Green Movement Goes Blue

With last week’s Earth Day celebration activities fresh in the minds of Maine residents, Governor John Baldacci claims that the state has a long standing dedication to the environment. One area of major concern is clean water, making the Clean Water Act essential to the future of Maine beaches and coasts.

The Clean Water Act, a federal act, aims to restore and maintain the natural, biological integrity of the world’s waters. In Maine, this means honing in on the protection of coastal waters. On June 12 of last year, a bond was approved, delegating $18.3 million toward improve both water quality and wastewater infrastructure. This came after a report in 2007 announced that more than 80 percent of industrial and municipal facilities in Maine discharged more pollution into Maine waterways than the Clean Water Act permitted.

According to documents obtained by an independent research group called Environment Maine, facilities were exceeding their permits by more than 2.5 times the legal limit. Because of these violations, state officials chose to make clean water a focus in recent years. Currently, most companies violating the clean water laws get nothing more than a simple slap on the wrist. However advocacy groups, such as Environment Maine, is calling for stricter enforcement. The group is not only calling for stricter enforcement, but they are calling for an increase in the amount of the fines given to violators. Their website claims “when fines are imposed, they should be high enough to deter future pollution. It shouldn’t pay to pollute.”

The only way to improve the water quality issue within the state of Maine is to draw attention to the problem. This involves contacting local representatives to voice concerns, as well as report clean water violations to the proper agencies. One agency that fields calls is the Department of Environmental Protection, which allows people to speak one on one with field service and enforcement staff workers to determine the best plan of action to address the specific violation.

With all the media attention on the current state of climate change and pollution in the country, clean water has taken a back seat. It is time to bring the spotlight back to an area of environmental concern which can greatly impact the health of Maine citizens in the future.

Budgets and Policies Weigh Heavily on School Board Agenda

Budget cuts and policy changes were the main topics on the agenda of the AOS 92’s March school board meeting. Administrators, faculty, and others of Vassalboro, Waterville, and Winslow attended the meeting to discuss the impending changes in the newly formed administrative group.
The meeting began with a review of previous minutes, as well as an overview of awards and activities that had taken place from the last meeting. This included awarding the successful music program in the school systems. Assistant Superintendent Peter Thiboutot talked of the success of K-12 leadership meetings thus far, claiming that the coming together of leaders from all schools has helped lend ideas toward a successful future.
“The meetings have been very informant”, Thiboutot explained.
After the opening duties were completed, the discussion moved quickly into budget talks, as the new AOS has to find a way to work with a larger district while still saving money. With the new budget, Waterville Public Schools alone will be losing approximately $909,000 in revenue, and the AOS as a hole will be losing $1.9 million.
“We need to bring our structure down to something we can manage,” Haley claimed. “We need to make proactive decisions about what resources we do have.”
In order to address these issues, a budget team has been developed to work out the figures. This team is made up of both faculty and administrators from all schools within the system, and holds monthly workshops to hammer out the budget details.
In other business, Waterville Senior High School Assistant Principal Carol Dodge introduced a change in the attendance policy. She explained that a team of faculty wrote a complete rewrite to streamline the policy. In the current policy, students were failing in October due to absences, which meant they would fail for the year. This eliminated the motivation for those students. The new policy would allow for students to make up absences through extra work outside the classroom, to help them get back on track.
“The policy was supported by all but one teacher,” Dodge said. “The object is really to level the playing field, lower dropout rates, and raise the graduation rates. The current policies separate the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. Those that ‘have’ can get excuses, but the ‘have nots’ can’t,” explained Dodge.
“I am proud that Waterville is taking the lead in the change in education in the state of Maine,” Pamela Trinward, school board member and state Representative, said.
While the future of education in the state of Maine is currently unknown, the overall feeling of the AOS board members was both optimistic and realistic. The funds are limited, the times are hard, but the determination for success may be just what the district needs to stay on track.

Early Errors Sink Mules

WATERVILLE-Early mistakes proved to be too much for the Colby College baseball team to overcome in the Friday afternoon matchup against conference rival Bowdoin College at Coombs Field in Waterville.
While the Mules fought hard to battle back throughout the game, a seventh inning rally by the opposing Polar Bears, including a homerun and an RBI single, sank the home team in the end. The win moves Bowdoin to a 20-5 record on the season, 3-1 in the New England Small College Athletic Conference. Colby falls to 9-10, 0-7 in the conference.

The Polar Bears struck first in the game, with the help of a hit batter, two walks, and a Colby College passed ball, in the first inning to score a run. They added to their lead in the second inning, thanks to two more hit batters, a sacrifice bunt, and a sacrifice fly by catcher Reid Auger.

Colby fought back, using a two-run single by senior Nick Ruocco in the second inning to erase the deficit. Bowdoin wasted no time getting their lead back, receiving an RBI single by Kevin Zikaras in the third to put them on top 3-2, but again that lead was erased in the next half inning, courtesy of Brendan Gallagher’s two-run triple and Nikolas Atsalis’ RBI single. The Mules led 5-3 at the end of the third.

Both teams fought hard in this back and forth battle, pitching and strategy to garner runs. The Polar Bears took the lead for good in the seventh inning though, scoring two runs in the seventh and adding an insurance run in the eighth inning, taking advantage of one of only five Bowdoin hits in the game.

Carter Butland earned the win in relief for the Polar Bears, while Brady Hesslein took the loss for Colby. The two teams are scheduled to meet again on Saturday in a double header, although due to the impending weather, the meeting is subject to change.