Margaret Burks: Pause and imagine the mine in full operation

This local resident reflects that "Mitigation is the trade-off: we'll do 'this' good thing to offset 'that' bad thing."

"The bad thing doesn't go away. Mitigation is a pipe-dream on paper: rarely 100% effective or even doable, expensive, not guaranteed, rarely inspected, rarely enforced."

She concludes that the risks are unacceptable.

Read her full May 9, 2023 opinion piece in The Union.