Race fans watch fireworks July 2, 2022, after the Oxford Championship Series and Oxford Acceleration Series racing at Oxford Plains Speedway in Oxford. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

As many fireworks displays are set to light up the state’s skies Thursday night, some Mainers are wary of their noise and the mayhem that follows.

“I dread this part of the summer every year,” said Ellen Hodgkin, 41, an art teacher who lives in downtown Lewiston with her partner and five cats. “The city-run fireworks aren’t quite so bad. At least, they are something I can really plan for, and if I stay home they aren’t too loud.

“We live downtown, two people and five cats with varying levels of anxiety and ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). It is really difficult for us all to manage,” Hodgkin said.

“The thing that really gets me is the fireworks I can’t escape. It’s the people ignoring or ignorant of the city ordinance,” Hodgkin said.

Neighborhood fireworks, often set by individuals the day of or later, frustrate others too.

“I suffer from severe migraines, so I don’t go to the fireworks on the Fourth of July,” Beth Bisson of Auburn said. “I would just be asking for a migraine. I really wish that my neighbors wouldn’t set off their own fireworks.”

Hodgkin said she sometimes struggles with not being able to tell fireworks and gunshots apart, now a concern more pronounced after the Oct. 25, 2023, mass  shooting in Lewiston.

“Sometimes I can’t tell if the noises are fireworks or gunshots, and that is all the more terrifying since Oct. 25. I can’t imagine what they must do to people who survived shootings or wars, if they have such an effect on me,” Hodgkin said.

The state dropped its restriction on the sale and use of consumer fireworks in 2012. However, the municipalities have the right to regulate or prohibit them with local ordinances.

Fireworks are only permitted in specific discharge zones in Lewiston three days of the year, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.: Independence Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. In Auburn, fireworks are prohibited throughout the year.

Fireworks are seen July 1, 2020, at Pyro City Maine fireworks store in Manchester. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

Patricia Parent of Jay is no longer a fan of the colorful displays after witnessing how others struggled with the loud noises.

“I always thought they shouldn’t be in every backyard with no supervision, but I loved them.

“Then, I watched my last two dogs — one would go insane with fear. My present companion just clings to me and shivers,” Parent said. “And in the midst of all this, I began to read about veterans with PTSD suffering through the sounds. Why should those who gave so much for us have to suffer for our need for big noise?”

Byrne Holt, a retiree from Dixfield, said he was heading north with his dog to seek shelter from the loud noises.

“I have a rescue dog and she is deadly afraid of fireworks,” he said. “I do my best to shield her from them but nothing works. I live in Dixfield and under Maine law, there are no rules on setting fireworks off a certain distance from houses. My dog and I will be going north to get away from them this year.”

Katie Lisnik, executive director of the Greater Androscoggin Humane Society, said some pets can relive their past trauma under the influence of loud noises.

“If they have experienced trauma in the past, whether it is an abuse situation or something traumatic happened to them during a thunderstorm or prior fireworks, they could be reliving that,” Lisnik said.

EFFECTS ON WILDLIFE 

While the effects of fireworks on individuals and pets are acknowledged, the reaction from wildlife often goes unheeded.

Misty White of Auburn volunteers with a local wildlife rescue, Misfits Rehab. They take in orphaned, sick or injured animals, to be released back into their natural habitat once they’ve healed or acclimated to the environment in the absence of their mothers.

“You need to see the panic in their face when they hear the fireworks going off,” White said. “The last thing I’d want to do is to release a squirrel or even an opossum or porcupine on the Fourth of July, because it would just be like the world is coming to an end for them.”

White said they see an increase in the number of animals in need of help in the days after the Independence Day.

“Things get scared up. At this time of year, opossum mamas have their babies crawling on their back. If they get scared, they’ll run. And when they drop a baby off of their back, they don’t look back. Often, the baby is left to fend for itself,” White said.

Lewiston City Councilor Scott Harriman said he is concerned about the fireworks set by individuals since these pose as fire hazards too.

“I live on Shawmut Street, and the buildings are really close here. The fireworks can land where people don’t intend for them to land and potentially start fires and cause more problems,” Harriman remarked.

EFFECTS ON THE ENVIRONMENT

To avoid potential fires, many people choose to set off fireworks around lakes, ponds or other bodies of water. This choice gives rise to concerns as to what happens to the debris and the chemicals released in the aftermath.

“The short answer is that we don’t really know enough to answer that sufficiently,” said Tristan Taber, an aquatic scientist and director of the water quality program at nonprofit Lake Stewards of Maine. “I think (the uncertainty) does come from the high level of variability in something like a fireworks display,” he clarified.

According to experts, different materials go through different life cycles in the aftermath of a combustion.

“There’s different heavy metals that are used to create the colors that we see in fireworks and some of those can settle into the water bodies that they are being shot over. The other are perchlorates, which are a propellant used in fireworks. This can be an issue because it’s another contaminant,” said Danielle Wain, lake science director at the 7 Lakes Alliance and a researcher at Colby College in Waterville.

“We aren’t 100% certain, but the perchlorates will be diluted by the lake. Then with time, water runs out of the lake, so some of that will leave the system through natural hydrological processes,” Wain said. “I think it’s not entirely known how much are consumed by things lower down in the food chain and thus, kept in the system.”

“There can be many human health risks resulting from the perchlorates. They can be endocrine disruptors, I believe. There’s also unknown impacts on various aquatic wildlife as well,” Wain said.

When it comes to plastic used in the fireworks, its presence might become permanent.

“If a firework is made of plastic, it is going to be there for a lifetime,” Taber said. “In all likelihood, it will be buried in the sediment over time, unless there’s something like a shallow area where it’s going to get stirred up again.”

Taber said Maine lakes don’t have big tidal effects or waves that would push plastic debris up onto the shore.

“Rivers and lakes are grappling with plastic trash,” Taber said. “It is often not remarked upon in the same level (as seas and oceans) because we don’t have beaches that are necessarily washing it up. The gyres in the marine system and tidal nature of it means that you will see the trash wash up on shore. Lake systems are fairly stable overall in terms of their water level elevation and never really have that drawdown effect to see the plastic debris that has accumulated in them.”

Since plastic’s flow is based on different densities of the material, experts can speculate as to what ends up where. However, the wide range of plastic material used in the manufacturing of fireworks complicates the matter.

“Plastics that are fuller, those are going to float more and continue to move,” Taber said. “They have a higher chance of continuing to move downstream and eventually end up in oceans, whereas the denser plastics, they’re likely to settle out and become buried in lake systems or rivers potentially.”

Microplastics are another concern when it comes to firework remnants.

“Microplastics are absolutely going to be a component,” Taber said. “That is a waste product of fireworks being set off. How much that is versus other forms of pollution like average household consumer waste blowing around or whatever else might be caught into storm drains and carried off, I don’t know. I’m not sure what those levels are going to be, but certainly, fireworks would contribute microplastics, at least some of them would.”

Lake Stewards of Maine can be reached at 207-783-7733 to report any unusual changes in the lake waters.

“My vote is to shorten the length of municipal celebrations, to enforce the ordinances against use of fireworks by individuals, and to spread a positive message about minimizing the harm done to some living things and the environment,” Silver Moore-Leamon of Auburn said.