It’s where she met and married her husband, and raised their children, she said.

“I’m so deeply sad,” Mills said.

Later in the day, Miia Zellner, 22, and Hunter Kissam, 27, nailed paper hearts to trees along Lisbon Street. “To my community,” they read. 

Massachusetts natives who now live in Lewiston, Kissam said they’re “very shocked.”

“(We’ve) been saying to others we’ve never felt safer than here and to see this happen to this community is baffling,” he said.

Just-in-time Recreation, the bowling alley where one of the shootings occurred, issued a statement on Facebook Thursday that expressed the shock that so many were experiencing.

“None of this seems real, but unfortunately it is,” the statement said. “We are devastated for our community and our staff. We lost some amazing and whole-hearted people from our bowling family and community last night.”

Similarly, the owner of Schemengees Bar and Grille, another shooting scene, said: “In a split second your world gets turn(ed) upside down for no good reason.”

A former mill town along the Androscoggin River in central Maine, Lewiston has long been a city of immigrants. In the mid-1800s, Lewiston’s population nearly doubled within a decade as French Canadians poured into the city to work in the textile mills, according to the Franco-American Collection at the University of Southern Maine. Lacking the funds to move back to their hometowns in Quebec and New Brunswick, many put down roots that remain strong to this day.

The Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, a towering Gothic-style cathedral anchoring the city center, is the most striking example of Lewiston’s deep Franco American roots.

Nearly a century and a half later, a new wave of immigrants moved to Lewiston. Somali refugees, fleeing civil war, came in large numbers starting in the early 2000s. By many accounts, the new residents helped revive the city, which had long been in decline with textile mills gone.

Downtown Lewiston is home to four of the five poorest census tracts in the state. Nearly half of the residents living in the city’s Tree Streets neighborhood — the 30 blocks between Kennedy Park and the Colisée — live below the poverty line.

The city of 37,000’s often divisive politics play out in the city council. More recently, tensions have bubbled to the surface as the city struggles to find solutions to a housing crisis and revelations about decisions made by city leaders in both private and public about homeless shelters and affordable housing have come to light.

But on Thursday morning, those disagreements were the least of their concerns. Outside City Hall, councilors Linda Scott and Bob McCarthy embraced each other: “We put everything aside,” Scott told McCarthy.

“The residents of Lewiston need each other right now and we need to support each other at this time,” Mayor Carl Sheline said after the press conference. “I urge everyone to check on their neighbors.”

McCarthy said much the same: “Just talk to your friends and family. Give them a call. If you’re feeling you need something, reach out.”

He added that there will be more community support, “but nothing can be done until this guy’s caught.”

As of Thursday afternoon, officials had not publicly disclosed the victims’ identities. Maine State Police Col. William Ross said at the morning press conference that authorities had identified eight individuals so far and were in the process of contacting next of kin.

A “person of interest,” Robert R. Card, 40, of Bowdoin, has been charged with eight counts of murder. As more victims are identified, the number of charges will likely go up, Ross said.

A massive manhunt that includes more than 350 law enforcement personnel from state and federal agencies is underway for Card, Maine Department of Public Safety spokesperson Shannon Moss said.

Shortly after midnight on Thursday, Auburn Mayor Jason Levesque told reporters gathered outside a makeshift reunification center at Auburn Middle School that at least 40-50 people were reunified with their worried loved ones.

“At this point, there is a significant amount of shock going on with people that were actually witnesses…” Levesque said. “Obviously when I was bringing people in that were looking for their loved ones, there is fear, there is panic, there’s worry. Understandable.”

“But the people that were actually there tonight, it was what I didn’t hear. It’s a shock. It’s hard for me to explain,” Levesque said. “I just want people to go home and hold their families.”

Taking a moment to steady himself, he said that not everyone who showed up at the middle school found their loved ones, but declined to say more.

The massive response to the tragedy played out across the communities, including the Central Maine Medical Center. 

When the first patient arrived at about 7:25 pm Wednesday, there were approximately 25 medical personnel ready and available, hospital officials later recounted. By the time the 14th patient came in about 45 minutes later, the team had ballooned to as many as 60.

“It has been a very challenging 16 hours,” said Dr. John Alexander, the Chief Medical Officer for the hospital’s parent company, Central Maine Healthcare.

By Thursday morning, dozens of reporters buzzed around outside of Lewiston City Hall ahead of a press conference. The sidewalk leading to the city offices was also dotted with law enforcement from municipal, state and federal agencies.

The streets surrounding the city’s downtown were otherwise sparsely populated and stores on Lisbon Street were closed as the city, other parts of Androscoggin and Sagadahoc counties remain under a shelter and place order from Maine State Police.

Lewiston resident Oscar Perkins, 62, was with a friend a few blocks away from Central Maine Medical Center on Wednesday night as emergency vehicles zipped across town with their sirens blaring and lights flashing.

“We [were] counting police cars and paramedic cars and lost count because there were so many of them,” Perkins said.

Perkins sat on a bench across from Kennedy Park on Thursday morning, watching as the commotion outside of city hall unraveled in front of him. He’s lived in Lewiston for over 30 years and said he has never seen anything like this happen before.

“Lewiston has never experienced that, and me neither. I’m from a big city, Cleveland, and nothing like this has ever happened,” Perkins said. “I know one thing: it will bring a lot of people together and scare a lot more people.”

“I’m just going to say, coming from a soon-to-be-mother, it’s really scary. Nothing like this should be going down,” Kassie Horton, 18, said. Her and her partner, Damien Horton, 20, live in an apartment building at the corner of Lisbon and Park streets.

The Hortons were sitting in front of the Lewiston Public Library Thursday afternoon with their friend, Damion Dobson, 30, who said he was walking along Strawberry Avenue a block away from Mollison Way Wednesday night when he heard sirens and saw fire trucks and ambulances rushing to the scene at the bowling alley.

Damien Horton was at work Wednesday night at ReEnergy on Alfred Plourde Parkway, across the street from the Walmart Distribution Center where initial reports said there was more gunfire. Officials later clarified that those reports were unsubstantiated.

Kassie Horton said she was sitting at home, hearing the sirens and calamity outside and thought, “What’s going to happen if he doesn’t come home?”

The story A city, and a state, in shock appeared first on The Maine Monitor.

A manhunt involving at least 100 law enforcement personnel was underway in Maine early Thursday morning in the wake of mass shootings in Lewiston that left at least 16 dead and dozens wounded.

Details continue to remain fluid. A news conference is scheduled for 10:30 a.m.

Here’s what we know as of 7:30 a.m.:

The Associated Press reported there were 16 deaths. But earlier, Androscoggin County Sheriff Eric Samson put the figure at as many as 22 people died.

State Police have identified 40-year-old Robert R. Card II as a person of interest in the shootings that rocked the city of Lewiston Wednesday night. The Bangor Daily News was the first to report the identity.

