Stories, including false stories, continue to circulate about Maine’s legacy mines: Callahan in Brooksville and Kerramerican in Blue Hill. These industrial scale metallic mineral mines operated for a few years and closed half a century ago. Many hundreds of smaller failed metal mines in Maine closed in the 19th century.

Maine’s Legislature continues to repeatedly respond with ineffective mining regulations. Metal mining expenses in Maine have always exceeded revenues. The Callahan Mine operated at a loss even while in operation. Revenues stop when the mining operation stops, but expenses for remediation efforts and perpetual care continue for centuries.

Money has been made in Maine’s unprofitable mining industry either by failing to provide investors a return on their investments (typical in the 19th century) or by shifting major expenses to the public (typical in the 20th century). The state of Maine is responsible for 10% of the partial remediation costs at the Callahan EPA Superfund site, and is currently paying those Maine taxpayer-funded costs at the rate of $740,000 per year.

The Callahan site is a privately owned sacrifice zone with an environmental covenant prohibiting development in perpetuity. The toxic waste storage at the site requires perpetual care at public expense. All mining job estimates come only from the industry. None of the estimates have ever subtracted jobs lost (especially important in today’s economy of competing industries like agriculture, tourism and hospitality), and historically in Maine, the estimates have been more than 10 times the actual employment.

The Hancock County economy at that time, in which the population had been declining for 80 years, analogous to the situation in Aroostook County today, was thereby more susceptible to promises of job creation, even if false. A former Brooksville selectman told me, “The jobs were terrible, but it was all we could get.” He worked in an underground portion of the mine and later (after he was the only one to escape uninjured from a fatal cave-in) worked above-ground as a truck driver.

It is significant that a current selectman has never mentioned, during the more than 30 years I have known him, that he worked for the mine. Workers who never speak of their experiences with the mines include my own extended family members. I can only conclude that the profound absence of conversation about the mines reflects a lack of pride in the work involved.

Expenses and pollution carry on after mining and revenues stop. The Kerramerican tailings pond leachate is contaminating the Carlton Stream to a level of toxic heavy metals 30 times greater than the maximum allowable for a Class C (lowest class, industrial use) stream. Who, other than the public, will pay to remediate this site?

An asset-poor liability holding company “purchased” (was paid to accept) the liabilities from the associated mining companies as defined in a 2006 federal district court consent decree. Most importantly, a punish noncompliance regulatory framework not only does not work, but cannot work to effectively regulate any industry in which a company can do more damage than it can afford. The mining industry is in this category.

Preventing harm, rather than punishing harm, is the regulatory framework that is needed, similar to that for some other high-risk industries such as the airline industry or the nuclear power industry. Use of a continuous independent scientific expert panel review process can achieve effective industry regulation.

Maine’s citizen legislature has not embraced the need for a harm-prevention regulatory structure and has instead relied on the ever-changing, industry-driven, ineffective harm-punishment regulatory structure. Maine’s Department of Environmental Protection cannot provide the necessary level of oversight, as it has no scientific experts in mining on staff and limited funds to hire any as consultants.

The often repeated meaningless and misleading statement that Maine has the strictest mining regulations in the country does a disservice to policy-makers’ attempts to protect the public from physical and financial harm.