New Mexico Geological Society Annual Spring Meeting — Abstracts

Hard-rock mining in the American West has collided head-on with profound, long-term changes in both our economy and our culture. Along with public-lands grazing and forestry, mining ranks as one of the three most contentious and polarizing "litmus tests" of economic interest and cultural outlook amongst westerners. But unlike the other two issues, for which "win-win" solutions are both economically and technically available already, hard-rock mining presents huge difficulties in reclamation and assurance of post-mining land use.

We do not presently have nearly enough good examples of successful solutions to these difficulties. Although there are many good ideas, and some promising experiments, few have been demonstrated over sufficient time to merit great confidence in them. Additionally, an uneven regulatory environment, combined with the economic anachronism of the Mining Act of 1872, have delayed what might under ideal circumstances have developed into an economically-driven reform of the industry in this century. Aggravating these problems have been (1) mechanization of strip and open-cast mining, in which the ratio of tons of rock moved per miner-day has gone up by literally orders-of-magnitude in the past half-century, and (2) the advent of solution-leach mining, which has allowed the exploitation of poorer ores.

At the present time, segments of the population which perceive themselves to be adversely impacted by hard-rock mining are surprisingly broad, no longer just a narrow eco-minority. Moreover, their motivations are not purely "environmental", but are frequently based on competing economic interests and agendas. Not just principles, but also profits and raw economic self-interest, are increasingly at odds with traditional mining in the West. Competition for the two fundamentally limited quantities, land and water, further sharpens the divide between mining and other sectors of the West's economy.

Despite these problems associated with the mining industry's future, the technical challenges of reclamation, and the public's increasing insistence that meaningful reclamation must occur, could promise a larger role for geoscientists and geoengineers, relative to that of traditional miners. These and other trends will be illustrated with point examples from our State.