When Gov. John Baldacci made a stop in South Portland last week to honor military veterans, he said only something that important would get him to leave the Legislature alone for a few hours at a time like this.

Maine’s lawmakers have indeed been churning out legislation in recent days as the session draws to a close. And Maine environmentalists sound pretty pleased with the results, so far.

The Maine Environmental Priorities Coalition, a gaggle of conservation groups, plans to hold a news conference at noon Wednesday in the State House to highlight achievements during the session. The coalition’s news releases says: “In a year marked by a dire budget shortfall and significant fiscal challenges, environmental protection emerged as a bright area with progress on climate change, renewable energy, clean drinking water protections, energy efficiency, reducing exposure to lead and combating sprawl.”

Here’s a quick roundup of some high-profile bills:

A proposal to overhaul and streamline regulation of wind power projects was passed unanimously by the House and Senate last week. Baldacci is expected to have a big signing ceremony Friday afternoon.

On Monday, the Legislature narrowly approved energy efficiency building standards for new homes. That one is expected to get Baldacci’s signature, too.

Baldacci ceremonially signed a law today that places a moratorium on coal gasification plants (like one that had been proposed in Wiscasset) until new greenhouse gas emissions standards are developed.

Conservationists are still holding their breath over one more bill on their priority list. It would create a system for the state to track, and potentially ban, toxic chemicals from household products. This one is facing an uncertain fate in the Senate, with intense lobbying on both sides.

The uncertainty isn’t keeping conservation groups from claiming victory, but it could definitely affect the mood in the Hall of Flags Wednesday.

At the University of Southern Maine in Portland, whenever nature calls, the toilets answer back.

Stickers posted above toilets around campus say, “I’m not a trash can! The garbage you flush could end up in the ocean.”

The students who put the stickers there hope to warn a captive audience about the damage caused by flushing trash – from bottles of prescriptions drugs to disposable wipes. It’s a problem that clogs sewer pump stations, litters beaches with syringes, pill bottles and other trash and injects medications such as mood-stabilizers and hormones into drinking water supplies.

“I never even thought about that,” said Michael “Adam” Royer, a sophomore criminology major from Falmouth and one of USM’s toilet police. “I figured it all went to a sewer plant and they took everything out. I had no idea that what you flush goes directly out into the ocean when we get a lot of rain.”

Rain can flood sewer systems with stormwater, forcing untreated sewage to spill out of overflow pipes into Casco Bay and other waterways.

And even when it doesn’t rain and the sewage makes it to treatment plants that remove the trash, pharmaceuticals and other chemicals flow right out the other end. “Prescription drugs are a huge problem because people don’t want them in their house (and) they just flush them down the toilet,” Royer said.

Royer and other students learned about sewer overflows, pharmaceuticals and marine debris as part of a project for a criminology class called Crimes Against the Environment.

Sandra Wachholz, the professor behind the idea, is a local expert on things that get flushed into Casco Bay.

Wachholz regularly collects trash along the shoreline of Back Cove, home of some of the city’s sewer overflow discharges. She finds wipes, plastics of all variety, pill bottles and syringes, which she thinks are flushed after being used for insulin injections.

The connection between sewage and criminal justice is based in part on the legal system in Sweden, where Wachholz has taken students to study the legal system. “They have an environmental court, prosecutors and police,” she said.

They also have stickers on or around their public toilets that warn against flushing trash.

Students in the class have made presentations about indiscriminate flushing, but the stickers are a natural way to spread the word. Anyone who spends any time on campus will eventually get the message.

“To have 10,000 students passing through and using those bathrooms is just this extraordinary opportunity to raise awareness about this,” Wachholz said.

The Portland Water District, which has the dirty and costly job of repairing clogged pump stations, printed the talking toilet stickers for Wachholz and her students.

Royer, who plans to go to law school, is glad his eyes have been opened to the indelicate issue of overflowing sewers, although he doesn’t look the same way at beach litter. “It’s kind of gross when you think about it.”

That’s probably a big reason people don’t think before they flush. Except in the bathrooms at USM.

A big life and death struggle is quietly taking place in Maine’s woods right now.

