Garrison, S. (2015, August 14). U.S. looks for long term solutions to mining pollution – USA Today. News: Farmington NM times –. Retrieved aug 20, 2015, from http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/08/14/long-term-solution-mining-pollution-gold-king-mine/31700311/
A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers is pushing for funding to build a water treatment plant on the animas river. Mark Williams who specializes in mountain hydrology and acid mine drainage sais environmental inspectors must map the pathways water takes within the mountains as the plugging of mines caused water to escape through fractures in the mountains. Understanding the source is the key to the problem and that a water treatment plant is not the long-term solution to the problem.
This story highlights a real problem with the repercussions of mining: we don’t have good ways of dealing with the fallout. Water treatment plants are limited in their scope and range and new remediation technologies need to be developed. At this point it seems the change needs to come from the source cleanup has a much higher cost than prevention from an ecological standpoint if not from an economic standpoint and although this makes it seem impractical it seems the only current possibility while technology is still catching up.
Mining is a big problem that does not receive nearly enough attention. There should be many more regulations on mining corporations than there are today.
Your absolutely “on the money” regarding our ability to handle the repercussions and fallout caused by mining. While a necessity, it is a dangerous and harmful practice to our shared environment. Do you have any ideas as to handling these fallouts from mining?