An Inconvenient Truth may have raised the bar, winning the Academy Award and all.

But there are a whole lot of environmental movies out there. And next Saturday, eight of newest ones will be screened in Portland during what's billed as The Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival.

"They make you think. They make you argue," said Mary Cerullo, associate director of the Friends of Casco Bay. There also should be some chuckling, and even cringing, going on.

Back Cove is one of Portland's most popular public spaces. The 3.5-mile trail around it is ideal for a walk or a jog. And it's pretty.

Just don't look too close.

Hypodermic needles, the kind used to inject insulin or vaccines, keep showing up around the edges of Back Cove. It's been a dirty little secret known only to the few brave souls who sift through the debris around the high-tide line in boots and gloves, trying in vain to keep up with the never-ending surge of trash that ends up here.

"I was mortified," said Sandra Wachholz, remembering when she first started finding the needles about four years ago.

Wachholz is a criminology professor at USM. But her hobby is picking up litter, which she does with the diligence of an archaeologist.

She regularly comes to Back Cove for about an hour, more than enough time to fill a trash bag with plastic wrappers, straws, tampon applicators and other cast-offs the rest of us would rather ignore. And she usually finds at least one or two hypodermic needles.

"My record is seven," she said.

Traffic on the Maine Turnpike may be down this summer, but that other north-south freeway # the watery one just off the coast # is getting plenty of use by some unlikely visitors.

Boaters and fishermen, in fact, are being warned to steer clear.

Leatherback turtles, the largest reptiles on earth, have been showing up in uncommonly large numbers all along the New England coast this summer, including in the brisk coastal waters of Maine.

So far, seven of the huge turtles have been seen along the Maine coast. Three of the them, including one near Ogunquit Beach last month, were dead. The other four were tangled up in fishing gear but released.

And there are almost certainly more out there or on their way. September is usually the time when turtle sightings # if there are any # typically get reported in Maine.

A record number of sightings of both live and dead leatherback turtles off New England # nearly 100 since June # prompted a federal warning to boaters to keep eyes open for them. Many of the dead turtles have shown up with propeller wounds.