Card, a resident of Bowdoin, is a firearms instructor trained by the military, according to a police bulletin viewed by the Associated Press, and was committed to a mental health facility for two weeks this past summer.

“The document also said Card had reported hearing voices and had threatened to carry out a shooting at the military training base in Saco, Maine,” the AP reported.

The Lewiston Sun Journal reported that police, fire and rescue personnel descended on Sparetime Recreation, which was recently renamed Just-In-Time Recreation, on Mollison Way about 7:15 p.m. during a youth bowling night.

Shortly afterward, reports came in that there was another shooting four miles away at Schemengees Bar & Grille on Lincoln Street.

Seven deaths were reported at Sparetime Recreation bowling alley, and an unconfirmed number at Schemengees Bar & Grille Restaurant, the Bangor Daily News reported.

It appears to be the worst mass shooting in Maine history. The Associated Press reported that the shooting was the country’s 36th mass killing this year. The AP and USA Today maintains a database with Northeastern University. At least 188 people have died in those killings, which are defined as incidents in which four or more people have died within a 24-hour period, not including the killer — the same definition used by the FBI.

Separately, The Trace, a nonprofit dedicated to covering guns and shootings, reported in early October that in 2023 there have been 531 incidents in which four or more people were wounded or killed with guns. The Trace cited Gun Violence Archive, which tracks shootings through news and police reports.

A lockdown has been called across Androscoggin County, with police asking people to shelter in place, lock their doors and stay inside late Wednesday evening. People are asked to stay off the streets so police can defuse the situation.

Authorities in Lisbon and Bowdoin also issued shelter in place orders.

A vehicle of interest was located in Lisbon Wednesday night, according to a notice distributed to The Maine Monitor, and law enforcement is asking Lisbon residents to shelter in place as authorities work in the area to locate Card.

Those who notice anything suspicious are asked to call 911.

In Auburn, Maine Monitor reporter Emily Bader reported that Mayor Jason Levesque said that at least 40-50 people were reunified with their worried loved ones at Auburn Middle School shortly after midnight Thursday. They had been brought over by a city bus after giving statements to police. More people were likely to be brought to the school as the night went on.

“At this point, there is a significant amount of shock going on with people that were actually witnesses…,’’ Levesque said. “Obviously when I was bringing people in that were looking for their loved ones, there is fear, there is panic, there’s worry. Understandable.’’ 

“But the people that were actually there tonight, it was what I didn’t hear. It’s shock. It’s hard for me to explain,’’ Levesque said. “I just want people to home and hold their families.’’

One man told the Monitor that his adult daughter had started her first night at a bowling league at Sparetime Recreation. He said his daughter was next to the shooting suspect at the bowling alley when he burst in. She bolted out of the bowling alley and into the nearby woods.

 “I have four daughters and she’s the toughest but this destroyed her,’’ the man said.

Melinda Small, the owner of Legends Sports Bar and Grill, told the Associated Press that her staff immediately locked their doors and moved all 25 customers and employees away from the doors after a customer reported hearing about the shooting at the bowling alley less than a quarter-mile away around 7 p.m.

“I am honestly in a state of shock. I am blessed that my team responded quickly and everyone is safe,” Small told The Associated Press. “But the same time, my heart is broken for this area and for what everyone is dealing with. I just feel numb.”

Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline, in a post on Facebook, said “I am heartbroken for our city and for our people. Lewiston is known for our strength and our grit and we will need both in the days to come.”

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.

Statements and reaction to the shootings:

Central Maine Medical Center: “Central Maine Medical Center is reacting to a mass casualty, mass shooter event.”

Maine Medical Center: “Maine Medical Center has alerted on-call staff and created critical care and operating room capacity in anticipation of potential patient transports coming from the Lewiston shooting this evening. At this time, MMC can confirm it will receive one patient transport from Central Maine Medical Center. Other MaineHealth facilities are also standing by and preparing to provide care.”

White House: “The President spoke by phone individually to Maine Governor Janet Mills, Senators Angus King and Susan Collins, and Congressman Jared Golden about the shooting in Lewiston, Maine and offered full federal support in the wake of this horrific attack.”

Gov. Janet Mills: “I am aware of and have been briefed on the active shooter situation in Lewiston. I urge all people in the area to follow the direction of State and local enforcement. I will to continue to monitor the situation and remain in close contact with public safety officials.”

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland: “The Attorney General has been briefed and will continue to closely monitor the situation. Federal law enforcement agencies are assisting our state and local law enforcement partners in Lewiston, Maine.”

Sen. Susan Collins: “As our state mourns this horrific mass shooting, we appreciate the support we’ve received from across the country, including the call I received from President Biden offering assistance.”

Sen. Angus King: “Senator King is deeply sad for the city of Lewiston and all those worried about their family, friends and neighbors. He’s receiving regular updates, awaits further details from local authorities, and will be headed directly home to Maine once the Senate’s final vote is held tomorrow afternoon. Given the shelter in place currently underway, he asks all in Androscoggin County to allow first responders to address the threat, stay indoors, and report any suspicious behavior to the local authorities.” (Later): “President Biden just reached out to Senator King directly and offered any federal assistance he can provide to help the people of Maine. Senator King expressed his deep appreciation to the President for the outreach and support. Given the horrific nature of the events in Maine, Senator King will now be headed to Maine on one of the first flights available — he wants to be home to support Lewiston in any way he can.”

Rep. Jared Golden: “Like all Mainers, I’m horrified by the events in Lewiston tonight. This is my hometown. Right now, all of us are looking to local law enforcement as they gain control of the situation and gather information. Our hearts break for those who are affected and we encourage everyone to follow the directions of the authorities as they conduct their work.”

Rep. Chellie Pingree: “I am closely monitoring the reports of mass shootings in Lewiston. The unfolding violence is shocking and I am holding the affected communities in my prayers.”

The story The latest on Lewiston mass shootings appeared first on The Maine Monitor.

With pharmacists around the country walking off the job or threatening to do so, Maine pharmacies have experienced sudden closures, infrequent hours and frustration from customers who say they’re unreliable.

Over the past several weeks, employees at Walgreens and CVS, the nation’s two largest pharmacy chains, staged walkouts or did not show up for work to protest what organizers told The Washington Post are conditions that threaten the safety of employees and patients.

The walkouts show pharmacists feel “safety is so compromised that it’s actually better to not open the pharmacy,” than to open it, said Emily Dornblaser, a founding faculty member of the University of New England School of Pharmacy and director of interprofessional education.

“They just can’t meet the needs of the people that need them. And in doing so, they’re potentially putting other people at risk.”

There have been no reports of walkouts at Maine pharmacies as of Friday, but national organizers told CNBC that Walgreens walkouts are scheduled for Oct. 30 to Nov. 1. It is unclear whether any Maine pharmacists will participate.

Meanwhile, at least eight Walgreens have closed since 2020.

