RADIO ADDRESS: NEW MINING LAW PROVIDES ENVIRONMENTAL, HEALTH PROTECTIONS THAT MAINE DESERVES

Hello, this is Senator Brownie Carson from Harpswell. Thanks for tuning in.

The health and wellbeing of our environment and our families are vitally important to the people of Maine. That’s why I’m so pleased to report that after five years of false starts, the Legislature has finally enacted the strong mining law necessary to protect our state from the risks of metallic mining.

These protections are the result of the hard work of lawmakers and advocates, who labored around the clock to gather the support needed not only to pass the bill, but to override Gov. LePage’s veto.

In 2012 the Legislature passed a controversial bill requiring the state to rewrite its existing mining rules. The law was spurred by a Canadian company’s interest in developing a large copper mine in Aroostook County.

Every year since then, the Department of Environmental Protection has proposed rules that would have dramatically weakened environmental protections. Every year, the Legislature defeated them.

Now, we finally have a new, strict law in place. This new law bans large-scale, “open pit mining.” This technique has had disastrous consequences for people and our environment all over the world, including here in Maine.

The Callahan Mine was an open-pit copper mine located adjacent to and beneath Goose Pond in Brooksville. The mine closed in 1972, leaving 5 million gallons of toxic waste in its wake. Cleanup at the site is still underway today, and millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent to mitigate the damage.

This story has played out too many times around the country and around the world. Too often, mining companies have polluted the environment and walked away, leaving the public holding the bill for millions of dollars in cleanup costs.

Mainers should never again have to bear the cost of metallic mining disasters. That’s why the law I helped craft included a provision that requires mining companies to provide up-front funding for the cost of spills or accidents. It also bans the storage of wet mine waste, which can pollute rivers, ponds, lakes and the underlying watershed.

This law does not ban all mining in Maine. It simply ensures that 21st-century mining operations include 21st-century safeguards. And it guarantees that the profits of mining companies will never take precedence over the interests of Maine’s environment or its health.

That’s a result we can all be proud of. This is Senator Brownie Carson. Thanks for listening.