Maine
Maine’s first turtle tunnel is working
In 2021, the Maine Department of Transportation partnered with federal and state wildlife agencies to install a wide culvert designed to help turtles, including the endangered Blanding’s turtle, safely cross a notoriously deadly section of State Route 236 in Eliot.
In the years since, tens of thousands of people have driven over this wildlife crossing, most of them unaware it is even there. And dozens of species, both shelled and non-shelled, have taken advantage of the underpass.
During a presentation Tuesday, biologists at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife reported that the turtle tunnel — the first of its kind in Maine — is working.
“There’s been a substantial reduction in turtle mortalities,” Greg LeClair, a municipal planning biologist at the state agency, told a small crowd gathered at the Eliot Town Office. “Follow-up surveys have shown much fewer turtles being crushed on that section of road.”
Last summer, the Maine Department of Transportation deployed special game cameras equipped with a light beam that can detect the movement of small, slow-moving critters. Shortly after 9 a.m. on June 27, the camera trap snapped a photo of a Blanding’s turtle lumbering through the tunnel, safe from buzzing traffic along what one former state biologist called “a highway of death” for shelled reptiles.
The 8-foot-wide, 6-foot-tall culvert connects wetlands on both sides of the busy state highway, including a nearly 100-acre section of conservation land managed by Great Works Regional Land Trust.
The wildlife underpass and roadside fencing, meant to steer wildlife toward the tunnel, cost approximately $400,000 to install, with Maine DOT contributing a large chunk of the funds to mitigate wetland disturbance from construction of the high-speed toll plaza on the Maine Turnpike in York.
While the Eliot tunnel was designed with Blanding’s turtles in mind, Maine DOT has documented a slew of other creatures passing through, according to Justin Sweitzer, the agency’s environmental coordinator for southern Maine. Over a period of nearly five months, the cameras snapped more than 270 photos of wildlife in the tunnel, ranging from snapping turtles and salamanders to muskrats and mink.
Not one Blanding’s turtle has been found dead on the road since the crossing was installed, according to the department. A small number of snapping turtles and painted turtles have been killed.
Blanding’s turtles are rare in Maine, found only in York County and the southern part of Cumberland County. The state listed the species as threatened in 1986 and upgraded it to endangered in 1997. Habitat loss and road mortality are among the biggest threats to these reptiles.
Unlike some other turtle species, Blanding’s move around a lot in search of food, often traveling to six wetlands per year, according to Kevin Ryan, a reptile and amphibian biologist at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.
“The closeness of the roads and the houses and the wetlands down in southern Maine means that throughout the course of its life, a turtle is going to come into contact with human infrastructure quite a bit,” Ryan said at Tuesday’s event.
The life cycle of Blanding’s turtles makes recovery efforts particularly challenging. The yellow-throated reptiles can live to be over 70 years old, with females not reaching sexual maturity until 14 to 20 years of age and often taking decades to produce an offspring that ultimately reaches adulthood.
“Losing one or two turtles actually matters,” Ryan said. “They’re not like a game species, something like a deer, rabbit, turkey, something like that, where a significant portion of the population can get harvested from year to year and then have it bounce right back.”
Peter Egelston, chair of the Eliot Conservation Commission, told The Maine Monitor ahead of the event that there is a growing awareness in the community about the importance of preserving wildlife habitat. He noted that Eliot residents adopted an updated comprehensive plan in June that emphasizes natural resource protection and building new trails, among other things.
“Communities are dealing with what seems like on the surface competing interests,” Egelston said. “There is a huge demand for housing. And yet there is also a huge desire to preserve open space. It’s one of the things that I think has caused a lot of communities to put a different shape to their approach to housing and zoning and so on, because in some ways what we really want to do is have the best of both worlds.”
AUGUSTA, Maine (WGME) — A Maine man will spend 15-years-old behind bars for hitting and killing two young twin boys and critically injuring their mother in Albion.
According to Kennebec Journal, 44-year-old Benjamin Lancaster of Albion pleaded guilty on Wednesday to two counts of manslaughter, aggravated assault, aggravated criminal operating under the influence, and leaving the scene of an accident involving serious bodily injury or death.
As part of a plea agreement, Lancaster was sentenced to 25 years in prison with all but 15 years suspended, and four years of probation, according to the Kennebec Journal. This means he’ll serve 15 years in prison before being released on probation. If he violates any condition of his probation, he could serve the full 25-year sentence.
Twin brothers, Bradley and Noah, and their mother were hit by an impaired driver in Albion. (Martha Collins)
Police said Lancaster was driving on Hussey Road in Albion on July 11, 2025, when he hit 2 1/2-year-old twin brothers, Bradley and Noah Bordeaux, and their mother, Mollie Egold. He then left the scene.
Egold was reportedly walking to a store, pushing her twin sons in a stroller, when police said she was hit from behind by the suspect’s vehicle.