There is a shortage of pharmacists in Maine and nationwide, Dornblaser said. It started in the mid-2000s, when a shortage prompted a number of pharmacy school openings. But then the 2008 recession hit, and pharmacists who may have otherwise retired continued to work, she said.

Starting about six years ago, Maine finally met the demand for pharmacists — and then some. Jobs became more competitive, wages dropped, and so did applications to pharmacy schools.

In the fall of 2018, UNE School of Pharmacy reported 273 students enrolled in its Doctor of Pharmacy program, according to data from the university. By the fall of 2022, enrollment had dropped to 116 students, a nearly 60% decrease over five years.

Maine’s only other pharmacy school, at Husson University in Bangor, admits 65 students per year, according to its website.

“Right in the middle of that, then, is a pandemic,” Dorblaser said.

Complicating the equation is that pharmacists are doing a lot more than filling prescriptions.

“We’ve definitely seen a lot more added to our plate: testing, delivery of vaccines. We’re right now in the introduction phase of the 23-24 COVID vaccine, along with our flu vaccine, along with the (respiratory syncytial virus) vaccine,” said Steve Maki, president of the Maine Pharmacy Association.

“So, I mean, there’s a lot of additional services and things that three years ago weren’t even on our radar of, ‘Oh my gosh, this is now something we have to adjust for and we have to plan for.’”

Maki, who has been a pharmacist since 1996 and opened Spruce Mountain Pharmacy in Jay in 2009, said the pharmacy landscape “seems like it changes right before our eyes.”

“Three years ago, pharmacists weren’t even considered as providers in the state,” he said, referencing a bill passed during the 130th Legislature that amended wording to the Maine Pharmacy Act to add that a pharmacist is a “provider of healthcare services,” but did not effectively change what pharmacists do.

The additional responsibilities led to “substantial burnout,” Dornblaser said.

Compounding that, wages for pharmacy technicians, who provide critical support by counting and filling pills, stocking shelves, giving immunizations and assisting customers, have remained low for years, Dornblaser said.

The average hourly wage for a pharmacy technician in May 2022 was $18.12, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Dornblaser said during the pandemic-induced workforce shortage in other industries, she often heard of techs lured from pharmacies for better-paying jobs.

“You had people who had really a large amount of responsibility in the job in terms of keeping people safe, who weren’t compensated nearly as much as somebody working at … a McDonald’s,” she said.

Not only are pharmacists overworked and pharmacies understaffed, but there are fewer brick-and-mortar locations for people to get prescriptions filled.

Since 2020, Walgreens has closed locations in Auburn, Bangor, Fort Fairfield, Guilford, Millinocket, Newport, Pittsfield and Portland, according to pharmacy board licensing records that were confirmed by a Walgreens spokesperson.

Walgreens, CVS and Rite-Aid, which had already closed hundreds of stores nationwide before the pandemic, have since announced hundreds more closures.

Walgreens announced in June it would close 150 stores and in 2021, CVS said it would close 900 stores by next year.

Rite-Aid, which closed its Maine locations by early 2018, announced earlier this month it filed for bankruptcy and will close hundreds of stores.

In rural areas, inconsistent hours, staff shortages and closures mean residents can’t depend on their local pharmacy to get their medications — if they even have a pharmacy near them.

Peter McCormick spends his summers on Campobello Island, just over the bridge from Lubec, in Canada. When he’s there, he transfers his prescriptions from a Walgreens pharmacy near his primary residence in Vermont to the one closest to his summer home, 40 miles away in Machias.

One Friday last summer, he received a notification two prescriptions were ready for pickup and made the 50-minute drive to Machias. When he got there, he said, the pharmacy was closed. A clerk told him, “We don’t have enough pharmacists,” and he could try the Calais Walgreens an hour away.

“A woman standing nearby said to me, ‘Don’t bother going to Calais because the Walgreens there is closed, too,’ ” McCormick said.

“Thankfully I had enough medication to get me to Monday, but the episode caused me an unnecessary three-hour round trip and would have been a much bigger problem if I hadn’t ordered my refills somewhat early. Overall, very disappointing,” he said.

Last month, Walgreens signed a consent agreement with the Maine Board of Pharmacy that said the chain’s Machias and Calais locations closed without notification and did not meet the state requirement that pharmacies are open for at least 40 hours per week on multiple occasions. It agreed to pay a $10,500 fine.

Walgreens paid at least $68,000 in penalties last year after failing to meet staffing requirements.

“There are times when we must adjust or reduce pharmacy operating hours, or temporarily close a store, as we work to balance staffing and resources in the market to best meet customer demand. When this occurs, we make every effort to minimize disruption for patients and customers by selecting days with the lowest prescription demand to ensure that there is a nearby pharmacy to meet immediate prescription needs,” Walgreens spokesperson Kris Lathan said in an email.

“We also provide patients as much advance notice as possible through signage, automated phone calls, updates to our online scheduler, and adjustments in refills,” she said, but did not respond to specific questions from The Maine Monitor about the penalties, store closures or walkouts.

Lance Keen of Cooper said those stores are a “mess,” with “sporadic closures and can’t be relied on.”

He, too, experienced an incident where he ran out of a prescription and was unable to get it refilled in a timely manner, causing him “physical distress.”

With his usual pharmacy being 20 miles away, Keen said he has to be more attentive to when he needs to send in refill requests. He has also started to get his prescriptions delivered through Express Scripts, a prescription benefit manager that offers home delivery.

Mail order services offer convenience and consistency, especially for people in rural areas, like McCormick or Keen in Washington County, but Dornblaser worries an overreliance on them is a missed opportunity to develop “that community relationship.”

“Often it’s the pharmacist that you sort of casually mention something to and they can sort of say, ‘You know, that sounds like this,’ or, ‘You should go get that checked out,’ ” she said.

They can catch potential drug interactions, administer vaccines or serve as an easily accessible healthcare professional to answer questions.

The possibility of more closures worries her.

“We are a very rural state and, you know, having access to a healthcare provider can be such a lifeline for people,” Dornblaser said. “And the loss of a pharmacist or a pharmacy in a community has a pretty big impact overall.”

The story Shortage of pharmacists leaving customers in peril appeared first on The Maine Monitor.

Over the last couple of decades, Jamie and Aura Moore have cobbled together a living for their family of six, doing everything from lobster fishing, chimney sweeping and photography, to restaurant work, midwifery and carpentry.

They even nibbled for awhile at a bunny food business.

The philosophy of life for this couple is a little like Jamie’s approach to his primary occupation of carpentry.

“It’s a whole different way of thinking,” said Jamie Moore, who also writes poetry. “It’s all about following the laws of the wood, working with it, and being able to keep stuff from falling apart on you.” 

The family’s six-acre Machias homestead, perched along a brook that meanders into Little Kennebec Bay, is rife with symbolism that captures their tenacious way of life; from the rutted, winding road leading to their modest farmhouse, stretched over the years with salvaged lumber, to the home’s overflowing pantries of canned foods preserved from bountiful gardens.

