AUGUSTA, Maine — A leading environmental group blasted the Maine Department of Environmental Protection on Thursday for the department’s choice of a Michigan firm to help Maine rewrite its mineral mining regulations.
Pete Didisheim, advocacy director for the Natural Resources Council of Maine, said in a letter to DEP Commissioner Patricia Aho on Thursday that the North Jackson Company of Michigan is too entrenched in the mining industry to provide guidance that balances commercial interests with environmental ones.
However, the DEP said the new rules would be developed carefully and with opportunities for input from legislators and the public and that the process will be led by the DEP, not the North Jackson Company. DEP spokeswoman Samantha DePoy-Warren reacted to the NRCM’s letter with dismay.
“We knew that even as we were going above and beyond to be transparent and consistent in following the will of the Legislature that we would be subject to constant criticisms,” said DePoy-Warren. “We welcome constructive, not obstructive, participation in this process. It’s offensive to have these criticisms thrown at us.”
The North Jackson Company, according to its website, works as a consultant for government and industry, helping clients with environmental assessments, securing permits and other services. The DEP announced last month that it had signed a $175,000 contract with the company to oversee the first major rewrite of Maine’s mining regulations in two decades. The contract followed legislation passed earlier this year that transferred mining permit responsibilities from the Land Use Regulatory Commission to the DEP and called for an overhaul of mining rules.
Among Didisheim’s criticisms of the North Jackson Company was its past experience working for mining companies in the United States and beyond to help them navigate permitting for new and expanded mining operations.
“DEP has apparently decided to allow a mining industry consultant to play a lead role in writing the rules for metal mining in Maine, without meaningful public input during the drafting phase and no clear indication of the role to be played by technical experts at Maine’s natural resource agencies,” wrote Didisheim in his letter to Aho. “The process you are pursuing gives too much influence to mining interests and not enough opportunity for Maine people to participate in drafting rules that could result in widespread water pollution and massive financial clean-up costs for the state if the public’s interests are not protected.”
The North Jackson Company, which submitted the sole bid to the DEP, will work with Maine-based S.W. Cole Engineering, which has offices in Augusta, Bangor, Caribou and Gray, on the project. DePoy-Warren said that though the North Jackson Company was the only bidder for the contract, it meets all the DEP’s qualifications. Furthermore, she said its hiring of S.W. Cole Engineering, whose reputation DePoy-Warren lauded, will ensure that local concerns are well represented. She said the DEP’s efforts at transparency have included circulating press releases and the development of a web page specifically dedicated to the metal mining rulemaking process. She said both of those measures go further than what the department typically does during rulemaking.
“We know that the public wants to see this done right. We want this done right,” she said. “We at the department deal with these legacy sites that weren’t done right before the department was in existence. We’ve seen the effects of mining not done right in Maine so we’re not going to let that happen again. We’ve promised the Legislature that we would go above and beyond to be transparent.”
One example of mining gone wrong in Maine, according to DePoy-Warren, is the Callahan Mine in the town of Brooksville on the Blue Hill Peninsula. That mine, which operated in the 1960s and 1970s, is now a federal superfund site and the subject of a massive cleanup effort.
Didisheim argued in his letter to Aho that DEP officials, along with the Maine Geological Survey and the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, should take a lead role in rewriting the mining regulations, not the North Jackson Company.
DePoy-Warren said the department is in fact taking the lead and that any rules or laws that result in the process will be subject to review by the state’s citizen-led Board of Environmental Protection and the Legislature.
Didisheim also challenged assertions by the DEP in a mid-November press release that the company led a rewrite of Michigan’s mining rules in 2004 and 2005 — information that was included in a Nov. 20 article in the Bangor Daily News. He said the Natural Resources Council of Maine can find no evidence that the company was involved to the extent represented by the DEP.
“We believe that the DEP director of communications, at a minimum, should issue a retraction to the media stating that the Department’s news release was inaccurate,” wrote Didisheim. “But we are also concerned that the department may actually believe that the North Jackson Company has experience that it does not have.”
DePoy-Warren called that statement “inaccurate” and said the North Jackson Company was involved in Michigan’s rewrite, which is one of the reasons the DEP has contracted with them.
