Changelog

Heating is the biggest bill of the year here and it does not arrive month by month. This page carries the state's weekly fuel prices, works out what last winter would cost at this week's rate, and shows the same heat priced on oil, kerosene, propane, pellets and wood so you can see where yours sits. It also carries this year's heating help — who qualifies, when applications opened, and that Midcoast Maine Community Action is the office for Lincoln County. It is arithmetic on numbers you type, not a quote, and your dealer's price will differ.

Put in the assessed value from your bill and it works out roughly what a year comes to at this year's rate of $21.03 per $1,000, and what the homestead, veteran and blind exemptions take off. It also carries the state programmes that can lower the bill further — the Property Tax Fairness Credit, the State Property Tax Deferral Program, and the town's own Tax Club. One note worth knowing: the Tax Collector's page on the town site still shows last year's rate. This page follows the Assessors, who have the current one.

Type an address and see its zone on FEMA's current effective map in plain words — including what the 2015 Lincoln County map does and doesn't say about the water the downtown lot already sees on king tides.

NOAA's official predictions for the Newcastle station across from downtown — today's highs and lows and the week ahead, with the next high tide now at the top of the town page. It joins Highest Tides to Watch, which keeps covering the biggest tides ahead.

The town page now opens with a colored-pencil drawing of floating oyster cages and a working skiff on the tidal Damariscotta River, where most of Maine's oysters are grown.

Damariscotta is where Maine oyster farming began, and the twelve-mile river the town sits on still grows about 80% of the state's farmed oysters. **The Damariscotta Oyster Trail** is a new page that gathers the real, public ways to taste that — whoever you are. There are four: buy them straight from the source at Glidden Point's farm store upriver in Edgecomb (you can shuck your own); ride out past the farms on the River Tripper's oyster-and-seal cruise from Schooner Landing; or sit down to a dozen at King Eider's Pub in town or the Shuck Station just across the bridge in Newcastle. Each listing was checked against the place's own page, and it links straight there for hours and booking. It also answers the questions newcomers actually ask: the oysters are farmed rather than dug wild, so they're around all year; the old "only in months with an R" rule doesn't really apply to cold, farmed, refrigerated Maine oysters; and the farm store and the cruises cut their hours back in winter, so it's worth checking before you drive out. Wholesale-only hatcheries were left off — these are the places you can actually visit.

A new tool shows whether the Nobleboro–Jefferson Transfer Station is open right now, its Tuesday-to-Saturday hours and holiday closures, the sticker you need to get in, and exactly how its sorted recycling and fee-by-weight drop-offs work — for all five towns the station serves.

Who runs the schools after the three towns formed RSU 48 in 2025, where children go from pre-K through grade 8 at Great Salt Bay, and how high school tuition and choice work when the town runs no high school of its own — with the offices to call.

Damariscotta sits on a tidal river, and the water is the story. "Highest Tides to Watch" reads NOAA's tide predictions for the Newcastle station on the Damariscotta River and lists the upcoming highest tides — the days the waterfront lot and the low spots downtown are most likely to take on water. It is honest about what it is: a tide prediction, not a flood forecast, because whether water reaches the street depends on wind, rain and storm surge on top of the tide. "Downtown Parking" covers the lots, the overflow spots, and the two winter rules that catch people out. "On the Water in 2026" has the pumpkin regatta, the oyster festival and the spring alewife run.