For the third time in recent years, the Maine Board of Environmental Protection is considering new mining rules that are drawing strong opposition from around the state.
Similar rules have twice been rejected by the Legislature, staff from the department say the changes are needed to address gaps and inconsistencies in the existing law.
The rules are seen as paving the way for New Brunswick-based JD Irving Ltd. to develop a mine near Bald Mountain in Aroostook County. The company has touted the plan as a way to create hundreds of jobs. But Nick Bennett of the Natural Resources Council of Maine says there are more than just a few problems with the plan and the rules.
For one thing, he says, the Bald Mountain site is not appropriate for mining.
“Metals like copper, zinc, gold and silver are often found in a lattice of iron sulfide, and it’s the sulfur in the iron sulfide that’s the problem. If you dig that stuff up and expose it to air and water, it creates sulfuric acid,” he says.
The sulfuric acid, Bennett says, then runs off into the groundwater and surface water, killing fish and other aquatic creatures. It’s called acid mine drainage. And it can also leach out dangerous, heavy metals such as arsenic, which Bennett says is present in high amounts on Bald Mountain along with high amounts of sulfur.
“In sites out West you can find problems with severe acid mine drainage in ore bodies that have 1 or 2 percent sulfur,” he says. “The Bald Mountain ore body has up to 50 percent sulfur, so digging up this ore body and exposing it to air and water is a recipe for an environmental catastrophe.”
Speaking at a public hearing on the proposed rules Thursday, Deputy DEP Commissioner Melanie Loyzim said there is a metallic mineral mining rule in place, but it’s out of sync with a 2012 law passed by the Legislature. Because the two conflict with each other, Loyzim says her agency has a lot of room for discretion if there’s a permit application.
She says the proposed rules are a way to establish clear standards that don’t exist right now.
“I would argue that the rule changes we are proposing are more protective of Maine’s environment than our current situation,” she says. “Leaving our rules as they are is not a positive environmental outcome.”
But critics say the proposed rules don’t require mining companies to pay enough money up front to cover the costs of a potential mining disaster. As an example, Rep. Ralph Chapman of Brooksville points to the partial remediation effort being undertaken in his own town, where the former site of the Callahan Mine has been declared a Superfund site.
Chapman says cleanup costs have recently been revised upward.
“Rather than $23 million, the estimate is now $45 million, of which $4.5 million come from Maine taxpayers at the current rate of about a half of million dollars a year,” he says.
In addition, there’s concern that the proposed rules could put pristine rivers and streams on Bald Mountain and other parts of Maine in jeopardy.
Matthew Scott, the former chair of the Maine Board of Environmental Protection and a retired chief biologist for the DEP, says the area around Bald Mountain contains 90 percent of the remaining habitat for Eastern brook trout in the Northeast.
“So I think we should do everything possible to protect the species,” he says. “We should not be developing rules to encourage mining in those habitat areas. Mining in those areas is highly risky to the survival of the species.”
If the board approves the rules, the Legislature will take them up once again in January.
