JAY — Students in the Envirothon program at Spruce Mountain High School are preparing for the regional competition to be held  Wednesday, May 1, at French Falls Park.

Four teams have been meeting every Sunday evening for weeks as the members learn more about natural resources and their environment. Advisors are Rob Taylor and Ken Baker.

Envirothon is the world’s largest high school environmental science competition. It is designed to test students’ knowledge and skills in the areas of wildlife management and conservation, aquatic ecology, soil science and forest management. It also includes a current issue which changes each year and relates to the other four areas.

For the current issue project each team researches the designated issue then develops a plan to address it. During the competition, the team orally presents its plan to the judges. The team may use posters or other visuals to help explain the plan.

The current issue this year focuses on the leasing of prime agricultural land for solar energy production.

On April 7 the Livermore Falls Advertiser met with three of the four teams from Spruce Mountain.

Seniors Leah Burgess and Brenden Veilleux along with juniors Natalie Furka, Hannah Dube, Lily Fortier and alternate Skylar Condon are on one team.

“Our current issue this year has to do with implementing laws that regulate the development of solar energy on farmland and soils of statewide importance,” Fortier said. “So we were basically asked to create a law for county governments with our suggestions on what the regulations should be.”

Fortier said her team’s policy has two parts, the first on zoning of solar farms.

Larger farms with more than 100 acres can only have 3.5 acres solar farmed out of every 100 acres, Burgess explained. For a farm with 200 acres, only seven acres can be in solar, she said.

“For smaller farms who are less than 100 acres, we did a 125% energy demand thing,” she noted. “If you use about 100 kilowatts per day, you can only solar farm enough to produce 125 kilowatts per day.”

The second part of the policy deals with taxation of the land, Burgess stated.

“We looked at this from two ways,” Veilleux said. “We can tax farmland at use value or market value. Market value is going to be about 25% greater than the use value. If a farm is enrolled in this program, with the policy that we have created if they adhere to all the guidelines they can have their land taxed at use value which leads to 25% lower taxes.”

If agricultural operations cease and the land is used for solar farming only, the land would be taxed at the higher market value rate, he explained.

It incentivizes the farmer to continue producing food for the state rather than thinking he can live off the money obtained from leasing to solar, Burgess stated.

That helps meet some goals of Maine’s Action Climate Plan, Veilleux said. One of them has to do with wanting a certain percentage of food sold in Maine to be produced by Maine farmers by the year 2030, he added.

Another team is comprised of senior Kasey Burns, junior Violet Bellerose and sophomores Mason Labonte and Sam Geissinger.

Labonte said this year his team is focused on trying to get the judges to understand the team has a specifically defined role when describing the current issue plan.

“We are pretty much environmental consultants for passing some new regulations to help balance the use of solar energy and having enough farmland to keep Maine’s economy strong,” Geissinger stated.

“We are advising on internal policy, what we want a group such as AVCOG [Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments] as a government body to implement,” Labonte noted. Not so much an overall, “Here’s a law that Maine needs to pass” but more parts of policy they can implement.”

The third team is made up of freshmen Erin Chen, Emma Furka, Morgan McDaniel, Madeline Morrell, Alissa Tompkins and Leah Welch.

“The problem this year has been about solar panels and agriculture,” McDaniel said. “For me that is difficult. I am just starting to get to know this stuff. I am trying to find out more about how the world works, more or less on my own. We get help from Mr. Taylor but I also need to do some research myself. Just get into that habit of finding information and learning more about the world, wildlife and all that.”

The team’s plan is to develop a law limiting how many solar panels a farm can have based on how much land it has.

“We are looking at other existing laws, so it just makes more sense in real life,” McDaniel noted.

The fourth team of senior Megan Craig and juniors Bluebell Chen, Sarah Hawkins and Loreli Ferrar was not able to meet, Taylor said.

The current issue is especially relevant in Maine where the Legislature recently passed LD 1881, a bill requiring solar companies to pay additional fees when prime agricultural or wildlife habitat lands are to be used.

Representative Scott Landry of Farmington is one of the sponsors of that bill. He recently told the Livermore Falls Advertiser he hasn’t seen any specific numbers on what those fees will be but there will be benefits available when agricultural use is incorporated with solar energy production. An example he shared is grazing sheep under the panels.

Team members were asked to share things they like or find challenging about Envirothon.

Natalie Furka is looking forward to examining dirt more closely.

For the past three years Burgess and Veilleux have been on the team which won the regional and state competitions, have participated in the international competition.

“I am excited to be with a bunch of new faces,” Burgess said. “I am excited to teach these guys the “dig deep” of Envirothon, winning the state championship, going to the International Envirothon so they can continue that.”

“I think this year should be a pivotal turning point,” Veilleux noted. “There were three seniors on the team last year, this year it is Leah and I so it is kind of like it is these four to take a good part of the program going forward.”

“I am excited for the season,” Dube said. “There is so much information to remember. Mr. Taylor says it is like drinking out of a fire hose because he is throwing so many things at you. It is really fun to learn, it’s just a lot but it is really fun. Especially for people who it is their first year. I feel like no matter how prepared I am there is no way I could know everything that was asked.”

Veilleux noted some things had never been seen before such as a seal pelt that was part of the state wildlife test two years ago.

Fortier spoke of being asked what the Latin root, the meaning of the word amphibian was which has nothing to do with what those animals are.

“They like to play some tricks,” she added.

“I like all the learning about environmental science,” Condon said. “It is really interesting in how it all connects together. It intrigues you. It is kind of fun.”

Geissinger noted his generation is the one that needs to be able to help fight climate change. “Just being able to feel like you are doing something and learning how to help out for our future generations to come,” he said. “Also just learning about the outdoors and exploring it. Competition with the team is a fun thing, working together and knowing your role.”

The most intriguing area of Envirothon for Geissinger is hard to pick. “Living in Maine I think forestry has to be one of the biggest because we are such a forest dense state,” he said. “If you know how to work with the forests it will be most rewarding, especially if you stay in Maine in the later years of your life. It is helpful to have some knowledge because so many people in Maine enter the trades or become loggers. If you already have some of that knowledge it is very helpful.”

Emma Furka joined Envirothon to learn more about the things it concentrates on.

McDaniel’s sister was on a team. “I thought it would be good to learn more about the environment, ways to stop pollution and things like that,” she said.

For Labonte the level of content being worked with is both challenging and rewarding. College level material is being learned which is challenging for high school sophomores. “I think it is really rewarding to see what we are able to do at the end of the day,” he added.

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