Word: would
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...range, the mountains of northern Nevada soar above the arid flats. From the air their sagebrush cloaks seem as soft as crumpled velvet. Suddenly a series of gigantic holes looms below, so huge that if they were the size of anthills, the ore trucks and bulldozers scurrying over them would be the smallest of ants. "Some people see these holes and think they're hideous," muses John Livermore, a tall, lanky exploration geologist from Reno. "Others think how wonderful it is that man can do something...
...tons of rock, which is piled into mammoth heaps and irrigated with cyanide. The cyanide percolates through the heap, extracting the gold. In the early days of the invisible-gold rush, a ton of ore might contain a few tenths of an ounce of gold. Today that minuscule amount would be considered high grade. Says Livermore: "They're mining deposits that we would have considered waste rock back in 1961." Nevada mines are now digging up a ton of rock to get back as little as 0.025 oz. of gold...
...gold mining in Nevada were confined to the Carlin Trend, environmentalists like Glenn Miller, a biochemist at the University of Nevada- Reno, would not be so concerned. But Carlin is not the only area in Nevada where mining companies are digging up the land. Hundreds of geologists continue to roam the state, creating new networks of rutted roads. Exploration rigs continue to punch holes into the earth a thousand feet deep. In the mining boom towns along Interstate 80, schools are overflowing, crime has increased and business is good. "Ultimately," predicts Miller, "there could be one continuous hole...
...pipes." The zigzagging roads left by the exploration crews he doesn't like much either. "These terrible Zorro roads," he says, "are everywhere." What riles Van Norman most is the insult to the land. "We grew up with the belief that if you took care of the land, it would take care of you," he sermonizes. "In this world, there is only one crop of land...
...holes are another matter. Many of them are so large it would cost more than $100 million to fill them, which could, in some cases, wipe out the profits made from the mine. "Some people think the holes should be filled in," acknowledges Livermore. "But as a matter of public policy, what's the rationale for it? The only real reason to fill in a hole is that people don't like the looks...