Abandoned Mines Cause Environmental Devastation
They contribute to ecological and human health concerns
By Julia Connors
Summit Daily News
Summit Country, Colorado
September 11, 2007
SUMMIT COUNTY – Prospectors began hacking at Colorado’s mountainsides 150 years ago in search of gold, silver and any other kind of profitable metal that might have been nestled deep inside the rock. Soon mines peppered the landscape. And while most of them were abandoned nearly a century ago, their consequences on the region’s ecology and human health will continue to thrive long after our own generation has withered.
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 500,000 abandoned mines exist in the U.S., the majority of which lie out West. (Read on …)