The couple, Jamie now 52 years old and Aura 44, bought the home about a decade ago with $48,000 in cash, saved over the years by renovating and leapfrogging from house to house, doing all of the work themselves.

Jamie said he knew nothing about construction when they bought and renovated their first house. The only tool he had was an axe left by the previous owners.

It hasn’t gotten much easier.

“After we closed on this house, we had six dollars left in our bank account. We said, ‘OK kids, let’s go to Dunkin Donuts and celebrate — each of us gets a donut!’” Jamie laughed. Aura quickly corrected him, remembering they could only afford donut holes. 

Their precipitous tenacity is not a new story Downeast. For many, it is the story. 

Washington County, with a poverty rate hovering just below 20 percent, consistently falls within the three poorest counties in the state.

With a population of 31,437, according to the U.S. Census Data for 2022, less than a quarter of residents hold a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Roughly half of the working-age population is even counted in the civilian (non-public-sector) labor force.  

About a third of those workers are classified, like the Moores, as self-employed — the so-called “gig economy” — based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  

These dogged statistics exist despite the region’s rich abundance of natural resources, including lobster and other fisheries, lumber, and wild blueberries, industries that would presume a wealth of good-paying traditional employment opportunities.  

The problem is these seemingly good-paying jobs come and go with the seasons.

“You have to be creative to come up with something to be able to survive,” said Jamie Moore.  “Usually you’ve got to have two or three things going on. You have to be willing to do whatever you have to do.”

To make ends meet, Jamie and Aura — who also homeschool their children, are renovating their house, and building another house for their oldest daughter, Praise, and her husband — have to scrimp and work a variety of jobs.

Jamie builds custom furniture, does construction and sweeps chimneys. Aura pitches in with her professional photography, and by growing and canning nearly all the family’s food, including meat and fish. 

The kids also pitch in, with sons Seamus and Sean helping with salvage and building projects. For about five years, 18-year-old daughter Gracie ran a successful rabbit food business, doing everything from the foraging to the package design, that also helped keep the family afloat. 

According the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, only 37 percent of Washington County’s two-adult, two-children households (the most commonly used benchmark) are making the approximately $96,000 annual living wage the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Living Wage Calculator estimates is needed in Washington County to afford basic necessities, such as food, child care, health insurance, housing and transportation.

Despite assiduous efforts, the Moore household’s income, with three children still living at home, falls far short of even the lower benchmark living wage.

It’s an economic reality recognized by many community leaders, including the Sunrise County Economic Council. The nonprofit organization works with municipalities, businesses and other nonprofits to create jobs and bolster prosperity in the county.  

During a SCEC web presentation in March giving an update on the county’s economy, the group’s executive director, Charles Rudelitch, said native Downeasters tend to perceive the ebb and flow of seasonal employment as natural.

But he said it’s not, adding it’s a real challenge for small businesses to make a profit and for individuals to make a living wage when demand for goods and services varies so much during the year.  

Despite the region’s economic challenges, Rudelitch said the personal income reported by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for Washington County in 2021 was a surprising $1.5 billion.  

“It’s easy in Washington County to focus on how the county performs poorly relative to other parts of Maine and New England, but there’s an awful lot of economic activity here,” Rudelitch said during the presentation. “It’s important to remember just how important self-employment is in the county.”

The SCEC recently opened its MaineStreet Business Building in Machias, hoping to foster the region’s entrepreneurial spirit.

The center provides small businesses with low rent, digitally connected office spaces, and professional support and training. A partnership with Washington County Community College offers two free online successive credit-bearing courses, covering the fundamentals of running a business.  

Katie Bragg, the director of small business and entrepreneurship for the SCEC, said there’s already great interest from people who want to grow a hobby into a sustainable business. But the training also provides a reality check.

“Sometimes people are told if you do something that you’re passionate about, it will be wonderful all the time and that’s not the case, it’s not always fun,” Bragg said. 

Another focus for the SCEC is building a broader economic foundation for the county.

The organization supports larger existing and emerging industries, such as the $110 million Kingfish land-based aquaculture facility being built on Chandler Bay in Jonesport. Given the green light after several permit challenges, the company is projected to create 70 year-round, living-wage jobs and 100 temporary construction jobs.

That could be a boon for people looking for a full-time career, and for gig construction workers like Jamie Moore, who is always hunting for work close to home.

Over the last couple of years, Moore has spent weeks and often months away, traveling as far as New Hampshire to take remodeling and construction jobs.

He admits it’s hard for the family to be separated, and the high cost of gas, as well as the wear and tear on their two vehicles (a 2003 Honda CRV and a 2012 Subaru Forester) eats into his earnings.

But for Moore — who spent about eight years making what he called decent money as a lobster fisherman and another three dragging for scallops in Maine’s icy waters — it’s worth the trade-off.   

“It was really hard being out there, sticking your hands in the dead fish, it would just turn my stomach so bad,” Jamie said. “I just kept telling myself I gotta go back, I gotta go back. I’ve just got to do it.”

Eventually the money he was able to earn as a furniture and cabinet maker lured him from the water and those heftier, at least seasonally, steady paychecks.

These days Jamie concentrates on the larger construction jobs because he can make more money. He said trying to make a living building custom furniture isn’t a viable career Downeast, where so many others are also scraping to get by. 

“I just didn’t have the heart,” he said. “People wanted a table, and I was like, I want them to have a table! So I would charge them what they could afford.”

That sense of fairness is a core principle for Jamie and Aura, who place their faith in God and their commitment to the Golden Rule at the center of all they do.

For the Moores, sometimes donating or bartering work and volunteering their time have to be factored into their personal “living wage” formula. For example, Aura spent three weeks in Uganda four years ago, volunteering her professional photography skills at a nonprofit birthing center.  

Not only did her photography help generate donations for the center that provides critical maternity services in the impoverished country, but the experience also motivated Aura to come home and begin a new kind of journey.

She decided to earn a Bachelor of Science degree as a certified midwife, and for the last four years has traveled back and forth to Bangor for classes and for her preceptorship, requiring participation in more than 50 births.  

She graduated this month, welcomed home by a massive wood sign her husband erected in their field by the road that was hand-painted by her artistic children with flowers and the words “Congratulations Mama.” 

Although her new profession will bring in some much-needed additional income, the couple knows the family likely still will be scraping by, having to do most things themselves, do with less or simply do without. 

They’ll still have to leave the county for work too, at least for a while. For the next two years, Aura will live with a family in Bangor every other week to begin her midwife career at a birthing center; Washington County doesn’t have a stand-alone birthing facility.

But it still won’t be a steady income. As a certified, experienced midwife with a four-year degree, Aura will be paid only hourly for prenatal visits and a set fee for each birth. Still, neither she nor Jamie regret their occupational choices.

