Natural Resource Economics Commons^™

Natural Gas Service Expansion Criteria In Maine, Kevin Mahaffey

Muskie School Capstones and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to gain an understanding of the framework used by Maine’s natural gas utilities in making decisions to expand natural gas infrastructure and service to new customers,and then to apply this knowledge in an attempt to identify municipalities that are potentially attractive candidates for service expansion within Maine.

This study is not a precise model for gas utilities, but is meant rather to be a reconnaissance study for finding viable and attractive candidates for service.This study was limited both by resources and the inaccessibility of proprietary information.

Drinking Water Resource Directory, New England Environmental Finance Center

Sustainable Communities Capacity Building

This document is intended to help local and regional planning agencies, and their constituent water utilities, integrate drinking water infrastructure planning and investments into plans for sustainable development. Resources listed here provide guidance on making land use decisions that protect water resources, setting adequate and sustainable drinking water rates, controlling water loss, funding water infrastructure projects, and managing water utilities.

The directory was developed by the Environmental Finance Center Network through the Capacity Building for Sustainable Communities program funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Environmental Protection Agency. Through this program, EFCN is providing capacity …

Sustainable Water Management On Brownfields Sites, Ryan Fenwick, New England Environmental Finance Center

Sustainable Communities Capacity Building

This practice guide was developed by the Environmental Finance Center Network (EFCN) through the Capacity Building for Sustainable Communities program funded by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and the US Environmental Protection Agency. Through a cooperative agreement with HUD, EFCN is providing capacity building and technical assistance to recipients of grants from the federal Partnership for Sustainable Communities, an interagency collaboration that aims to help towns, cities, and regions develop in more economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable ways.

Green Infrastructure Resource Directory, New England Environmental Finance Center

Sustainable Communities Capacity Building

Green infrastructure is an approach for managing stormwater that uses vegetation and soils to capture and treat rainwater where it falls. Unlike single-purpose gray infrastructure, green infrastructure realizes multiple benefits at once, including flood mitigation, improved water and air quality, community beautification, provision of recreational opportunities, and energy and cost savings. This resource directory is intended to help communities design, implement, fund, and monitor green infrastructure practices and programs. It was compiled by the Environmental Finance Center Network through the Capacity Building for Sustainable Communities program funded by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. …

Construction Cost Models, Barry Dikeman

Economics and Finance

The following are a series of cost estimate models similar in format to a typical engineer’s estimate that were developed in support of our financial impact assessment report for LD 1725. The models us current material costs, labor costs, and equipment costs for the region to provide a comparative cost analysis of seven culvert replacement scenarios. The models provide information about what the cost impact of LD 1725 would be for typical culvert replacements in Maine. However, due to the inherent restrictions of the cost modeling framework we were not able to include the abundance of variables that would be …

Land Conservation And Land Use In New England: Trends, Challenges & Opportunities, Amanda Loomis, Tom Devine, Andrea Small, Brittany Howard, Brett Richardson, Stephanie Dulac

Land Conservation

Sprawling development patterns accelerated across the New England landscape in the last three decades and consumed the region‘s forests, farms, and open spaces at an unprecedented rate. New England‘ers in all six states formed land trusts, supported statewide conservation organizations, and collaborated with state and federal partners to protect some of their most-prized recreation lands, wildlife habitats, and working lands. The current economic recession has slowed development pressures across the region and offers an opportunity to build on recent successes. The time is right to plan a coordinated New England conservation strategy that protects and links the region‘s natural assets. …

Energy Efficiency, Business Competitiveness, And Untapped Economic Potential In Maine, Charles S. Colgan, Samuel Merrilll, Jonathan Rubin

Regional Studies

The economic stresses on Maine’s businesses are growing. A slowing economy and rising input costs, particularly for energy, are increasing pressures in a state where concerns about the costs of doing business remain high. But there is much that businesses can do on their own to relieve some of these pressures. Even a quick examination of Maine’s energy situation shows that there are both real challenges and opportunities. Perhaps the single most effective action to enhance Maine’s business climate and economic competitiveness is to aggressively increase the energy efficiency of Maine’s economy.

