Fears of pollution from offshore oil drilling in the country's rich fishing banks were overruled in 1979 when the Department of the Interior granted exploration leases to several oil companies, and major resources of petroleum and natural gas have been discovered. Mining other than for offshore petroleum and natural gas in the Bypassed East is not currently of great importance. This was not always the case. Iron ore has been mined in the Adirondacks for more than 100 years, and the reserves there are still substantial, but total output from the mines is relatively small. The igneous and metamorphic rocks of northern New England have made the area an important producer of building stone for years.
Many granite quarries operate in central Vermont and along the central coast of Maine.
Vermont is also the leading marble-producing state in the United States. The value of all of these rocks is small compared to the minerals industries found in other parts of the continent, but it is still an important element in the economy of the two states. By a slight majority, most of the residents of the Bypassed East are urbanites. However, the region contains few substantial urban areas. The two largest cities of northern New England are Burlington, Vermont, and Lewiston, Maine, both of which have about 40,000 residents.