BANGOR DAILY NEWS • August 15, 2020
The Natural Resources Council of Maine recently raised several concerns regarding a proposed metal mine near the town of Patten. The mine has been proposed by Wolfden Resources, a Canadian company. Recently, Wolfden’s petition to rezone 528 acres of land around Pickett Mountain was accepted as complete by the Land Use Planning Commission. Nick Bennett, a staff scientist at the NRCM, said, “There are no mining companies in the world that can treat waste from that process to be as clean as natural groundwater.” Bennett said NRCM, as well as LUPC, repeatedly had asked Wolfden to provide an example of a mine that could do this, but they failed to do so. He said if they could not treat their wastewater as cleanly as they claimed, it could cause “tremendous damage” to ponds and trout streams in the area, potentially reaching nearby Baxter State Park and Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument.