The reason why we want mining companies to clean up is that we, the public, are the ones who suffer from mining-related messes: unusable mined land surfaces, unsafe drinking water, and polluted air. Even the cleanest methods for mining coal and copper create messes. If we want coal and copper, we have to recognize the environmental costs of extracting them as a legitimate necessary cost of hardrock mining, as legitimate as the costs of the bulldozer that digs the pit or the smelter that smelts the ore. The environmental costs should be factored into metals prices and passed on to consumers,
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