“We’ve always had times of abundance and times when it’s been pinched,” Aura said. “But we have been very blessed and we’re both just doing what we love.”

Jamie agreed, adding that making a living sort of on the fly — one gig, one piece of furniture, one birth at a time — isn’t for everyone. 

“I don’t want to in any way make it look like it’s easy for us,” he said. “None of it is perfectly organized and on schedule. But it gets done.”

The story A rural family is doing what has to be done, one gig job at a time appeared first on The Maine Monitor.

Walgreens has been fined $10,500 by the state because two of its Washington County pharmacies closed without notification, as regulators continue cracking down on unreported closures and the chain begins to shutter other locations in Maine and around the nation.

Walgreens agreed to pay the penalty for 11 days of unreported closures between February and December 2022 at its site on Dublin Street in Machias, and for six days of closures between May and September 2022 at its North Street store in Calais, state records show.

The Maine Board of Pharmacy regulators said they began investigating after receiving complaints last December about “frequent closures” at the stores. The regulators said the company violated a requirement that it reports to the board if a store deviates from remaining open a minimum of 40 hours a week.

The Maine Monitor reported in November that Walgreens paid $68,000 in fines last year for violating state staffing and operating hours laws at 10 Maine locations. At the time, CVS was the chain with the second-highest number of penalties in the state, with four cases and $13,500 in fines.

Several previous violations also stemmed from failing to remain open a minimum of 40 hours a week, the Monitor reported. Others targeted a rule that the stores have a pharmacist in charge. 

The Monitor previously reported some pharmacists complained they are overworked and understaffed. There are also continuing complaints of a shortage of pharmacists. 

Meanwhile, Walgreens, which operates approximately 9,000 stores nationally, announced earlier this year it plans to close 150 U.S. locations by next August.

The Bangor Daily News reported earlier this month a Walgreens store in the Piscataquis County town of Guilford laid off 12 employees when it permanently closed Sept. 18.

Walgreens operated the only pharmacy for the town of 1,267 residents on the Piscataquis River, with the next-closest pharmacy six miles east in Dover-Foxcroft.

Even before Walgreens announced the closure of its Guilford location, Wendy Denney, a local bed and breakfast owner, noticed lapses in staffing and inventory that made it difficult for her to receive vital diabetes medications.

Denney said Walgreens didn’t keep the medications she needed adequately stocked, and even when she tried to ensure the pharmacy had her prescriptions on hand well in advance, the medications wouldn’t be there when she went to pick them up.

“I would often run there to pick up my meds because I would get a message on my phone (from Walgreens) saying the med was ready,” Denney said. “Then I would go to pick it up and they’d be like, ‘Oh, well, we’re out of this med. Come back later.’”

The pharmacy became so unreliable that a couple of months ago, Denney switched to an online program to get her prescriptions delivered by mail.

“I realized I couldn’t rely on Walgreens to have the prescriptions when they were supposed to have them, even though they were repetitious prescriptions,” Denney said.

In a sign of worker unrest in the industry, pharmacists in at least a dozen Kansas City-area CVS pharmacies did not show up for work for two days in September, the Associated Press reported. They planned to be out again last week until the company sent its chief pharmacy officer with promises to fill open positions and increase staffing levels, the AP said.

The story Walgreens fined for violating closure requirements at two Washington County pharmacies appeared first on The Maine Monitor.

Researchers from across the country are studying how to improve electrical grids across the country with a focus on underserved, rural communities.

Through a four-year, $750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, South Dakota State University, University of Maine, University of Alaska Fairbanks, and University of Puerto Rico Mayague will examine how climate change affects electrical grids. The project is titled “STORM: Data-Driven Approaches for Secure Electric Grids in Communities Disproportionately Impacted by Climate Change.”

“The basic idea is to go to a few specific communities, and through community engagement, figure out what are the challenges that they are facing with regard to the impact of extreme weather on the power grid, and then solve some of those issues in terms of community outreach and engagement, designing new methods to make the grid more resilient,” said Tim Hansen, associate professor in SDSU’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and co-principal investigator on the project.

Hansen said the research project is based in strategic locations in which different weather events occur. Alaska, for example, deals with extreme cold, while Puerto Rico deals with storms and flooding.

The common issue is that all the events impact the power grid, he said. “Our focus is on power grid resiliency from different perspectives.”

As part of the project, the researchers will work with community members on engagement. Hansen told the Daily Yonder it will be a ground-up approach so see what the community is willing to adopt.

Daisy Huang is an associate professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and mechanical engineer. She also conducts research at the Alaska Center for Energy and Power, which looks at optimizing power, mostly in rural communities around Alaska. She said the rural communities are mostly not connected to the state grid.

“So they’re all on their own diesel fired power plants. And so we look at ways to integrate renewables [and] optimize their diesel for maximum efficiency,” she told the Daily Yonder.

Huang said she is also interested in creating educational programs around STEM.

“The idea is looking from a community perspective – what their energy needs are, and how we can translate that – in parallel – developing educational programs around kids learning about energy systems, [like] engineering or STEM in general, math, physics.”

There will also be a virtual reality lab for remote power and energy research studies between all the participating institutions, Hansen told the Yonder.

He said that many of the researchers on the project are young investigators. “It’s a very good opportunity for the [National Science Foundation] to really build up the mentorship, and really build a lot of people’s long-term careers off of the back of this,” he added.

The post Study Looks at Climate Change Effects On Rural Electrical Grids  appeared first on The Daily Yonder.

A late summer breeze whispers through the soaring pines that surround Andy Foss’ home on the shore of Gardner Lake in Washington County, where he sits reflecting on his more than a quarter-century of public service as a law enforcement officer.

The former Maine State Police trooper retired earlier this year to focus on his cancer recovery. Foss said he’d rather be back on patrol but knows his health would suffer.

“Oh, I miss it, I do,” Foss said from the home where he and his wife Jane raised two children. “But working the road in law enforcement is a lot of stress. I was covering probably like 23 or 25 towns myself, answering anywhere from 850 to 1,000 calls a year. It’s just nuts when you think about it.”

The Bureau of Maine State Police agrees. Faced with diminishing numbers from retirements and recruiting challenges, the Bureau decided that with 52 vacancies there were too few officers to provide dedicated patrols in the state’s expansive rural counties such as Washington — a county the size of Delaware — so they gradually began trimming or cutting out rural patrols completely.  

But some rural counties have decided to push back, demanding restoration of trooper patrols or more funding to offset the losses. Rather than waiting to be picked off one by one as contracts with the state police expire, rural county sheriffs, commissioners and the organizations that represent them are banding together to make sure their voices are heard at the state level. 

Some legislators have taken the fight to the statehouse, with two bills already introduced and at least one more on the way. 

