Last time through here we steered clear of the huge Santa Rita Copper mine. It is impossible to completely miss a 1 ½ mile wide pit and this time we stopped at the overlook to check it out.  The scale of the operation and sheer size of equipment is technically amazing.  They have been taking copper from here since 1800 and there is no end in sight.

Site and tailings remediation requirements seem pretty light… grade and reseed. The large scale leaching process used for low grade ore is pretty ominous sounding.   Odd how I can be impressed by what they have figured out yet saddened by the fact that they are doing it.