Bradley died at the scene. His twin brother, Noah, was airlifted to Maine Medical Center in Portland where he died a few days later from his injuries.
Egold was critically injured but survived. She suffered a broken back among other injuries.
“He took away our babies. He took away our life, our family,” the twins’ grandmother, Martha Collins, told CBS13 in July 2025. “That man should be charged with murder, not manslaughter. This is murder. He murdered my babies.”
After his arrest, Lancaster tried to blame the deadly crash on his then-girlfriend. According to police affidavits, he told police she was driving. But his brother reportedly told authorities Lancaster admitted to him that he’d hit someone.
Police said security cameras also showed Lancaster behind the wheel with no damage to the car’s front end three miles before the crash. According to police, another camera then showed Lancaster on Main Street in Albion with damage to the front of his car.
According to Kennebec Journal, Lancaster’s blood tested positive for THC methamphetamine, Clotiazepam, an anti-anxiety drug, and methadone.
The Kennebec Journal reports Lancaster agreed to the plea deal to take responsibility for his actions and to spare the family from having to sit through a trial.
This tragedy is sadly not the first for Egold and her family. In 2017, Egold’s oldest son drowned when he and his mother’s canoe got caught in a strong current and went over a waterfall.
His grandmother said 5-year-old William had a life vest on but got caught in debris under the water. His mom freed him, but he died hours later at the hospital.
Mainers will not weigh in on whether to cease recreational cannabis sales in Maine — at least not this November.
Organizers of the petition drive, which seeks to close the recreational cannabis market in Maine and strengthen state oversight of the medical marijuana market, did not submit their petition signatures by Monday’s deadline, the secretary of state’s office confirmed Wednesday.
At least 67,682 signatures, or 10% of the votes cast for governor in 2022, would have had to be submitted by Feb. 2 to put the cannabis question on the November ballot.
That does not necessarily mean the effort is dead, but it does mean it will not go to voters this year. Madison Carey, one of the organizers of the petition drive, did not answer a phone call Wednesday evening and their voicemail inbox was full.
Organizers were seeking to repeal parts of the Maine Cannabis Legalization Act that allows for commercial cultivation, sale, purchase and manufacturing of recreational cannabis and cannabis products. The 15-page proposal, pushed by the political committee Mainers for a Safe and Healthy Future, would end all recreational sales and home-growing operations beginning Jan. 1, 2028. It would also add tracking and testing standards for medicinal cannabis previously opposed by caregivers.
Legalized by voters in 2016, Maine’s recreational marijuana market has grown from $82 million in 2021, the first full year of sales, to $244 million in 2024, the most profitable year yet. Preliminary sales figures put 2025 on pace to reach about $248 million, but final figures have not yet been released, according to data from the state Office of Cannabis Policy.
The petition effort was subject to criticism after some people accused signature collectors of misrepresenting the initiative. One person who spoke with the Press Herald last month said the petition was represented to them as an effort to ensure cannabis was free of toxic chemicals. They only learned it was to end recreational cannabis sales in Maine after they had signed.
At the time, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said there was nothing her office could do if signature gatherers misrepresented a ballot initiative.
“You have a right to lie under the First Amendment,” she said. “I do not have authority to take any enforcement action over the truth of what is being said.”
Funding for the effort came from an out-of-state source. Smart Approach to Marijuana Action Inc., a dark money group from Virginia, was the only donor listed on organizers’ campaign finance reports last month, contributing $2 million.
PORTLAND (WGME) — Scattered snow showers return to the forecast on Wednesday ahead of a major cool-down coming up this weekend.
A weak system is set to swing through the area on Wednesday bringing clouds and some scattered snow showers.
High temperatures on Wednesday will run in the upper 20s and low 30s.
Scattered snow showers.{ }(WGME)
Scattered snow showers will be in the area around late morning through the early afternoon.
Not everyone will receive a snow shower. There will be little to no accumulation, however.
Weekend planner.{ }(WGME)
By Thursday, we will turn brighter with highs sinking to the 20s.
A weak clipper will approach from our west late on Friday bringing more clouds to the area.
Snow chances this weekend.{ }(WGME)
A round of snow is expected at this time late Friday night through Saturday morning.
There is a possibility of an inverted trough to set up then, which will be difficult to forecast where it will set up.
Cold weekend ahead.{ }(WGME)
The bigger weather story this weekend will be a blast of cold, arctic air Saturday afternoon into all day Sunday.
Very cold wind chills late Saturday through Sunday.{ }(WGME)
Wind chills into the negative 20s and possible close to -30 degrees, specifically late Saturday into the day on Sunday.
Windy Saturday and Sunday.{ }(WGME)
There will be a gusty northwesterly wind up to 30 MPH as of midweek.
Next 8 to 14 days in the Northeast will experience above-normal temperatures according to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.{ }(WGME)
On a more positive note, an above-normal temperature trend could possibly take over the Northeast for February 11 – 17. Stay tuned.
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