Over the past few years, Washington County and some other rural counties had reluctantly agreed when the state police presented them with the drastically pared down “resource sharing agreements” that mapped out what the state would provide. But Penobscot County Sheriff Troy Morton balked at a plan that would have left troopers covering only two of his county’s six rural zones, instead of half as they are now.  

Sen. Stacey Guerin, R-Glenburn, and Rep. Joe Perry, D-Bangor, each submitting bills seeking funding for more deputies. Guerin’s bill was approved but amended without funding.

“My bill ended up being a broader discussion of the State Police role and the different county sheriffs’ roles, and how that’s going to play out,” Guerin said. “It really did open the conversation.”

The new law, L.D. 756, approved on July 26, limits changes to the Resource Coordination Agreement between the Bureau of State Police and the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office, keeping the current contract terms in place through 2024.

It also requires the Bureau of State Police to report to the joint standing committees of the Legislature “having jurisdiction over criminal justice matters, transportation matters and appropriations and financial affairs regarding resource coordination agreements between the Bureau of State Police and all county sheriffs’ departments …” 

Mary-Anne LaMarre, the Maine Sheriffs’ Association executive director, said the MSA welcomes the legislature’s help.

“In some counties, there is an issue with adequate resources to meet the demands of patrol coverage,” LaMarre said. “The Maine Sheriffs’ Association is going to be working closely with the legislature and other partners to secure adequate funding, outside of property tax, to meet our standards.”

The State Police began restructuring a few years ago, beefing up its specialty units and reducing or eliminating routine rural patrols, as it did in Washington County. The county does still receive State Police specialty team services (as all counties do), troopers agreed to answer half of the county’s DHHS calls, and they respond to all fatal crashes. But designated patrols in Washington county and other rural counties are gone.

The loss of designated patrols left rural counties reeling from the sudden gaps in coverage, the cost of hiring more deputies and the prospect of higher taxes to pay for local law enforcement.

In Penobscot County, officials said the price for six more deputies would be roughly $1 million over two years. Washington County commissioners already approved $140,000 for an immediate hire of an additional deputy. But officials say at least four more are needed and will likely be added in the next county budget.  

Sen. Marianne Moore, R-Washington, said she is encouraged by the prospect of a more cooperative dialogue with the State Police, but Washington County can’t afford to wait and see how the talks pan out. She plans to submit a bill before the Sept. 29 deadline for next spring’s session to seek more emergency funding from the legislature. 

“I have to be a little selfish, I’m going in just for Washington County,” Moore said. “These bills are supposed to be on an emergency basis, so I’m going to have to justify it to the Legislative Council and hope they’ll let it go forward.”

It might be wise that the senator isn’t waiting for a broader, statewide solution. The State Police objected when Guerin and Perry asked the legislature for funding, even though they were not seeking the money to come from State Police funds. At least for now, State Police officials seem to be doubling down on their previous positions. 

“The State Police cannot comment on pending legislation that we have not reviewed,” said Major Lucas Hare, head of the State Police operations division. “With that said, any proposed legislation that seeks to defund the State Police to fund other law enforcement agencies would be detrimental to public safety. Our resources benefit the entire state, not just one county.”

But officials in rural counties say those State Police resources — primarily specialty teams such as tactical units, crisis negotiation, underwater recovery and the bomb unit — are not helping understaffed sheriffs’ offices, and municipal police departments meet the core responsibility of law enforcement – public safety. 

According to the most recent state crime data, 14 people have been killed in Washington County since 2017 — one of the worst rates statewide. Deputy Chief Mike Crabtree said the county’s soaring drug problem is largely to blame.  

“We’ve always had violent crime, the problem now is the frequency of the violence,” Crabtree said. “A lot of these calls lead to death. These are no longer one-person calls.” 

In Patten, public safety officials said a reduced police presence resulted in slow response times for emergency calls by Maine State Police, who went from 28 troopers responding from the Houlton Barracks down to only two, according to Lt. Brian Harris, Maine State Police Troop F commander.

Since June, officials say there have been several times that ambulance crew members waited up to two hours for police and one time no one came, according to a report this week in the Bangor Daily News.

Even further north, the situation can be worse. Although there are three small municipal police departments in Piscataquis County, the sheriff’s office, with only five deputies, covers 99% of all calls, about 4,000 calls a year spread out over roughly 3,900 square miles, excluding Baxter State Park. Chief Deputy Todd Lyford said the lack of law enforcement and the jaw-dropping geography means they run the risk of suspects getting away before officers can reach the scene. 

“We just had a call in the deep, deep woods up into Chesuncook, which takes 2 1/2 hours to get to. Then I had to get on a boat across a lake to an island to deal with a call,” Lyford said.

Like six other counties, Piscataquis chose not to have a call-sharing agreement with the State Police. Lyford said his understanding is the call-sharing agreement they had 15 years ago was not continued because of “poor communication.”  

Still, all the officials interviewed for this story said the reality on the ground is that with or without a call-sharing agreement, in a pinch the State Police will assist when called, at least to the best of their ability.

For example, the recently signed call-sharing agreement with Washington County acknowledges the potential for this type of informal arrangement, stating in part, “The Maine State Police will continue to staff a uniform trooper in Washington County to the extent resources and staffing allow. To the extent that resources and staffing allows when a trooper is assigned to work in the county, we will respond to all requests for assistance from the sheriff’s office.”

But the agreements are fast becoming irrelevant because there aren’t enough troopers to cover Maine’s vast state, and also provide the technical and specialty assistance that every county relies on. 

The governor’s 2020-21 biennial budget proposal requested from the legislature a total of 10 State Police trooper positions and five sergeant positions to meet severe staffing shortages. The positions were not approved.

“The State Police have not seen a compliment increase to our rural uniformed patrol division in over 40 years, while the demands and mission of the State Police have increased significantly beyond just rural patrol,” said Shannon Moss, the public information officer for the Maine Department of Public Safety.   

Since local law enforcement appears to have a slightly better track record with recruiting, some county officials had suggested shifting to the unused funds from the State Police’s unfilled vacant positions to the county. The proposal was dead on arrival due to statutory and prior allocation restrictions. In an interview conducted prior to his summons on an OUI charge, Washington County Commission Chair Chris Gardner expressed outrage at the impasse.

“Public safety is the No. 1 responsibility of the collective. And if you aren’t stopping bad actors, and you can’t get to the hospital when you need it, what really is government spending their money on?” asked Gardner, who also serves as a reserve officer in Eastport.

But former trooper Andy Foss said shifting the money would have only replicated what’s happening with recruiting. He said it’s an illusion that local departments are attracting more officers.

Foss said officers are simply being shuffled back and forth due to better pay and a host of other reasons, including burnout. Not atypically, during his 24-year career Foss has served as a municipal officer, a part-time deputy, as a Marine Patrol officer, as well as a trooper. 

Lyford in Piscataquis County agreed, saying it’s also happening there, with one deputy recently switching to the Greenville Police Department. Lyford said local law enforcement departments are offering more money, better benefits, and beginning to look beyond state boundaries for recruits, with modest success.

