MAINE PUBLIC • April 29, 2022
Residents of Pembroke will gather next week to decide the future of industrial-scale mining in their small, Down East community. They'll vote on an ordinance drafted in response to initial exploration by a Canadian-based company that wants to mine the region for silver. Ontario-based Wolfden Resources Corporation has been eyeing Pembroke as the site of a mining project known as "Big Silver." Wolfden says it owns the mineral rights for more than 800 acres there and has begun exploratory drilling in the region. Wolfden has been trying for several years to begin mining in Maine for silver, zinc and other metallic minerals that are in high demand for clean energy products. It bought Pickett Mountain north of Patten and submitted plans to rezone a few hundred acres to the Land Use Planning Commission two years ago. But Wolfden withdrew those plans last fall after the LUPC signaled it would reject the proposal, due to "numerous errors, inconsistencies and omissions" in the application.