Water flows through a series of sediment retention ponds built to reduce heavy metal and chemical contaminants from the Gold King Mine wastewater accident, in the spillway downstream from the mine, outside Silverton on Aug. 14. (Brennan Linsley, The Associated Press)
Re: “Let private sector clean up,” Dec. 14 letter to the editor.
A letter-writer suggested that rather than using taxpayer money to clean up old mines, the cost should be borne by “private-sector polluters who hauled out billions of dollars in precious minerals.”
I suggest we consider that most mining was not just precious minerals but brought out raw materials of mundane manufacturing and energy: iron, copper, lead, zinc, tin, magnesium, and so on. Even so-called precious metals are key to daily affairs: gold and silver are crucial to computing and wireless communication devices. The entire nation has benefited in myriad ways from the cheap production of those raw materials. And we continue to do so even more as materials are recycled.
We aren’t poor victims of miners; we are their heirs. Every one of us has been blessed from the output of those old mines. Why shouldn’t we all step up to take care of the less pleasant part of that legacy?
H. Wayne Hall, Colorado Springs
This letter was published in the Dec. 18 edition.
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