With the new year bearing a new current of news, The Quoddy Tides looks back on 2019 for the top stories of the day as reported at the time. Sometimes the issues represent a startling change, welcome or otherwise, or represent one point in a progression of events that will likely surface again in the future.

Island ferry service reveals layers of need
     A story with many layers that continues to play out and may well for years to come is the question of a year‑round ferry for Campobello Island. The New Brunswick community is connected to the U.S. mainland by the international bridge in Lubec but has no year‑round ferry service that would allow transport within Canada rather than requiring two border crossings and over an hour's drive to get from the island to the Canadian border just one‑way. Loss of population and summer tourism, difficulties transporting medical supplies or even building supplies and septic system pumping services are just a few of the issues that islanders face because of the lack of direct transportation within their own country.
     In May readers learned that a summer ferry service between Deer Island and Campobello would return after a year's absence. However, in late September, a new issue came to light that has since garnered national attention in the United States and Canada. Canadian mail, brought overland by Canada Post in a bonded carrier to the island, was and still is being opened and searched when it crosses the U.S. border at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) station in Calais. CBP officers can open packages and letters, which may contain private information such as credit card numbers or medical records, and can also confiscate any products that are illegal under U.S. federal laws, including cannabis, which is now legal in Canada. Since the September 27 article was published, various entities have been working to reach a solution.

Natural resources ebb and flow
     After a two‑year wait, on March 28 the Maine Supreme Judicial Court upheld a lower court decision that rockweed harvesters must obtain permission from upland landowners before harvesting in the intertidal area. The court applied prior legal precedent in reaching its conclusion that the harvesting of rockweed does not fall within the public's right to fishing, fowling or navigating, as outlined in a 1641‑47 colonial ordinance. Seaweed, the decision clarifies, is not considered fish and does not fall within reasonable access permitted in the three activities described by the colonial ordinance. However, the justices argued that the 1989 Moody Beach court decision, used in part as the basis for their decision, erroneously limited the public's use of the intertidal zone.      As noted in one of the opinions issued, "A member of the public has been allowed to stroll along the wet sands of Maine's intertidal zone holding a gun or a fishing rod, but not holding the hand of a child."
     Also in March was the announcement by Cooke Aquaculture of plans to build a $30 million recirculating aquaculture system in the Champlain Industrial Park located in Bayside, near St. Andrews. It will employ about 15 people and will be used to grow salmon larger on land, prior to their transfer to saltwater farming pens.
     In a significant move to restore sea‑run alewives to their historic spawning grounds in the St. Croix River watershed, in early June Woodland Pulp opened the fishway at the West Grand Lake Dam, complying with an order by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The opening of the fishway had been urged by federal agencies, the Passamaquoddy Tribe and the Schoodic Riverkeepers, while fishing guides on West Grand Lake and the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife had opposed the move. Edward Bassett of the tribe's environmental department at Sipayik said, "It will bring back the biomass of protein fish available for food for not just people but for the whole ecosystem, including the Gulf of Maine."
     Fishermen in the lobster industry faced a bait crisis, as reported at the end of July. The crisis was leading them to cut expenses, set traps later in the spring and consider pulling them earlier in the fall. The crisis was mainly caused by the slashing of the herring quota, including an 84% cut for the inshore Gulf of Maine. The cost of herring bait rose from $34 to $44 a bushel in 2018 to about $86 a bushel in 2019, which was considered just above the line of expenses exceeding revenues.
     As reported in early August, urchin fishermen were also facing pressures when the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) cut the eastern Maine Zone 2 season from 38 to 30 days.      The DMR said that urchin abundance has declined every year since 2014. In 2019 it was roughly half what it was in 2017.
     The fisheries were still in the news at the end of August with lobster fishermen sparring with fishery regulators and conservationists over proposed rules to limit endangered right whale entanglements in fishing gear. The National Marine Fisheries Service has decided on a take reduction target of 60% for the New England lobster fishery to reduce serious injuries and mortalities in the U.S. commercial fisheries to less than one right whale a year. Two more public input sessions were expected before rule‑making would start in 2020.
     Back on land, the Arauco mill planned to eliminate about 65 jobs at its St. Stephen facility, with about 120 jobs remaining. The company makes Fibrex, a high‑density particle‑board. The company planned to add value to its product by manufacturing wainscoting and further product development for 2020. The company hoped that product development could lead to rebuilding employment in the future but in the meantime had offered early retirement and severance packages to workers on the Fibrex line, which it hoped would lead to some openings for some of the people facing unemployment.
      In early December came the news that Connors Bros., based in Blacks Harbour, might be purchased by a Taiwan company, FCF Co. Ltd. The last remaining sardine cannery in North American is part of Bumble Bee Parent Inc. and four affiliated companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. in late November. Connors Bros. employs about 600 workers in New Brunswick, primarily at the Blacks Harbour facility.

