Turns out the term Sustainability has found its way into the mining biz. They even write books. It's quite the buzzword these days.

You might be surprised how much the industry works on the environmental impact of mining. Sure, there are good mines and bad mines, modern mines and ancient mines, mines in countries with environmental laws and in countries that don't. I've seen 'em all.

But I've also toured an active copper mine in Arizona that was a cow pasture. The low grade ore is dissolved in a very weak acidic solution and pumped out of the ground and separated using electrolosis. Very cool. You'd drive right by it. I worked on a placer mine (river gravels) that was re-terraced into a real-estate development. The expensive homes will be there in a hundred years, the mine was there for twenty. A project I work on now treats thousands of gallons of mine water before it can enter the creek, keeping mine waste out of the watershed and dilluting the effluent from other historic mines. Plans are underway to treat water from other old mines in the district using this treatment plant. By the way, the mine has not produced a single ounce of metal in more than 30 years. All it has produced in the last five years is clean water and some jobs.

Yes, a mineral deposit is a finite thing. But the copper from a mine will be around, and useful, long after the apple has served its purpose. It's all relative, I suppose. Like it or not, we need both the mine and the orchard.