Lawmakers reject mining rule changes
The Legislature’s Environment and Natural Resources committee has endorsed a bill that would send changes to the state’s metallic mineral mining rules back to regulators for another draft.
The Bangor Daily News reported the committee endorsed LD 1772, which would require a new draft of metallic mining rules from the state’s Department of Environmental Protection and Board of Environmental Protection by Feb. 1, 2016.
The rules in question were required by LD 1853, a bill passed in 2012 that stemmed from Canadian timber company JD Irving Ltd.’s desire to mine copper and zinc at the 500-acre site it owns on Bald Mountain in Aroostook County. The update to the decades-old rules would apply to the whole state.
The newspaper reported committee members said they expected the Legislature to uphold the decision to send the draft rules back to regulators, thus delaying new rules around mining for another two years.
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