Healthcare faces multiple pressures
     In late January caring for the mental health needs of the county's elderly was on the mind of Nathan Brown, interim administrator of the Eastport Memorial Nursing Home. Dementia and its many aspects are part of a gradual progression, he noted, and it's probably one of the toughest issues facing the nursing home community. While geriatric mental healthcare was never the intention of nursing home care, it has become the norm because of the age of residents entering the system. Many times pre‑existing mental health conditions can be disguised by dementia, complicating diagnosis and treatment. The lack of geriatric psychiatric facilities combined with the state and county's aging population compounds the problem, he explained.
     The alarm bells were ringing about teen and youth use of e‑cigarettes, or "vaping," by the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Healthy Acadia at a presentation held at Calais Regional Hospital in early March. While smoking traditional cigarettes at the high school level declined from 40% in 1997 to 10% in 2017, the CDC reported the use of e‑cigarettes, or vaping, by teens had increased by at least 20% in 2018. Healthy Acadia personnel felt that, since the CDC figures, the rate had increased to 30% by early 2019. Flavors such as cotton candy and gummy bear are used by the e‑cigarette industry in what appears to be an effort targeting youth, causing the Federal Drug Administration to threaten action if the industry didn't stop using such flavors in its products. A standard e‑cigarette pod contains the nicotine of a standard pack of cigarettes and, in addition, uses chemicals in its delivery system with questionable health benefits at the least, and in the case of formaldehyde, a known carcinogenic.
     Also in March was the first of a number of reports of escalating difficulties at Calais Regional Hospital (CRH). CRH and the Maine State Nurses Association were negotiating contracts, with the association pointing to cuts to pay, decreases in discretionary time off and more. CRH contended that negotiations were ongoing and that its goal is to provide high‑quality care and honor its financial responsibilities. Down East Community Hospital in Machias was not immune to nursing contract issues, with a report in late July showing that contract negotiations had started in October 2018 and appeared to be stalled.
     In late September CRH filed for bankruptcy because of financial challenges related to lower patient volume, decreased reimbursements, an increased rate of free care and bad debt, rising regulatory requirements and a difficulty in recruiting permanent providers. Despite these challenges, CRH had steadily decreased its losses from $2.64 million in 2014 to $574,600 in 2018. Filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy was a "necessary step" in achieving financial stability, CRH asserted.
     CRH and Down East Community Hospital joined forces, as reported in late November, to change their contracted service for emergency department and hospitalist providers from the Maine‑based BlueWater to the Tennessee‑based Envision Physician Services in February 2020. The new service provider's parent company, Envision Healthcare, was one of the two largest backers funding opposition in 2019 to a proposed federal law to end out‑of‑network charges, or "surprise billing." The proposed law had the support of Congress and President Donald Trump. Surprise billing can happen when a person receives care at an in‑network facility but receives care from a provider who is out‑of‑network. The patient believes they are in‑network, but isn't, and is on the hook for what can be often by significant costs. This type of billing was of particular concern with emergency departments because Maine law does not completely address the issue, with balance billing causing additional problems because the provider can still bill the patient for the difference between the provider's charge and the allowed amount paid by insurance.

The many roads to employment
     The Downeast Correctional Facility in Bucks Harbor was back in the news at the end of April with the legislature contemplating two bills on the pre-release center's future. At the public hearings held for the bills, Department of Corrections Commissioner Randall Liberty testified that the department had made the decision to move forward with a pre‑release center, but not at the existing but closed campus. Rep. Will Tuell of East Machias said, "I believe we are missing out if we go with a scaled‑down facility somewhere other than Bucks Harbor." He continued, "We had a facility that worked and really don't need a knock‑off." In early May, many in the Downeast area were relieved to hear that Governor Janet Mills and the Washington County delegation had reached an agreement to build a new pre‑release center on the existing campus. The pre‑release model is for low‑security inmates in the last few years of their sentence who learn valuable job skills through work‑release opportunities and other programs.
     A long‑vacant storefront in downtown Machias was in the news in early October as the future home of the Machias Valley Center for Entrepreneurship. The center will be for community members to explore entrepreneurship models with a business incubator program, classes and workshops. It will also have co‑working space available by membership fee that will provide office and meeting room space and equipment and technology necessary for running a business.
     In early November a profile of a number of telecommuters showed the benefits of far better information technology infrastructure than was found just 10 years ago. Telecommuters ran the gamut from those near retirement who moved to the region and continued to work full- or part‑time in their new homes with translation services and data science, to Washington County natives returning to their much‑loved roots and quality of life while bringing with them high‑caliber work in architectural drafting or study‑abroad travel programming.