Mining

After the Mexican-American war, a battle that ultimately resulted in the theft of the Mexican states of Texas, California, Nevada, Utah, most of Arizona, parts of New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming by the US - western expansionists began exploiting minerals and resources from the vast open deserts of the present day American Southwest. These mines were worked primarily by Mexicans that either currently lived on their ancestral lands or were shipped over to the region from Mexico by train. All Mexicans were exploited for cheap labor, throughout the newly “acquired” territory.

Metal mining is one of the top toxic polluters in the world and predatory multinational mining companies, although currently not as prominent, continue to dominate and exploit public and private lands throughout the southwestern region of the US with little to no regulation.

There are three main types of land mines: open-pit mines, subsurface mines, and in-situ mines.

Open-pit mines, the most common form of mining, strip surface vegetation and soil. This causes massive erosion, acid mine drainage, and devastation of local ecosystems. Remediation is possible, but costly and the law does not force mining companies to even attempt to fix that which was broken.

Acid mine drainage occurs when previously buried rock reacts with oxygen. This creates sulfuric acid which then leeches pollutants, including arsenic and heavy metals, out of the surrounding rock. The acid then leaks into nearby water sources, polluting the groundwater and anything downriver from the mine.

Subsurface mines dig down into the Earth, then drag the rock containing the desired metal or material out. Acid mine drainage is still a problem, along with subsidence--the ground sinks after the mine is no longer maintained. When most people think of mining, they think of subsurface mining, with mineshafts and headlamps.

Both open-pit and subsurface mines process their materials by crushing the rocks. The crushed rocks are then drenched in a chemical bath, often a cyanide solution, to dissolve the rock from the metal. Then the desired material is separated out.

There is risk of these chemicals leaking and getting into the groundwater at the source, but even if handled properly, the waste product must be sent to a tailings dam forever because it is so toxic. Tailings dams are built with the solid part of the waste, then it holds the liquid part, allegedly forever. Tailings dams are well known to be less sturdy than most dams, and frequently spill their toxic contents back into the local environment. They are susceptible to earthquakes in particular.

In-situ mining pumps a chemical solution into the ground which dissolves the metal and rock. Then the solution is pumped into an aquifer, then the ore, most commonly uranium, is leached out and taken back to the surface for processing. Water aquifers are frequently where drinking water is taken from. This process permanently alters the groundwater in the surrounding area and leaves behind heavy metals and occasionally radioactive materials.

According to the General Mining Act of 1872, companies can mine for ore without paying on public land. They can mine without input from local communities and tribes, but the cleanup bill is almost always footed by the locals whose environment is polluted.

In West Texas, the biggest mining counties are Hudspeth and Brewster, with 92 and 61 mining sites each. The most common ores mined are copper, uranium, and silver. There are also a number of sand mines springing up in West Texas in and around the Permian Basin. These mines bring sand to fracking sites to further destroy the Earth’s crust for profit.