POTENTIAL LIABILITY FOR GOOD SAMARITANS CLEANING UP ABANDONED HARDROCK MINES

摘要

It has been estimated that there are 500,000 abandoned hardrock mine sites throughout the country. These sites impact thousands of miles of streams throughout the United States with acid drainage and high metal loading (Limerick et al., 2005). Although referred to as abandoned, most of these mine sites have owners - either private individuals, corporations, or state and federal land management agencies. Typically, the people or companies responsible for the mining are long gone or have very limited financial resources. As a result, those directly responsible for having created problems at a site cannot be forced to clean it up, and in that sense, the mines are considered abandoned.