Foss added that pulling troopers out of their communities to serve exclusively on specialty teams also should be re-examined. He said it’s the opposite of community policing, which he knows is successful.

Foss has gotten heart-felt letters of encouragement during his recovery from people he had to arrest and send to jail. He recounted one incident involving a violent suspect when Foss told the State Police tactical team it needed to stand down.

“I said, ‘what do you need a tactical team for, I know this guy,’ ” Foss said. “I went alone and told the guy I had to take him in. He just said, “yeah, OK — if you don’t mind, I just want to put down a bunch of food for my cats before we take off.”  

Foss said an officer’s tongue is his most valuable weapon. Maine’s rural residents, increasingly worried about public safety and rising taxes, are hoping county and state officials also can learn that lesson, and it’s becoming critical that they do.

In Lubec, for example, most homeowners just saw their tax bills double after a re-valuation. It’s a harsh reality many communities are facing as they brace for yet another hit for additional police coverage. 

Washington County Sheriff Barry Curtis told the Quoddy Tides that the Maine Sheriffs Association and County Commissioners Association plan to meet in September, holding a joint session to discuss the law enforcement pressures the state’s counties are facing.

York County Commissioner Richard Dutremble, president of the County Commissioners Association, said he is confident all officials can come together and find a compromise. 

“There are answers if people will sit down and talk about it. We’re all here to solve this for the taxpayers. So let’s get it done,” Dutremble said. 

The story Maine’s rural counties scramble to fill gaps in police patrols appeared first on The Maine Monitor.

Two forestry companies that were announced as recipients for hundreds of thousands of dollars in state grant money last December were issued environmental violations at their Maine facilities over the past several years.

One of the companies, ND Paper Inc., had a $101,400 state penalty finalized in late August for chemical spills at its Old Town mill in 2020 and 2022. 

One spill led to a limited fish kill in the Penobscot River and continued issues with high-pH at the spill site near the riverbank, according to Maine Department of Environmental Protection officials.

A second company, T&D Wood Energy LLC, operates a wood pellet manufacturing facility in Sanford that was cited for nine violations of DEP regulations between 2019 and 2022, DEP records show. 

Its violations stem from inadequate recordkeeping and exceeding the facility’s emissions limits. The company was most recently issued a violation notice in April 2023. If left unresolved, the violations could lead to monetary penalties.

David Madore, the DEP deputy commissioner, wrote in an email Monday that there is an enforcement action pending against T&D Wood Energy.

Last year, ND Paper was awarded $1 million through a state grant, called the Forestry Recovery Initiative, and T&D Wood Energy was awarded $600,000.

The initiative is administered by the Maine Technology Institute, a nonprofit created by the Maine legislature in 1999 to distribute state-funded grants and loans to spur economic growth and innovation.

T&D Wood Energy did not respond to a request for comment. An ND Paper spokesperson said the company works to monitor compliance at its facilities and reports to state regulatory agencies when issues arise.

When asked by The Maine Monitor if MTI had any concerns that some of the awarded companies, including ND Paper and T&D Wood Energy, had poor environmental compliance histories, the MTI president, Brian Whitney, wrote, “MTI does not necessarily agree with the assumption of the question that any of the companies have a poor compliance record.”

The Forestry Recovery Initiative grant uses funds from the federal pandemic rescue plan. The funds were allocated by Gov. Janet Mills to a state pandemic recovery plan, called the Maine Jobs & Recovery Plan, in 2021 with legislative approval.

The grant was to help Maine’s forestry companies recover financially from the COVID-19 pandemic, and support company projects that bolster long-term economic growth and job creation.

Phase One of the initiative in March 2022 awarded 224 small-scale forestry companies with $6 million in grants. The second phase awarded $14 million to a total of 19 larger forestry companies.

ND Paper and T&D Wood Energy were in the second phase. They plan to use the funds to expand productivity. 

ND Paper intends to enhance the efficiency of a packaging paper machine at its Rumford mill, and T&D Wood Energy wants to acquire two shuttered facilities to expand operations, according to a webpage announcing the grant awards.

Since announcing the awards last December, Whitney wrote in an email that MTI has been finalizing the details.

Whitney said the application process for Phase Two included self-certification from the applicants that they were a business in good standing and confirmation from state agencies that the companies have not been banned from contracting with the state or federal government.

Overall consideration of grant applications, however, did not include separate investigations of the companies’ compliance with environmental laws, and an applicant’s history of environmental compliance was not used as a criterion to score applications, according to MTI.

“The application did not inquire about historical violations of environmental law,” Whitney wrote in an emailed response to the Monitor’s questions.

Whitney stated that such investigations into environmental compliance are not a requirement of the Maine Jobs & Recovery Plan.

Whitney wrote that before contracting with the awardees, MTI shared the list of grant recipients with the state’s Department of Economic and Community Development, and Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry.

After the awards were announced, MTI “learned that T&D Wood was not in compliance with DEP,” Whitney wrote. “(T)hat contract and conditional award has not moved forward pending resolution of the outstanding issues with the state.”

ND Paper’s violations

Whitney said officials were unaware of ND Paper’s environmental violations until they saw a news report in July that ND Paper “faced a Maine DEP issue resulting from a spill at one of their other Maine locations” in Old Town.

Whitney said the MTI then received confirmation from DEP and the state DECD that ND Paper “​​had satisfactorily settled the issue.”

The $101,400 penalty for ND Paper was finalized by the Maine Board of Environmental Protection in August.

It was prompted by separate spill incidents at the company’s Old Town mill. In the first, 30,720 gallons of a sodium hydroxide mix was poured through a drain in September and October 2020 because of an open valve, leading to the increased pH levels and corresponding small-scale fish kill.

DEP staff members reported the floor drain system associated with the fall 2020 spill has been repaired, though Pam Parker with DEP’s Water Quality Bureau said in a meeting this month of the Maine Board of Environmental Protection that extensive repairs were difficult due to the facility’s age.

“… (T)his is an old industrial building with a tremendous amount of legacy piping, but also actively used systems,” Parker said. “So it was hard to be able to wholesale repair the facility …”

A smaller spill occurred at the same building in June 2022, when 1,076 gallons of a sodium hydroxide solution were released over a 30-day period.

ND Paper has repaired the parts of the Old Town facility that the spills originated from, according to the DEP, and installed monitoring equipment to prevent another incident.  

As part of the consent agreement, ND Paper also has to investigate the high-pH material still detected underneath the spill site and create a remediation plan.

The Old Town mill has been closed since March.

Although ND Paper’s Old Town mill has been the most recent target of DEP enforcement, its Rumford mill, which its Forestry Recovery Initiative award is designated for, also has had recent environmental deficiencies, according to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency database.

