ROCKPORT — The community is invited to the third program in the series: Turn on the Taps: Ensuring Clean Water for All on Saturday, Sept. 7, at 10:30 a.m., in the Rockport Opera House. This program, The Water Connection: Risks of Metal Mining in Maine, will feature two speakers who will explore how mining affects the quality of both surface and underground water supplies and the social, environmental and cultural disasters that result when mining companies put profits over safety.

The speakers, Jan Morrill and Ralph Chapman, bring an array of knowledge and experience to the discussion.

Morrill is the Tailings Campaign Manager at Earthworks. Since 1988, Earthworks has helped communities secure protections of their health, land, water and air from extractive industries. It is the only national organization in the U.S. to focus exclusively on preventing the destructive impacts of extraction of oil, gas and minerals, according to a news release. Morrill works with communities around the world directly affected by dangerous tailings storage facilities, including in Brazil, the Dominican Republic, South Africa, and beyond. As a resident of Rockland, Morrill has closely followed the debate around opening Maine up for metallic mining.

Morrill will be joined by Ralph Chapman, now retired, who had a multifaceted career as an industrial engineer, applied physics research scientist, science educator and former State Legislator. For eight years, Chapman represented the only Maine House District that has had commercial metal mining in the past century. He and his wife live in Bucksport.

This program, sponsored by Nativity Lutheran Church, is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided. For more information please go to the Church’s website at http://www.nativityrockport.org or contact Denise at das75gms@gmail.com