To the editor:
The non-profit Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM) has released a report based on examining Department of Environmental Protection files from the 1990s that shows open-pit mining of Bald Mountain is environmentally hazardous and economically unsound. According to the files, the proposed mine would be “likely to pollute rivers, lakes and streams with sulfuric acid runoff and arsenic pollution.” And instead of the promised 700 jobs, it would provide only about “80 to 130 jobs for a full-scale open-pit mine.”
The NRCM report claims that these files were not provided to the public, nor to lawmakers who voted to rewrite regulations weakening environmental protections. Although the DEP denies in a Bangor Daily News article that they hid this information, they do not provide any evidence there that NRCM’s claims about pollution or the economic consequences are not true. All the evidence I have found and trust indicates that those claims are true, that we in Aroostook County will bear the environmental consequences of an open-pit mine that does not have sufficient environmental protections, and that all Maine taxpayers will bear the long-term economic consequences of cleanup long after the miners and their corporate profits have gone.
Think about it: if the claims about environmental safety being made by the proponents of new environmental regulations for open-pit mining are really true, why do we need to weaken existing rules? Find out the facts and call or write to the Board of Environmental Protection before Oct. 28: Robert A. Foley, Chair, Board of Environmental Protection, 17 State House Station, 28 Tyson Drive, Augusta, Maine 04333-0017, Tel: 207-287-2811, Fax: 207-287-2814.
Alice Bolstridge
Presque Isle
