[sjwalter]

This case in Butte is somewhat better than usual because BP is actually footing the remediation bill.

More typical is having the taxpayers foot the bill, like with the fascinating example of Giant Mine, 5km outside of Yellowknife, the capital of Canada's Northwest Territories. Some 200 kilotonnes of arsenic trioxide were created as byproducts of the mining process, enough arsenic dust to kill off every human and animal on earth. Once the company (and the company that bought the company) that mined the gold went belly up, the government is stuck footing the bill for remediation.

The remediation plan is to indefinitely freeze, using compressors like used for hockey rinks, the arsenic underground. An eternal, ongoing operation, costing >$1bn, costing more in present-day dollars than gold was even extracted from the mine, in order to avoid the arsenic seeping into the groundwater.

Kind of hilarious the implicit bet on a stable society that this remediation plan entails.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Mine

[throwawaysea]

Wow I didn’t realize it costs more to clean up than the actual value of the mine’s production. That definitely seems broken in some way. It doesn’t seem practical to predict future costs and price them in though, so I’m not sure what a better solution looks like.

[rp1]

Arsenic trioxide needs a bottle deposit.