Announcements

2025-01-01

These laws will affect your outdoor experience in Maine in 2025

Staff, Piscataquis Observer •December 28, 2024  By Julie Harris, Bangor Daily News Staff

Money for trail systems, airboat noise limits and a push to fight aquatic invasive species are among the Maine Legislature’s 2024 decisions that will affect your outdoor experience in 2025.

Here are the new laws affecting some of the outdoor sports:

Boating

Emergency legislation established legal noise limits for airboats, which the state defined as a flat-bottomed watercraft with an aircraft-type propeller that uses either a plane or automotive engine to power it. It also separated airboats from other motorboats.

Under the new law, the noise limits may not exceed 90 decibels as measured by a shoreline test the Society of Automotive Engineers established for stationary engines. Airboat noise must not be more than 75 decibels between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. Exceptions are made for the time needed to reach headway speed when leaving a boat launch or to get the boat off a tidal flat.

It may not exceed 90 decibels between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., with the same exceptions. Marine patrol, game wardens and other law enforcement are exempt if using them in the line of duty.

Boaters can be fined between $300 and $500 for exceeding the noise limits. If the boater amasses more than three civil violations within a five-year period, the charge bumps up to a Class E crime.

The state’s new wake boat and wakesurfing law went into effect over the summer too, restricting boat speeds and closeness to shore in order to prevent damage to shorelines and the wildlife, such as loons, that live there. LD2284/HP 1472 stipulates that motorboats serving wakesurfers or surfboarders stay in water 15 feet or deeper and go no closer to shore than 300 feet. Violation fines are no more than $100.

Although numbers of violations were unavailable, there generally is an educational period in which wardens inform violators about the new law before they start handing out citations, according to Mark Latti, spokesperson for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. This law did not go into effect until mid-July, well into the boating season.

Invasive species

Boaters are required to not only be aware of potential plant fragments that might carry an invasive species from one body of water to another, but also to make sure all water is drained from the boat, except bait wells, when leaving one lake, pond or river and going to another.

In 2024, the Legislature took that a step further, requiring the departments of marine patrol and inland fisheries and wildlife to work together to prevent invasive species from getting into clean waters from dams and fishways in particular. 

The new law says the two departments are not allowed to make changes, particularly at the Medway dam on the Penobscot River or the Brown’s Mills dam in Dover-Foxcroft on the Piscataquis River, without notifying the Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife in writing.

A second bill addressed funding, by increasing the cost of invasive species prevention and control stickers for inland watercraft from $15 in 2024 to $25 in 2025 and $35 in 2028. The allocation from those fees to the Invasive Aquatic Plant and Nuisance Species Fund reduces from 80 percent to 70 percent, and to the Lake and River Protection Fund increases from 20 percent to 30 percent beginning Jan. 1, 2025.

The fees for boat registrations are going up too by $10 in all classes. It will cost $40 in 2025 to register a boat with a 10 horsepower or less motor and $50 in 2028. A tidal waters only registration will remain at $15. It will be $45 in 2025 for boats with a motor more than 10 horsepower up to 50 horsepower and $55 in 2028. Tidal only registrations will remain at $20. For more than 50 horsepower to 115 horsepower motors, it will cost $51 in 2025 and $61 in 2028. Tidal only registrations will remain at $26. Allocations of the fees will be the same as the invasive aquatic species stickers.

And for personal watercraft and motors more than 115 horsepower, the registration fee will increase $10 to $59 in 2025 and $69 in 2028. Registration for tidal waters only will remain at $34.

Fees for nonresidents who purchase lake and river protection stickers for boats and personal watercraft in Maine, and residents and nonresidents who buy them for seaplanes, will see an increase as well. In 2025, the fee will be $60, with $1 of that going to the agent who sells the sticker, and $75 in 2028, with $1 going to the agent. Fee allocation percentages will be the same as the others.

Fishing

Beginning on Sept. 1, 2024, it became illegal to sell lead jigs weighing an ounce or less or measuring 2 1⁄2 inches or less, but on Sept. 1, 2026, it will be illegal to use such jigs. Lead sinkers were banned from sale and use in 2013, and it was made illegal to sell or use bare lead jigs in 2016. You may still own them, even though it will be illegal to use them. Fines for violations will be from $100 to $500.

Snowmobile and ATV trails

The governor signed LD2276 in April, updating the allocations of approximately $5.7 million in non-recreational vehicle gas tax money primarily between snowmobiling and all terrain vehicle riding for the first time since 2001.

It provides additional funding to the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, Bureau of Parks and Lands’ Snowmobile Trail Fund and ATV Recreational Management Funds, and less funding to DIF&W.

The new allocations will be effective for the upcoming snowmobile and ATV seasons.

2024-11-17

The Sebec Lake Board of Directors encourage you to contact Gov. Janet Mills with your comments on Floating Camps and potential legislation to regulate/ban them on Maine Lakes.

Below is text for a letter to Gov. Mills addressing the topic.  We encourage you to contact her, in your own words.

2024-11-12

On 11/13/2024, an email was sent out from The Sebec Lake Association Board of Directors to all Sebec Lake property owners, supporters and SLA members for whom we have a valid email address:  

'This is the first of two emails sent out to SLA members and property owners relative to our request to have you contact the local Sebec Lake area politicians that were elected on Nov 5th to serve beginning January of 2025.  The text of a potential letter follows this intro message.  Please feel free to reword this in your own words.  And thank you in advance for contacting these servants of the people.  They do listen.'

Click here to see the very comprehensive State study addressing these structures.  

Suggested legislators/Letters:

Senator Stacy Guerin, 3 State House Station, Augusta, ME 04333; Stacey.Guerin@legislature.maine.gov

Representative James White, 306 Wharff Rd, Guilford, ME 04443; James.White@legislature.maine.gov 

Representative Chad Perkins, PO Box 251, Dover Foxcroft, ME 04426; Chad.Perkins@legislature.maine.gov 

<Date>Dear Ms. Geurin, Mr. White & Mr. Perkins:  I am a camp owner on Sebec Lake.   Our camp is located at [address].  I am writing you to express my extreme concern regarding the emergence of ‘floating camps’ on Maine lakes. 

As you may be aware, these structures are completely unregulated.  They can (and do) dump grey water and raw sewage into the lake they ‘park’ in/on.  These actions certainly harm the lake, its wildlife and fisheries.  Furthermore, they could be parked close to the shore of campo owners who are required to abide by regulations that protect the lake from such actions. 

The presence of these structures will certainly decrease property values, leading to re-appraisals and lower property tax assessments / collections.  A floating camp pays no taxes, no registration fees, no invasive species fees.  And even if a system of ‘registration leading to revenue’ is implemented, the drop in property valuation, and subsequent drop in tax collection revenue, would likely dwarf any fee revenue to be collected.

As the price of lake front property in Maine continues to rise, more and more of these structures are likely to be seen on our lakes.

Maine lakes are special.  Plentiful, clean, and pristine in an overwhelming of cases.  They need to be protected from these floating structures.

I ask that you introduce, or otherwise support legislation that bans these structures, including those already built, and that you not support any legislation that facilitates making them legal under any conditions or circumstances.

Respectfully,

Your Name.