@farmerman,
One of the things about mining environmental cleanup is kinda like Trump's blowing off our industrial feet with his dumass import duties.
The way the original cleanup requirements ere written, it prmitted the expensing of handling ore containing leachate and gangue rock as ORE itself. Thus , the mines were getting a less burdensome tax basis and developing new cleanup technologies (That is, until it was killed by Cheney teams who sent it back a few decades and killed the expensing of restoration).
Obama did NOTHING using hi pulpit to restore the agencies oversight and the tax bennies to mine lesser grade ores because they would be covered under a cleanup rule.