The many dangers of mining

Depending on what it is that is being mined and depending on the mining method, this way of making a living can be dubbed the deadliest, with some competition from ocean fishing, tree cutting and construction of high rises.

With all types of mining, there are dangers to human health and life that come from the process, the mineral that is being mined and from many other factors, including geopolitical resistance to mining operations. There are also dangers to the environment and to habitat that some from surface and deep mining operations.

In the process of mining a surface or placer claim, the danger is to the environment because the top layers of earth are denuded of trees, then scraped down from the top, until there is no fertile soil that will support plant life. Plant life is the starting point for habitat that will support humans and animals. Placer mining is a form of deliberate and permanent desertification that makes a riparian or other restoration practically impossible.

In some placer claim mining, there are permanent pools of noxious liquids that resulted from using toxic chemicals to extract the valuable mineral. Other claims are littered with massive piles of unwanted detritus that is heavy and dangerous to move.

Placer claims can be harmful or deadly to life forms when a pocket of a problematic mineral, such as silica or asbestos is uncovered. The violent and mechanized digging process causes the minerals to aerosolize into the atmosphere where they are breathed in. If the placer mining involved denuding soil that is washed into waterways, then the waterways can become clouded and eventually unable to support aquatic life. The same goes for dredging and hydraulic mining that washes soil into delicate aquatic ecosystems.

Dams are a placer claim. The mineral is water, of course, but poorly built or aged dams can cause sudden and devastating flooding if they should fail or be overwhelmed by too much water. Releases from the dams can have the wrong temperature, harming fish larvae and other life that depends upon a tight range of water temperatures. And building dams is not without the common hazards that go into any massive construction venture. Other water diversions and re distributions can cause unanticipated damage to lands and can lead to desertification.

With a strike, or deep mining claim, there is an identified vein, cache or pool of a mineral. The process of drilling and extracting oil, digging out huge chambers of coal,