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By John Berkes

The end of life of a copper mine is not pretty. An exhausted open pit copper mine and the associated tailing piles are unsightly.

When a copper mine closes, the mining company leaves, the workers leave, the good high-paying jobs leave, a hole in the ground surrounded by tailing piles remains and usually a ghost town remains.

The town, the county and the state all lose a steady revenue source.

When circumstances give you lemons, the sensible advice is to make lemonade.

Arizona has a tremendous resource in all the exhausted open pit copper mines; all it takes is to find a use for them.

Follow up:

I submit that since America is still very good at generating garbage the exhausted open pit mines could become sanitary landfill sites.

A reasonable end of life strategy for all the exhausted open pit mines in Arizona is to turn them into revenue producing landfills until they are full.

Turning mines into landfills would provide a valuable service for the residents of the state and perhaps even for neighboring states.

This end of life strategy for the open pit mines would shrink the tailings piles over time, in addition good high paying jobs would be created and a new revenue source would be available for government to milk.

The piles of crushed rock and dirt next to the old open pit mine would be perfect for covering the garbage. The logistics of this schema already exist since all the required transportation is in place.

In addition the landfills would eventually become a source of natural gas that could be used to generate electricity.

One potential objection to this plan is that the garbage may contaminate the groundwater.

This is unlikely to be a problem since all open pit mines already contain a pond at their lowest point. These ponds contain a toxic brew of chemicals in them.

If a toxic substance could diffuse into the ground water then it has already happened.

Logically, it follows that stuffing the open pit with garbage and rock from the tailings pile should not generate any new problem.

Since the existing mining companies have not availed themselves of this concept indicates that they either have no imagination or are not interested.

Consequently, it would be best if the county with the help of the state implemented this strategy and took possession of the old mines and tailings by the process of Eminent Domain.

The state would have to bless the concept and make it legal.

Turning mines into landfill sites would be good for consumers, good for workers, good for government revenue and good for the aesthetics of the landscape.

John Berkes has been a resident of Green Valley since 2006. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in geophysics from Michigan Tech and a Ph.D in Solid State Science from Penn State. He worked at the Xerox Corp., Webster, NY, R&amp facility for 36 years and has 45 U.S. patents. He previously lived in Webster and Fairport, N.Y. John and his wife Kathryn have four children who are currently scattered across the USA.