Allagash Wilderness Waterway Working Group On Structure, Management And Oversight: Choosing Common Ground And Moving Ahead, Allagash Wilderness Waterway Working Group

Maine History & Policy Development

In his June 19, 2006, Executive Order, Governor John E. Baldacci directed the Working Group to “offer its best guidance and advice to the Governor respecting the long-term governance, management, and oversight structure for the Allagash Wilderness Waterway” (AWW). In the intervening six months the members of the Working Group have engaged in an examination of the forty-year history of the Waterway and an analysis of the conditions and circumstance that led to the Governor’s Executive Order. We have reviewed documentation of the AWW history, taken testimony at numerous public meetings and hearings, conducted correspondence with members of the several …

The Growing Together Guide: A Companion Resource To The New England Environmental Finance Center/Melissa Paly Film, New England Environmental Finance Center

Smart Growth

What local leader or public official wants to be faced with an SOS the “same old story” of public discord and confrontation over growth and development in one’s community? That situation has become a problem for efforts to promote smart growth. Investments are needed in the walkable, compact, traditional‐streetscape and mixed use neighborhoods and developments that are more sustainable and healthy than sprawl, for both people and the landscape. Yet attempts at such change all too often end up mired in costly public controversy and stalemate.

Changing Maine, 1960-2010: Teaching Guide, Richard Barringer, New England Environmental Finance Center

Maine History & Policy Development

Unlike forty years ago, none of us is now certain what the future holds for Maine – except that it will be different. Maine has been transformed by the events of the recent decades. We have come into a new world, a new time – a new historical era, if you will. This new era, like previous eras in Maine history, will require of us new ways of thinking, new ways of understanding, new ways of organizing ourselves as a community of people, if the values and culture we share and cherish are to endure and flourish.

Stormwater Utility Fees: Considerations & Options For Interlocal Stormwater Working Group (Iswg), New England Environmental Finance Center

Water

Stormwater utilities are a concept whose time seems to have arrived. Established by relatively few communities in the 1970s as a method of funding flood control measures, stormwater utilities now exist in over 400 municipalities and counties throughout the United States. During the next 10 years, their numbers are expected to swell dramatically – by one estimate to over 2,000 by the year 2014.

The reasons for this growth are multifold. Federal stormwater regulations passed in the 1980s (Phase I of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Program, or NPDES), motivated many larger communities to seek alternative funding sources and …

Land For Maine's Future Program: Increasing The Return On A Sound Public Investment, Richard Barringer, Hugh Coxe, Jack Kartez, Catherine Reilly, Jonathan Rubin

Economics and Finance

Maine is nowhere a more special place than in the quality of its landscape and the traditions of its land use. Among the mo st privately-owned of all the states, Maine’s natural diversity and beauty combine with its traditions of resource stewardship, open access, and appreciation of nature to distinguish it in the public mind and national imagination. In recent decades, however, these traditions have come under assault from the forces of economic and social change; and the people of Maine have responded. In 1986, Governor Joseph Brennan’s Special Commission on Outdoor Recreation recognized the growing threats to Maine’s natur …

Trust, Collaboration, And Financial Return In Conservation/Development Partnerships, New England Environmental Finance Center

Economics and Finance

In early 2002 the New England Environmental Finance Center hosted a series of roundtable discussions among municipal officials, residential developers, land trust representatives, and others about "Innovative Approaches to Land Conservation and Smart Growth". Among our observations was that for many of the over 20 conservation/development partnerships we discussed in the series, creation and maintenance of trust was central to success or failure of various stages of the partnership. This suggested a link between creation of trust and financial return for traditionally opposed project partners.

