[cogman10]

> Anything that you can dig/pump out of the ground is toxic, particularly to water resources

Not really true. There are plenty of non-toxic elements in the ground.

The actual issue with mining is that the elements we are after are often surrounded by the likes of arsenic. Gold is a great example of this as veins of it are often right along and in arsenic.

That said, I do agree about being conscious of what sort of undesirables get leached out from the stuff we pull from the ground. For example, I recently learned that the reason we have to be worried about mercury in ocean fish is because mercury is a major part of the pollutants spewed from coal plants.