Maine’s current mining rules took effect in 1991 and the state has received no applications for mining permits since then. However, J.D. Irving Limited, which owns property on Bald Mountain in Aroostook County, has said a mining operation there focused on gold, silver and copper could create hundreds of jobs and badly needed revenue for state government. Rep. John Martin, D-Eagle Lake, who lost his bid for re-election last month, sponsored the mining-related legislation. Martin’s bill stirred up controversy in The County among supporters and opponents of the concept.
According to the law, the Legislature is required to act on a new set of metal mining rules by July of 2014.
this in itself is the scary part: “Rep. John Martin, D-Eagle Lake, who lost his bid for re-election last month, sponsored the mining-related legislation. Martin’s bill stirred up controversy in The County among supporters and opponents of the concept.”
And in other news out of Augusta today. It was announced that Mr. Slyy Foxx has been appointed as director of security for all of Maines Poultry domiciles.
yeah because uneducated lay-people such as yourself have so, so much more knowledge when it comes the mining industry and environmental best management practices
give me a break, if the environemtal whackjobs like crybaby Didisheim had theier way, groups like Earthfirst and CBR would be writing our regs and we’d be living in the stone age, buring wood and using shells for money..
I am sure you are correct when you say I am uneducated. I guess earning two undergraduate degrees in engineering (mechanical and civil) as well as a masters in mechanical engineering would qualify me as uneducated. I am sure my educational accomplishments would be considered inferior to an individual such as yourself who it would appear seems to know everything about everything and everyone. Oh by the way what do the words, “buring”, “environemtal” and “theier” mean? I don’t seem to recall those being words I had to learn in grade school vocabulary.
Those who brag about their degrees usually didn’t learn much while getting them.
You might be right. Almost everyday I learn something about my profession I didn’t know. Fortunately for me and my family I have been able to make a very good living within the profession you imply I learned very little about. Oh and by the way it wasn’t bragging. I was simply pointing out to the poster I responded to that I did have some limited knowledge of the subject matter.
Nope, burning wood is polluting. we would all just have to freeze to death and help save the planet from man.
Got a PhD to go with all that self-importance, pally?
No doubt you would have been much happier had DEP chosen the Sierra Club to develop mining regulations for Maine; the Sierra Club of course would have produced a much more balanced set of recommendations (irony intended).
Oh yes another individual who seems to be able to say what others are thinking. Having the Sierra Club develop the rules for mining would have been insanity. Every State in the Nation as well as the Federal Government has rules pertaining to mining. I am sure Maine could have adopted rules using those guidelines with a few modifications, if necessary, to adapt to Maine’s unique needs.
What are Maine’s Unique needs? Why can’t EPA rules alone do the job?
I said if necessary
Yeah I thought you might say something like that.
Anyone else surprised that the LePage administration went with a choice that would be heavily slanted towards the mining companies and completely deaf towards environmental concerns? Maine, open for a screwing.
more like: Maine, screwing business, jobs, and its people
If an environmental advocacy group is outraged….it must be good for business and create jobs.
truly_simple.
The environment is the only thing left going for Maine, so let’s kill that too, in the name of jobs. Anyone who would put their own welfare above this beautiful state should move to New Jersey and work. Plenty of jobs down there.
Conversely, anyone that would put the welfare of Maine’s people, and their livelihood beneath the resilient environment, might want to re-asses their thinking.
How many Mainers currently or in the future will derive their livelihood from mining? And that wasn’t meant as a smart assed question. Something tells me that the benefit to Mainers is no where close to what former Rep Martin sold the last legislature.
Not taken as a smart assed question, and the answer is ….I have no idea. That being said, when there is a possibilty of creating,as the article stated…..”could create hundreds of jobs”, it’s worth looking into.
Destruction of our Maine environment would destroy Maine.
We have already had enough Love Canals and rivers that burned.
I agree that anything that could produce hundreds of jobs should be looked into. However when the person making the claim is John Martin and the primary beneficiary of the legislation is the family of someone he is deeply in debt to I have to question it. Not discard it but question it.
Couldn’t agree more, there is a place known as ”common ground”, and I belive we’ve found it.
I wonder if there was someone like you in North Dakota a couple of decades ago saying ” How many people here will ever make a living drilling?”
People. Environment. Long term, you can’t separate the two. It’s really simple.
Is the LePAGE DEP motto ” To hell with the chickens, hire the fox!” ?
NRCM
Not Really Caring for Maine.
