Alna selectmen July 27 put another 180 days on mining and solar moratoriums town meeting voters passed earlier this year. Selectmen said the reasons for the temporary bans remain and the planning board is making progress drafting ordinances on these types of development.

The moratoriums bar the siting, installation, operation, permitting and approval of any commercial or community solar facility and any new mineral extraction facilities and operations, or the “expansion of existing, actual, and substantial mineral extraction facilities.” 

Planning board member Cathy Johnson told selectmen the planning board has met multiple times a month in workshops drafting the ordinances. She said the drafts continue to be updated at alna.maine.gov and written comments can be submitted anytime, but oral ones will be taken after the full first drafts are done.

The mining one, with Whitefield’s as a template, is about 75% done and the solar one, with Edgecomb’s as a template, is about 40% done, Johnson said. “We’ve got more work to do. Once we have been through them once, then we will really be putting them out, encouraging a lot of public input. But we’re trying to get a basic framework first ... So I encourage everyone to be calm and relaxed ...”

Some attendees voiced concern for impacts to those whose pits have not required permits, because, they said, every bucket removed expands a pit. Second Selectman Steve Graham said to write those concerns to the planning board well ahead of the drafts’ presentation so that, if the planning board sees fit, it can include wording that addresses those concerns.