White-tailed deer are trying to survive one of the longest and deadliest winters in the past 50 years. And thousands of them, mostly pregnant does and last year’s fawns, are starving to death, or soon will.

It is the harsh reality of nature at work. This is the northern edge of the deer’s range, after all.

But as with most everything in our modern, managed environment, we’re playing a role, too.

Maine has about 247,000 deer. And even in a mild winter – like the last couple – many die before spring.
In a bad winter, as many as 30 percent of northern Maine’s herd, and 12 percent of southern Maine’s can die.
This is one of those winters.

“We’re going to have some pretty serious losses,” said Lee Kantar, lead deer biologist for Maine’s Inland Fish and Wildlife Department.

Deer are not built for harsh winters. They don’t hibernate like bears and can’t walk across snow like snowshoe hares or Canada lynx.

They essentially survive by storing up as much fat as possible beforehand and making it last by conserving energy. They congregate in wintering areas called deer yards, mature stands of spruce or other evergreens that offer protection from deep snow and cold winds.

In mild winters, it’s easier to stay warm and move around to look for woody food, which is about as satisfying as it sounds. But once snow gets more than a foot deep, it takes too much energy to go anywhere. “When you pile up 6 feet of snow on the ground and you’re a deer, life is going to be incredibly difficult,” Kantar said.

He expects thousands of deer to starve by the end of this month and others to come through the ordeal so weak they’ll die next winter, if not sooner.

“This kind of extreme winter is really going to be felt for a long time,” he said. “It started early and it never went away. Deer were sinking up to 2 feet for an extended period. That is about as bad as you can get.”

Even now, in far northern Maine, as much as 5 feet of snow are still on the ground, he said. In southern Maine, a shrinking snow pack is allowing deer to move around, but they’re still starving. It will be weeks before spring delivers nourishing sprouts and leaves.

Feeding deer, although well-intentioned, is always a bad idea, biologists say, even this year. Sudden changes in diet can poison them, and drawing them out of the woods for grain can do a lot more harm than good, Kantar said.

In a winter like this one, however, deer yards can literally be a lifeline. And that’s where humans come in.
The quality and quantity of Maine’s deer wintering areas have declined because of roads, development and logging, according to Kantar and other experts.

Maine protects wintering areas in northern forests through protective zoning in some cases and, more often, with voluntary no-logging agreements with timberland owners. But some of those voluntary agreements have not held up as millions of acres of timberland changed hands in the past decade.

Calls for stronger protection of deer yards last year led to the creation of a state task force which, in turn, led to a renewed commitment by landowners and state officials but, so far, no new regulation.

The reality check taking place in the woods right now is sure to intensify that conversation.

“It’s going to bring things home,” Kantar said.

The ocean is becoming a noisy place. At least it is for marine animals that rely on their hearing – and a little piece and quiet – for survival.

For whales and other marine mammals, living near a shipping channel is a lot you or me living next to a highway, railroad or airport – in perpetual darkness. While blasts of sonar have been linked to marine mammals grounding themselves on beaches, the constant background noise also may be interfering with communication, navigation, health and diet.

But just how loud is it down there, and what are the effects?

Scientists with NOAA and Cornell University hope to find out and have begun a unique, three-year study using an array of buoys with underwater microphones.

The $1.5 million project began in December in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of Massachusetts. It’s an ideal spot because it’s popular with northern right whales and other endangered marine mammals and also is a thoroughfare for shipping traffic and a destination for pleasure boaters and whale watchers.

For the next 30 months, the equipment will record sounds from whales, fish, ships and other sources around the clock. Along with providing unique information about the “acoustic smog,” the study could improve understanding of whale communication and behavior and help develop a global monitoring network for ocean noise.

Look here for NOAA's press release.

The study is an example of emerging ocean research that’s been pioneered by the University of Maine and the Portland-based Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System (GoMOOS).

In related news Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, issued a statement welcoming House passage of the National Integrated Coastal and Ocean Observation Act, legislation he introduced to create a nationwide system based on GoMOOS. The House passed the bill on a voice vote Monday, while similar legislation is pending in the Senate.

Look here for Allen's press release.