History Shows Mining’s Consequences: Rules to Protect Maine’s Environment are Insufficient

However, one provision could easily allow for liquid waste ponds to be maintained forever, and the controls designed to protect surface runoff and sub-surface waters are inadequate. No one believes that man-made tailings lagoons can last “forever,” and structural failure of these lagoons can lead to disastrous environmental consequences. Also, there is no amount of water anywhere that does not eventually end up in some stream, river or lake. Gravity ensures that it all ends up downhill from where it is deposited. Polluted water, as a result of mining operations, will end up elsewhere in our environment. We need to go to great lengths to eliminate this potential.
http://www.nrcm.org/projects-hot-issues/maine-legislature/history-shows-minings-consequences-rules-to-protect-maines-environment-are-insufficient/