The World Bank recently announced that there is a decent chance humanity will collapse–due to environmental change because of development. If you know what the World Bank is, you won’t call them liberal.
So, enjoy your cheap jobs while you can, and don’t blame anyone but yourself as the world we live in continues to decline.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/world-bank-warns-of-4-degree-threshhold/2012/11/19/aa298dd0-3023-11e2-a30e-5ca76eeec857_story.html
any world anything has an agenda everytime they speak
Liberal? no but progressive and elitist absolutly
Let’s let the fox make up the rules for the hen house.
Some people would like to take this country back to the days [not that long ago] when the rivers ran brown [green] and covered with scummy foam.
I don’t believe that for a minute. I know no one who wants that.. I don’t believe they should allow corporate write lthe laws though..
……
The Michigan Chamber of Commerce mysteriously gave gave $225,000 to Lepage’s 2010 election campaign. Could this be what they bought with their money?
Where did you find this number?
So you expect me to believe that the Michigan Chamber of Commerce donated $225,000 to a campaign (strange because that is only $224,250 more than a maximum contribution) in the hope that one day one of their business members may receive a contract that is $50,000 less than that donation?
Or are you spreading false lies and rumors in order to smear someone politically?
http://lepagefiles.blogspot.com/2011/01/lepage-and-michigan-chamber-skirt.html
Thank you for this..forgot all about it!!!
Back in 2010, I wondered why the Michigan chamber of commerce would give 1/4 of a million dollars to the Maine Republican Governor’s Association.
At first I thought Lepage was given this money to let Kestrel aircraft factory move from Maine to Wisconsin, but now it is my opinion the money came from Canadian mining companies and was funneled to Lepage by the Chamber of commerce.
If I’m correct we can expect to see only Canadians hired to work at the mine in the same way that no Americans where hired to build the Keystone pipeline.
Thank you, Lord Whiteman, if LePage’s campaign did get that much, wow…we should all smell fish!
Oh My Goodness..if that is true that explains MUCH!!!! Do you have a link we can look at?
I couldn’t imagine when I saw North Jacksons profile and experience at their own website how and why they would possible even Know about our reg or our statute let alone make tis unlikely bid on our RFP. Actual real world experts hadn’t even seen the rfp or heard about our statutory changes
See my accounto above of my “down the rabbit hole” round with Samatha DePoy Warren and George Mac Donald on the procurement process itself.
You have pointed right to center and source of lal this if what you say is true.
Just saw the link provided by an anonymous logger above.. Yes that’s it.!!
So There has to be a single company that has both mining interests in michigan and mining interets here at one or mor eof ur site..Alder Bond. Mt. Chase and Blad Mounntain.
Must be Bald Mountain as lal this came through JD Irving. So there is some company in Michigan who orchestrated all this to advance its existing finnacial inyerests here in Maine.
The last mining company of record at Bal Mountain purchase a lease from another company for $2million and actually had developed a comprehensive plan for Bald Mountain involving open pit sulfide mining and cyanide heap leach processing..Black Hawk Mining Co..a Toronoto based company.
Don’t know whether Black Hawk still hold that lease or not but I believe their exploration permit from LUPC is long expired It was transferred to them by permit from LUPC in 1998. LUPC says they have no record of a pre application meeting or for an actual application for a rezoning to create a DPD mining district at Bald Mountain. Also don’t kow what their connection might be to Michigan.
Any other possible links anyone can think of that might be worth running down?
Could whoever this company is, the one that must have a common connection between Michigan and Maine be the unknown “private investor” who bailed out John martin in is recent bankruptcy case..My mind doesn’t usually run in that direction but in this case it all just seems to connect itself up into one big invasive organism.
Wow, paranoid much? Have you info on the new regs that no one else does? Are you aware of a mining plan submitted? Or do you rely on anti Lepage sites for your info, such as the one posted.?
Hi Kurt
First the Le Page site is quoting and refers to quite an extensive MPBN analysis of $225,000 donation by the Michigan Chamber
If you follow through to the current website of the Chamber you’ll see that it is not what we all thought think of as a Chamber of Commerce…it is a self described PAC and lobbying group marketing ALEC style laws nationwide and Governors willing to advance such laws. The excellent journalism at the MPBN site provides more detail on that.
Our metal mining law written by and for the mining industry without regard to modern science and long experience is what the mining industry has been trying to pass all over the U.S.. as other nations clamp down on cyanide heap each mining an open put sulfide mining. The drafts of our law brought in by the mining industry in a last minute almost private audience with the Joint Committee all came from Michigan’s statute word for word. It was clearly the source of the text.
So from the very beginning. of this trojan horse mining law in the confusion of the late session there has clearly a Michigan connection.
I have been doing research on where metallic mining is possible in Maine, what we know about the ore and metals there and was particularly interested in what permits and operations have gone forward under existing regs. ( I am preparing testimony on two rule changes..1 by DEP 1 by :LUPC) .and what current immediate interests and intentions there may be,
Here is a 1979 story in BDN in which JJ Cummings who held a lease of 350,000 on and surrounding Bald Mountain is quoted as saying:
“An open pit mining, a crushing mill tailing and settling ponds and mining operations by 1984 are expected providing that the developing firms are convinced that metal prices and production costs are favorable and providing environmental license and permit demands are met”
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2457&dat=19790810&id=agY1AAAAIBAJ&sjid=Tk8KAAAAIBAJ&pg=1087,3678865
Later Boliden Resouces took over from Cummings ( the had been part of a joint venture created by Cummings). Boliden in 1995 or 6 sold to Black Hawk Mining and LUPC approved a transfer of the exploration permit to Black Hawk. Black Hawk did further exploration as “collaborator” ( the USGS word not mine) with USGS. and in 1999 actually submitted a full scale mining operations plan to “Maine Regulators”
Here is the USGS report
http://minerals.usgs.gov/east/environment/me.html
That report shows hi levels of naturally ocurring arsenkic and other toxins in lakes, rivers and dreams more than 12 Kilometers away..without disturbing the sulfide ore which creates sulphuric acid when exposed to air and water.
Here is what is described in an announcement from Black Hawk covered in a mining journal about their plans at Bald Mountain
“December 31, 1999
Designs for the mine, processing facilities, and tailings landfill have been completed. This work, coupled with the ongoing environmental baseline studies, has formed the basis for a
comprehensive project development plan which has been submitted for review bythe Maine state regulatory agencies”
“.April 30, 1998
Plans were to develop a relatively
small open pit mine aimed at mining only the gold-enriched gossan. A vat leaching processing system is planned for gold recovery.”
This is the only economically feasible system for extraction of gold & silver and many nations and many states have forbidden this system. It is actually permitted under existing joint DEP LUPC rules if done through a DPD..specially zoned district.
Black Hawk was also the developer of the notorious Callahan mine here near me in Blue Hill.. It is now a superfund site ..the bio hazards are still there unremediated from the mine
Black Hawk is based out of Tornoto.. closer to Michigan than Maine and Black Hawk was just repelled by Michigan from taking up renewed operations using these same techniques
Again, I encourage, actually beg all citizens of Maine to do this kind of research and to write directly to the agencies with their questions and concerns..to watch what decisions are being made and to make your own assessment of those decisions. Decide for your self through this kid of research who is being served.
Lindsay Newland Bowker Risk Manager
NYCDEP 1986-1998
In the end, the Moneymentalists will destroy our earth. I so wish our legislators could take a ride to Aho, Arizona and Butte, Montana to see the castastrophy created by mining. I was once worked in mineral exploration as a budding geologist on the Scott Paper Co. lands – now owned by Plum Creek – and during this time I was aware of the Callahan Mine scam in Blue Hill, Maine. Right from its onset, the Moneymentalists knew that the mine was created merely to manipulate the stock market. Fear the mining Moneymentalists and their newest effort to make a low grade mineral deposit on Irving land in Northern Maine into another environmental disaster. I encourage you all to support the NRC.
You know that mining is the only thing that makes the computer you are typing on and many other things you take for granted possible right?
It is not mining per se that I am opposed to. It is the “methods” of mining. There IS a way to mine a mineral deposit without polluting the ground water and the land. And we have people in our nation who are experts in that procedure. The group just chosen by the State is not the agency I would chose to rewite our current rather loose and nonrestrictive laws.
So who are these people you would approve of? You do know that if you make the process so restrictive as to make it unprofitable you have just in effect banned it right?
This is just what our “current rather loose and nonrestrictive laws” have done, made mining Bald Mountain unprofitable.
That being said, considering our current political demographics, I don’t belive any mining will occur in Maine, other than gravel pits,granite and small scale gemstones.
