eology. Education could help to improve technology, which in turn could advance mining techniques for the future. This is a cost that should be the burden of the mining companies. It is the responsibility of the citizens of Butte to ask for it and be sure it?s happening.I feel the mining industry can reasonably be expected to pay for current and future programs; it should not be expected to fully finance reclamation for the past two hundred years. The citizens of Butte, Montana owe it to themselves to analyze if the benefits of income and jobs on the local scale, or the comparative advantage on a national scale outweighs the costs of water pollution, erosion, and naturals hazards on the local scale.An analysis of the past two hundred years of mining in the United States helps to explain the actions of the mining industry and why it has held its stubborn opinions to the present day (Smith 1993: 168). Sincere, hard-working people, trying to do the best they could under circumstances that were not all of their own making, were not intent on being villainous. To paint miners as destroying the environment and to accuse them of "raping and pillaging" is unfair historically. The past should serve as a fund of collective wisdom and experiences from which to draw and as a standard by which to measure current realities. From the past we can learn ways to plan for the future. The amount of land to be reclaimed and the stream pollution to be cleaned up are staggering, and the American public, as well as the industry, must be willing to make the sacrifices to achieve these goals....