To further examine this matter, we interviewed 11 round table participants and asked questions about …

Model State Land Use Legislation For New England, New England Environmental Finance Center, Muskie School Of Public Service

Legislation

Sprawl is neither the ordained nor the inevitable outcome upon the New England landscape. A coordinated response to sprawl by the public and private sectors is possible, and could dramatically improve land use patterns and reduce the cost of local government. For the New England states, such a response would include, among other elements, legislation to eliminate existing gaps in the land use laws of each state – gaps that presently encourage or sanction sprawling development. It would also include incentives for municipalities to think beyond their borders and to act with greater efficiency and effect. It is the purpose …

Smart Growth And Land Acquisition Priorities: A Cursory Review, New England Environmental Finance Center

Smart Growth

It is well-known and generally accepted that all undeveloped land in New England cannot forever be protected from development; nor would this be a desirable goal, as continued economic development and population growth are near certainties. For these and other reasons, private land trusts and government agencies generally use explicit criteria to prioritize their land acquisition activities and prospects.

Guiding Growth: A Survey Of Tax Incentives, New England Environmental Finance Center, Muskie School Of Public Service

Legislation

Current development patterns and increased tax pressures in local municipalities combine to harm both Maine’s natural resources and its quality of life. Previous initiatives such as the implementation of zoning laws did not fully result in the desired outcomes. Zoning laws were often too flexible and often did not resist market and political pressures to change zoning regulations to allow development with possible economic growth. A sound taxation system or fee structure may be the solution to slow down development in natural areas and direct it towards areas appropriate for growth.

To protect Maine’s natural resources more successfully from future …

Preliminary Assessment Of Client Interest In And Needs Of The New England Environmental Finance Center, New England Environmental Finance Center, University Of Southern Maine

Planning

The New England Environmental Finance Center (NE/EFC) has been conceived as a knowledge-based clearinghouse, training, and change-agent program aimed at helping EPA's constituencies find financially successful approaches to environmental improvements. The NE/EFC will develop approaches to needs of particular priority in New England and potentially useful throughout the nation; share such approaches through the EFC national network; and help make tools from that network accessible throughout New England. In 1999 we began exploring with potential users how this ninth of the nation's EFCs might best address the region's needs. The assessment continued through the Muskie School's EFC proposal to EPA …

Environmental Finance Charette, Hyannis Park On Lewis Bay: A Case Study, New England Environmental Finance Center, Environmental Finance Center Of University Of Maryland

Water

The town of Yarmouth currently has a $30 million septic sludge treatment plant and transport lines in place. The vast majority of the dwellings and businesses in the Hyannis Park area are on septic systems that are viable and Title 5 compliant, regardless of age. Conventional, "non-failing" septic systems, however, were never intended to remove form their effluent nutrients such as nitrogen. These have become recognized as an environmental threat only as our understanding of the impacts of excess nutrients on ecosystems has increased in recent decades.

Proceedings : A Forest Based Economy - Carrying A Tradition Into The Future, Blaine House Conference On Forestry (December 6-7, 1984)

Maine Collection

Proceedings : A Forest Based Economy - Carrying A Tradition Into the Future

Blaine House Conference on Forestry (December 6-7, 1984)

Department of Conservation, State House Station 22, Augusta, Maine 04333, August 1986.

Contents: Table of Contents / Letter of Transmittal / The Forest 2020--Visions Of A Sustainable Forest / Forestry Resurvey: What Does It Say? How Can We Use It? / Can We Improve Maine's Timber Supply? / Atmospheric Deposition And Forests Of The Northeast / A National Perspective: What Is Maine's Competitive Niche? / The Future of Hardwood Markets / The Future of Softwood Markets / The State …

The Maine Coast : Issues Considered, Maine Coastal Program

Maine Collection

The Maine Coast : Issues Considered - A Report to the Governor by his Advisory Committee on Coastal Development and Conservation

Maine Coastal Program, Maine State Planning Office

Augusta, Maine (31 October 1978)

Contents: Introduction / Summary of Committee Recommendations / Fisheries / Port Development / Heavy Industry Siting / Travel and Tourism / Cumulative Impact of Development / Natural Resource Information Transfer