Rewriting the laws is an exercise in futility.
If an environmental group doesn’t like the choice then that’s good enough for me to know that they are a GOOD choice.
The signal-to-noise ratio in the comments about the re-write of the mining rules is discouraging.
Yes, the North Jackson firm is likely to deliver a “miner’s plan”.
Yes, if the Natural Resources Council had its way, no mining would occur at Bald Mountain.
If the process after delivery of the draft rules is long enough and thorough enough, we may be able to get a balanced outcome. Given the geo-chemistry and size of the Bald Mountain project and the need to evaluate the new rules in the context of that proposed mine, a extended comment and review period would seem reasonable.
If NRC had its way, no mining, or farming, or industry or … would take place in Maine.
The rule change does not only apply to Bald Mountain an out of tthe way place to some. These same rules will apply to Chase Mountain and then perhaps in Your Back Yard.
It is only viable because gold prices are so high.. like electric heat is as cheap or maybe cheaper then oil right now.. if the price of gold droped 20% then this wouldn’t be a discussion
Of course an environmental advocacy group is carping about the choice of consultant, It wasn’t them.
This is just saving Irving a lot of money. If the DEP had done its own internal study, Irving would have hired this same company to rebut it. Why not cut out the middleman? But seriously, the issue here is thousands of tons of sulfide rock being mined, crushed up and exposed in giant tailing piles and then causing acidic leachate into native brook trout streams for the next 500 years. If Irving wants the copper so much, then they can haul all the tailings to New Brunswick and let them deal with it. It’s a classic issue of ‘whose problem is it.” Irving wants the valuable stuff, the copper, and wants Aroostook County to have all of the toxic waste left over. They are basically creating a giant toxic waste landfill. Sulphide metal mining of this scale using copper ore of this very low grade cannot be done cleanly unless the ‘host’ community is left with the financial liability for cleaning up the mess after the circus leaves town.
Agreed Sir. This is why any mining in bulk requires a rail line to transport the ore to a crusher and refiner. Gee, doesn’t Irving already have 70% of the current abandoned MMA line’s, that Maine DOT’s people now own on the Bond issue, under lease ? And isin’t there a rail line into Canada where Irving, and Canada, can deal with this ? I have no problem with the mining per se but do it responsibly and provide the safeguard’s. West Virginia coal miing company’s finally figured that out when they were forced, under both lawsuit and Court order’s, to reclaim the land and mountain top’s they strip mined. Maine has it’ own mining mess at the Callahan Mine so the abject example is already here. One can hope that DEP is going to require that mess to be used as a standard to measure just what steps, and how well they are going to be used, to keep Bald Mountain fro turning into another mining disaster. Job’s that kill families and children through contaminating the water (anyone remember Love Canal ?) aren’t job’s. They’re just slow motion suicide.
Very well put.
Alexis Wright, the Kennebunk zumba mistress, would have made a better DEP commissioner than Patricia Aho. At least then we would have had an honest prostitute in that position. For those who might not know, for nine years prior to her appointment by the damaged goods salesman who is our governor, Ms. Aho was the chief lobbyist in Maine for both the chemical and petroleum industries.
Lib. at their best. Name calling and insults.
What? You can’t handle the truth?
I can handle the truth. The lib., my way or the highway, from there to name calling and insults. That’s about as true as it gets.
Name calling and insults? If the shoe fits let them wear it. What did I write that wasn’t true, Grandpa? Rather than deal with the truth it is you and your poor teabugger friends who prefer to snarl away about “libs.”
According to the BDN itself, the Superfund clean-up bill from the open-pit Callahan Copper Mine on Cape Rosier in Brooksville is now $23 million and still climbing. Taxpayers are eating most of this. The mine only operated for about 3 years in the early 1970s. Callahan took the copper and left all the toxic tailings for ‘us’ to clean up. When all the expenses are tallied it would have been 20x cheaper to have left the copper and zinc in the ground.
(JOBS) in Maine! What would happen to EBT, Mainecare, free cell phones.Who would watch the OWN channel.Jobs i don’t want no stinkin job environmentalist AKA bored trust fund baby
Give it up Timmy. EBT cards and MaineCare help folks.
Ruin your environment and there won’t be any jobs period.
You could have hired Jesus and they would still complain….
Strip mining here we come.