Charlie Eichacker
Digital News ReporterCharlie joined Maine Public at the start of 2021, after spending more than seven years writing for newspapers in Maine and Vermont.
Charlie most recently worked as a reporter for the Bangor Daily News, covering health care and general news across Bangor and much of the rest of state. He spent most of 2020 documenting how COVID-19 was spreading across Maine, affecting everyone from nursing home residents to health care workers to jail inmates to manufacturers.
Charlie has worked for two other newspapers in Maine — the Kennebec Journal in Augusta and the Ellsworth American — and Seven Days, a weekly paper in Burlington, Vermont. His stories have received top honors from the Maine Press Association, New England Newspaper & Press Association and National Newspaper Association.
Charlie has a bachelor's degree in English from Colby College and a master's in journalism from Columbia University. He taught English in China for two years with the U.S. Peace Corps and now lives in Bethel with his partner, their two cats and a dog.
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A waste incinerator in Orrington that has been struggling to repay its debts could go up for auction next month. The facility has faced a series of operating challenges in recent years, and its owners are now trying to find a buyer. -
The Old Town Fire Department says a neighbor reported the blaze around 8 pm and that crews were there for four-and-a-half hours.
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That program has gotten more complex over the years, with a growing variety of plastic, glass and aluminum drink containers that redemption centers must sort into different bins. Lawmakers recently passed a funding boost for those centers. Now they’re looking to go further and streamline the process by which containers are collected and sent back for recycling.
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A bill would add new restrictions on a type of deal that Poland Spring — the biggest water bottling operation in Maine, which pumps roughly 1 billion gallons a year — has struck to buy water directly from some local utilities.
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The Municipal Review Committee says it has partnered with a third firm, Innovative Resource Recovery, that’s already backed by a well-funded investment company.
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Officials from the Municipal Review Committee told a legislative committee Wednesday that they might need the state to guarantee a $20 million loan to restart the facility if they can’t find a private partner.
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In recent years, Maine’s water resources have come under heightened scrutiny amid climate change, the megadrought threatening the Colorado River, smaller seasonal droughts that have challenged Maine food growers and dried up some wells, and growing awareness of contamination from PFAS and other chemicals.
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Maine hospitals endured a tough year in 2022, according to a variety of recent data and financial disclosures. The picture has somewhat improved for them in recent months, but it will be hard for them to fully bounce back from the deep-rooted problems that have driven many into the red.
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Two credit rating agencies have just lowered their assessments for one of Maine's biggest health care organizations, Northern Light Health, after it ended last year with an operating loss of more than $100 million because of a variety of staffing and operating challenges.
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Maine lost ground in its efforts to recycle more of its waste during the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new state report. However, some advocates are hopeful that new waste reforms passed in recent years could eventually help turn things around.
