Volunteers with the WCLZ Back Cove Cleanup.
Photo credit: Portland Radio Group

The Maine Coastal Program and partners invite you to join Maine’s largest single volunteer event. The Coastal Cleanup includes volunteers of all ages and backgrounds who clean our coastal shoreline and associated waterways of trash. Each year over a thousand participants clear hundreds of miles of thousands of pounds of trash. What is collected is recorded and this data then becomes part of the international ocean trash index which is compiled by Ocean Conservancy. Your efforts continue to ensure that our coastal waters and habitats remain healthy and trash free.

This year, it is the 35th Anniversary of the International Coastal Cleanup - Maine has been participating for 32 years! 

Register here.

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is administering $5 million dollars in a single round of grant funding to assist municipalities with stream crossing upgrades and replacements. These monies fund competitive grants that match local funding for the upgrade of municipal culverts at stream crossings which to date has resulted in financial assistance to over 100 projects statewide. The projects awarded will provide public infrastructure benefits by replacing culverts that are currently failing and at risk of complete washouts, opens or improves fish spawning habitat, eliminates undersized and other impassable culverts and reduces some of the worst erosion impacts to streams, brooks, and lakes. The grant RFP application is available starting September 1, 2020, with proposals due by November 16, 2020.

To help municipalities and others involved with these projects better understand the grant program and requirements, a pre-recorded online workshop is now available. This workshop is highly recommended for anyone applying for a grant and is available on the DEP's Stream Crossing Grants Program web page: https://www.maine.gov/dep/land/grants/stream-crossing-upgrade.html

The RFP, Application, Question & Answer Summary, and other information related to this RFP can be obtained at the following website: https://www.maine.gov/dafs/bbm/procurementservices/vendors/grants

FMI, contact John Maclaine, Non-Point Source Training Coordinator, at (207) 615-3279 or via email.

WHAT: Come hear members of the Maine Climate Council speak about proposed actions that may change the funding and technical assistance opportunities for climate initiatives available for your communities in the future.

Engage in small group discussions about climate adaptation projects your community is planning and the challenges and successes you are facing.

Presentations by Maine Climate Council Working Group Chairs:

Judy East, Executive Director, Land Use Planning Commission

Kathleen Leyden, Director, Maine Coastal Program

WHO: Conservation commission members, planning board members, other municipal board members, municipal staff, interested citizens

WHEN: Tuesday, September 29 , 3:30— 5 p.m. 

WHERE: Via Zoom (link provided after registration. Registration below.)

FMI: Contact: victoria.boundy@maine.edu