During a meeting in Presque Isle on Sept. 11, members of the Aroostook County Democratic Committee passed a resolution seeking to have state lawmakers repeal Maine’s new mining regulations and replace them with an outright ban on all metallic mining activities in the state.
The resolution was introduced by Alice Bolstridge of Presque Isle, a member of the Association for the Protection of Aroostook Waters, according to a press release issued by Shelly Mountain, chair of the County democratic organization.
Bolstridge opposed the new regulations, which take effect on Nov. 1, when the 128th Legislature passed LD 820 last spring.
The resolution states that the new regulations do “not protect Maine from unacceptable risks of metallic mining contamination” and referred to a Canadian mineral exploration company’s recent announcement of plans to buy and mine property in northern Penobscot County near the Aroostook County border as reasons for lawmakers to act quickly to repeal LD 820.
The resolution further called on the Legislature to replace the bill with a new measure “that will ban all metallic mining activities in Maine, and that will direct landowners to remediate the damages already caused by past metallic mining exploration.”
According to the press release, opponents to the resolution cited the strong need for jobs and a boost in the Aroostook economy that mining could bring. They argued that the strong need for metals worldwide means a ban on mining in Maine is not responsible. And they said that assurances from proponents of mining Bald Mountain and from the environmental community mean that LD 820 would be sufficiently protective of Aroostook waters because these people are the experts and trustworthy.
Proponents of the resolution, the release states, argued that the economic gains for Aroostook County from mining are greatly exaggerated; that the economy of mining towns are unstable with boom and bust cycles; that pollution of Aroostook waters would mean destruction of sustainable industries of sports, tourist, agriculture, and forestry and therefore could adversely affect the economy.
Addressing the problem of the need for metals, proponents of the resolution suggested more thorough recycling of metals. And they cited evidence of the highly toxic nature of the Bald Mountain site and of other Maine sites with large sulfide deposits. The high toxicity and the wet climate together make Maine mining much riskier than in drier climates.
Proponents of the resolution also cited the long history of the mining industry’s violation of environmental laws, of bankruptcy, and of leaving taxpayers to pay the costs of cleaning up or of maintaining containment after catastrophic pollution.
According to the release, the Aroostook County Democratic Committee passed the resolution with 80 percent of the vote.
