To the editor:
It’s official, the metallic mining rules fight is back on again. I have a question for all of you: are you getting tired of watching as your often voiced opinions on the future of our wild places are continually dismissed by an administration that seems hell bent on destroying them? I know I am.
By the time you read this there will have been a Board of Environmental Protection hearing on the rules, convened by a rubber stamp committee of LePage appointees that will have voted unanimously to rewrite the current rules. Rules – that as they stand now – are the only things standing in the way of the proverbial Mr. Peabody’s coal train from taking it all away.
These new rules will have changes and the governor will go to great lengths to tout them, trying to show you that he is capable of shining a benevolent light upon our woods and waters. His words will be hollow and meaningless, I promise. There will be no substantive changes from the previous drafts. There will be more testimony in opposition, just as there has every other time this issue has come up. And just like every other time, it will make no difference; they neither listen nor answer to you and me. And, just as before, these newly rewritten rules will be sent along with the committee’s highest endorsement.
If all this sounds familiar it should, we keep doing it over and over. The third time is the charm LePage is thinking. He’s hoping you’re so sick and tired of fighting with him that you’ll throw up your hands in defeat, roll over, giving him everything he wants.
We need to be clear: there is no law on the books stopping anybody from coming into Maine and opening up a mine. They’re free to dig away if they wish. What stops them is an existing set of rules that requires that any mining company who would like to do business here also be responsible for cleaning up the environmental damage that they will do in the course of their excavations. They don’t like this idea.
These new rules will be written by mining professionals, professionals for whom our sylvan heritage means nothing save the hefty paycheck that they will receive for their writing skills. The rules will outline provisions whereupon it becomes the duty of the state and its taxpayers, you and me, to be the sole providers of the monetary resources associated with the shutdown, cleanup, and perpetual care that every mine accrues after its owners have dredged every last ounce of ore from the ground. They expect you to bear the financial burden of maintaining a toxic waste site.
There is no new scientific evidence in favor of the administration’s proposal. There is no new breakthrough in mining technology that will somehow let them safely remove billions of tons of arsenic-tainted ore without destroying the environment. No, just the same settled science that shows just how inappropriate metallic mining in Maine really is. There are many sites all around our wonderful state that have mineral deposits, none of them suitable for mining; but none so glitteringly attractive as the Bald Mountain site in Aroostook county …and none half so dangerous to the environment.
Bald Mountain sits at the headwaters of the incredible Fish River chain of lakes, and tributaries. It encompasses one of the last and truly unspoiled ecosystems in the country. There is nothing remotely like it anywhere.
The governor is going to try and tell us of all the benefits we will receive when we allow him to destroy such an ecosystem. He will tell us of the hundreds of jobs that will last for years if we give him leave to destroy but a single mountain. What business, he will ask, does a mountain have standing in the way of economic progress?! This will of course be a fable. There will be less than 100 jobs and those will be going to mining professionals, not your friends and neighbors.
There have been other mining companies in the past who have come to Aroostook County and considered Bald Mountain. Black Hawk and Boliden – two companies who specialize in metallic mining and have the very latest in mining equipment and technologies – both did their due diligence, and went home, concluding that Bald Mountain cannot be mined in any kind of environmentally safe way. The disproportionate amount of heavy metals, specifically arsenic, and its proximity to groundwater make the site untenable.
The Irving corporation, who owns the Bald Mountain site, will be the sole financial beneficiary of the material that comes from the giant open sore in the ground. Being held financially responsible for maintaining this toxic superfund site in perpetuity will be our cross to bear.
We’ve come too far and struggled too much to simply roll over for a belligerent governor and a Canadian billionaire to allow them to take from us that which is so rare and beautiful. Once again, we need to step up and speak for a thing that cannot speak for itself. Let ring a loud and raucous public condemnation of this governor’s attempt to turn the best of our state’s natural treasures into desolate wastelands.
