Alliance for a Clean & Healthy Maine
A diverse coalition of nine Maine-based organizations has embarked upon a multi-year public health campaign to phase out the long-lived toxic chemicals that build up in the food web and our bodies. Through a series of strategic issue campaigns, the Alliance for a Clean & Healthy Maine will target sources of persistent toxic chemicals to be replaced with safer alternatives. Over time, we will seek government and business commitments to phase out the entire class of persistent toxics in favor of clean production.
The organizations committed to the campaign represent health-affected children, workers, doctors, public health professionals, environmentalists and impacted communities. Together we are committed to protecting human health from toxic chemical exposure and building organizational capacity to sustain environmental health improvements. Working collectively in Maine, we can set the pace nationally for policy development and best practices that end the dangerous use of persistent toxic chemicals.

Download a summary of the Alliance

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Environmental Priorities Coalition

In the fall of 2007, a coalition of twenty-five Maine environmental and conservation organizations representing 100,000 members came together to develop the fourth annual focused list of environmental priorities for the upcoming Legislative session. Click here to learn more.

The 2008 “Common Environmental Agenda” includes:

Ø LD 2048, “An Act to Protect Children’s Health and the Environment from Toxic Chemicals in Toys and Children’s Products”: To require manufacturers to disclose the use of priority chemicals in toys and other children’s products and to authorize Maine to require safer alternatives, if available, effective and affordable.

Ø No Weakening of Existing Environmental Protections: To maintain our hard-won environmental gains.

Ø LD 2126, "An Act To Minimize Carbon Dioxide Emissions from New Coal-powered Industrial and Electrical Generating Facilities in the State": To establish carbon dioxide pollution emission standards for gasification facilities, coal-to-liquid refineries and major new power plants in Maine.

Ø LD 262, “An Act To Amend the Credit for Rehabilitation of Historic Properties”: To create a tax-credit to aid downtown revitalization and reduce sprawl by adapting and reusing historic buildings as an alternative to new construction on farmland and other open space.

Ø LD 1957, “An Act To Restore Diadromous Fish in the St. Croix River”: To restore historic passage of alewives in the St. Croix River by opening fish passage facilities at two dams.

Ø “An Act to Promote Home Energy Conservation”: To set a mandatory residential energy building code for more efficient homes and help lower Maine’s global warming pollution (LD # not set as of printing).

Maine Hospitals for a Healthy Environment
All thirty-nine Maine hospitals have undertaken the most comprehensive statewide pollution prevention program for hospitals in the United States. This program flows from a Pollution Prevention Agreement negotiated and signed in March 2001 by the Maine Hospital Association, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and the Natural Resources Council of Maine, with major support provided by Health Care Without Harm.
In addition to focusing on achieving mercury elimination and waste reduction goals, the Maine hospitals have committed to steadily reduce the use and disposal of PVC (vinyl) plastic. The commitment to reduce PVC, a first among statewide hospital associations, was made to prevent formation of dioxin, a highly persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic byproduct of incineration of PVC-containing biohazardous and solid waste from hospitals.
The Environmental Health Strategy Center assists and encourages Maine hospitals to meet their pollution prevention goals.
Review hospital progress >>   Read pollution prevention agreement >>

Environmental Health Tracking and Biomonitoring
Critical gaps in knowledge undermine our ability to prevent or reduce chronic diseases and disabilities that may be related to environmental factors such as exposures to persistent toxic chemicals present in our food, air and water. Several public health institutions have called for a national health tracking system to enhance our ability to identify populations at risk, characterize the relationship between environmental hazards and disease and to guide preventive strategies and interventions.
Recently, the Maine Bureau of Health was awarded a major grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for a pilot program to develop an Environmental Public Health Tracking and Surveillance System. This project will explicitly address the environmental health gap and improve standards, coordination and integration among a number of existing environmental hazard and health outcome databases in the State of Maine. This project also intends to increase environmental public health capacity at the local and state level.
Expanded biomonitoring is also needed to track exposure levels and the burden of toxic chemicals present in human body tissues and fluids. New national data have documented human exposures to mercury, phthalates and some pesticides. Biomonitoring can reveal new chemical reduction priorities and document trends of concern and progress.
The Environmental Health Strategy Center analyzes options and recommends priorities to the Maine Bureau of Health for improved environmental health tracking and biomonitoring.

More info >> on CDC's Environmental Public Health Tracking Program

More info >> on Maine's Environmental Public Health Tracking Program

More info >> on CDC's Biomonitoring Program

Download a report >> America's Environmental Health Gap: Why the Country Needs a Nationwide Health Tracking Network. This report was prepared at the request of the Pew Environmental Health Commission by the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health in September 2000.