Silver mining has a silver lining

Remember the old saying, “Out of sight out of mind?” How about, “What you don’t know won’t hurt you?”

Both of these axioms are problematic today, especially when it comes to things we need for our everyday lives.

Here’s why.

Recently, a botched cleanup job by a federal EPA contractor made headlines. The crew accidentally breached the wall of a containment pond at the Gold King Mine near Durango, Colorado, sending three million gallons of mustard-tinged muck down the Animas River.

Now the EPA has stopped work on 10 old mining ponds to avoid another Gold King disaster and some would use it is as...