Between April 2020 and September 2022, the Rumford mill violated its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit five times, the database shows. The permit is a federal license enforced by DEP that limits the wastewater a facility can legally discharge.

In an email, ND Paper spokesperson Jay Capron wrote that the company carefully monitors and maintains its systems to ensure environmental compliance with regulatory agencies.

“In addition, incidents are reported and elevated internally, and the process includes completing incident investigations, developing corrective actions, and presenting findings,” Capron wrote.

T&D Wood Energy’s track record

DEP has issued four warning letters to T&D Wood Energy’s Sanford facility since it came online in November 2018, as well as two violation notices, according to documents obtained by the Monitor through a Freedom of Access Act request. 

In the first violation notice, issued in February 2020, DEP wrote that the agency received 13 air quality complaints between 2018 and 2020. Agency officials also made several visits to the plant.

The violation notice said because of the facility’s classification under the federal Clean Air Act and its guidance for state agencies to oversee facilities with the greatest potential for significant impact on human health and environment, DEP identified the violations as “High Priority,” and labeled T&D Wood as a “High Priority Violator.”

DEP acknowledged that as a new operation, T&D Wood and Player Design, Inc., which jointly hold an air emissions license for the facility, “have been working through startup of the new manufacturing process to come into compliance, resolve operational problems, and run an efficient, profitable business.”

However, DEP officials wrote, “The Department has given T&D Wood ample time to come into compliance.” That included delaying compliance testing and providing technical assistance from a department compliance inspector, according to the violation notice.

Four months later, in June 2020, T&D Wood received a DEP warning letter that stated, “Based on our findings there is more work to be done to come into full compliance,” citing excess smoke and dust, as well as incomplete reports. 

In a follow-up inspection in August 2020, a DEP official wrote that an inspection at T&D Wood’s facility indicated compliance with the company’s air emissions license, but more test results were required.

A string of warning letters came two years later in July and December 2022, when the facility was again dinged for its emissions and incomplete recordkeeping. A full compliance evaluation in February 2022 identified several more violations. 

The facility received its most recent violation notice in April, followed by the pending enforcement action.

T&D Wood Energy did not return emails or phone calls requesting comment.

Safeguards and concerns

According to Whitney with the Maine Technology Institute, there are several safeguards that keep grant awardees on track with the goals of the Forestry Recovery Initiative, including five years of quarterly reporting requirements beyond a project’s completion. 

He added that if a grantee fails to comply with federal and state statutes, regulations or other grant requirements, MTI “would provide the grantee an opportunity to cure its issues, but MTI does retain the ability to terminate the agreement and seek reimbursement of the grant funds if necessary.”

Whitney said most of the funds have yet to be distributed.

In addition to ND Paper and T&D Wood’s outlined violations, five other companies awarded Forestry Recovery Initiative grants had instances of non-compliance with DEP regulations, according to the EPA database.

Sappi North America, Inc. was awarded $1 million for improvements in pulp and paper mill productivity at its facility in Skowhegan.  

At that same facility, Sappi has five violations reported under its wastewater permit between April 2020 and September 2022, according to the EPA database.

Sappi received two violation notices from DEP and one warning letter for operations at its Skowhegan plant during that two-year span.

The EPA database shows two other violations from 2020 against Sappi on its water permit for its operations at a Westbrook mill. EPA also lists one more violation on Sappi’s air emissions license. Those notices came before the initiative awards were announced last December.

There were three warning letters issued under the air emissions license between January 2020 and July 2022, the EPA database shows.

Sappi North America did not respond to requests for comment on those violations and its plans for the grant award.

Hancock Lumber Company, Inc. was also awarded $1 million through the initiative for a project labeled “Bethel Value Added.”

At its Ryefield mill, Hancock Lumber has received several violation notices for a permit under the Safe Drinking Water Act, another federal license but for community water systems, though the company’s water system is listed as private and only serves 45 people.

Almost all of those violations are listed as “resolved” on the EPA database.

After initially responding to a reporter’s email, Hancock did not respond to email inquiries on the violations and the company’s designated project for grant funding.

Robbins Lumber East Baldwin, LLC was awarded $1 million to purchase a sawmill edger that will replace a 40-year-old piece of equipment at its East Baldwin mill, according to Robbins spokesperson Catherine Robbins-Halsted.

Robbins-Halstead wrote in an email that the project will improve equipment efficiency and reduce energy consumption while making a demanding job easier for operators.

In response to a question about water violations reported at the company’s Searsmont facility, Robbins-Halsted said one group of violations was due to existing background groundwater concentrations. 

Another violation stemmed from an effluent discharge that DEP had authorized, according to Robbins-Halsted.

“In both instances Robbins was communicating with DEP and working with DEP to comply with standards in a mutually agreed upon path. The alleged violations represent a gap between State DEP and Federal EPA data recordkeeping,” Robbins-Halstead wrote.

DAAQUAM Lumber Maine, Inc., was awarded $500,000 by the Forestry Recovery Initiative for a project to replace a kiln at its Aroostook County facility.

It has one violation for its air permit in August 2021 and two warning letters from DEP. 

DAAQUAM did not return phone call and email inquiries on the violation, nor its plans for the Forestry Recovery Initiative awards.

ReEnergy Biomass Maine, LLC is the fifth company with listed environmental infractions before it was awarded initiative funding.

The company received $523,900 for projects at its Livermore Falls and Stratton facilities to harness a charcoal-like substance called biochar for potential use as a soil supplement, according to its spokesperson, Sarah Boggess.

In October 2022, the company had an NPDES permit violation at its Livermore Falls biomass-to-energy facility, which burns wooden material and converts it to electricity, when the facility exceeded its monthly average chromium limit by 18%.

According to Boggess, the company determined that the excess was due to washing activities while the facility was offline for the fall.

“To prevent a recurrence, the Livermore Falls team will isolate the wash water and dispose of it before it reaches the cooling tower so it is not included in the facility’s discharged water,” Boggess wrote in an email. “There was no financial penalty assessed.”

In response to those violations, Whitney said because the ECHO database relies on self-reported and time-limited violations, some may be relatively minor and do not result in enforcement actions if resolved with the regulator. 

He said MTI is not in a position to pre-empt the responsible agency in enforcement proceedings or decisions.

Asked if any companies aside from ND Paper and T&D Wood energy that were awarded forestry initiative funds had outstanding environmental violations, DEP’s Madore directed a reporter to the EPA ECHO database.

Sean Mahoney, vice president of the Conservation Law Foundation’s Maine Advocacy Center, an environmental advocacy group, wrote in an email that if the state is going to provide public funds to help the private sector, there should be certain assurances.

“(T)hose companies should have their houses in order and be in compliance with all state and federal laws,” Mahoney wrote. “The situation with T&D Wood Energy appears particularly noteworthy given (its) lengthy history of noncompliance.”

The story Forestry companies granted state funds despite environmental violations appeared first on The Maine Monitor.