For the love of gold.

• Author: Young, John E.
• Position: Environmentally detrimental effects of gold mining

The world is in the midst of the biggest gold rush ever, and prospectors are literally moving mountains to get at the precious metal.

Almost every conceivable crime has been committed in the name of gold. The lustrous metal of kings has been synonymous with wealth - and power - since the dawn of civilization. Gold is so rare, beautiful, and malleable that wars have been waged for it, empires toppled, and uncounted lives lost. But in all the tales about the lust for gold, one side of the story is usually left out: the metal's prodigious environmental cost.

Gold occurs in such minute quantities in the Earth's crust that miners must sift through small mountains of soil and rock to obtain even a few ounces. Only the metal's high price - more than $300 an ounce - makes the search pay off

Not included in miners' balance sheets, however, is the damage gold mining inflicts upon ecosystems and people. The waste generated each year by gold mining operations could fill enough 240-ton dump trucks to form a bumper-to-bumper convoy around the equator. On a more personal scale, the material removed by U.S. miners to produce enough gold for an average pair of wedding bands could make a 6-foot wide, 6-foot deep, 10-foot long pile in the happy couple's backyard.

Gold mining has a long history of environmental destruction. An epic series of lawsuits - perhaps the first environmental court cases in the United States - were fought in the 1870s and 1880s over gold miners' devastating impacts on California rivers. In dozens of countries, mercury-laced tailings, eroded land, and acid mine drainage remain as visible, toxic legacies of gold rushes that occurred generations ago.

But gold rushes are not just the stuff of history. In recent years, the world has been gripped by a new epidemic of gold fever, and production has expanded sharply - from 1,219 tons in 1980 to an estimated 2,170 tons in 1992. With this increase has come an unprecedented worsening of the industry's impacts on the environment.

In North America and Australia, a new technology called "cyanide heap leaching" has made it economically attractive for large mining companies to level entire mountains of low-grade ore in the search for gold - often poisoning soil, water, and wildlife in the process.

At the same time, millions of small-scale miners have flooded distant corners of the planet in their quest for gold. The effects have been horrific. In the Amazon basin, site of the largest gold rush, mining is rapidly eroding sods, clogging streams with silt, and contaminating ecosystems and people with mercury. In their reckless pursuit of gold, miners have ravaged indigenous peoples in remote areas from Brazil to the Philippines by introducing new diseases and damaging ecosystems crucial to the tribes' survival.

And what are the rewards of all this devastation? Dividends for the shareholders of gold mining companies; riches for a tiny fraction of the world's small-scale miners and a meager - often impoverished - living for most of the rest; and gold jewelry for the small portion of the world's population wealthy enough to afford it.

Moving Mountains

Among the major metals, gold is exceptional for its scarcity. Iron, aluminum, and copper ores typically contain about 40, 23, and 1 percent metal, respectively. Gold ores average about 0.00033 percent metal - about one tenth of an ounce per ton.

Gold is found in two types of deposits: lode and placer. Lode deposits occur in solid rock, most often in well-defined veins. Placer deposits are gold-bearing gravels or sediments most often found in watercourses. Their gold content often can be traced to weathered lode deposits uphill or upstream. Gold prospectors often search for lode deposits by working up rivers whose sediments are known to contain gold. Substantial amounts of gold are also recovered as by-products of copper and silver mining.

Lode deposits can be worked from the surface - as can placer deposits on dry land - or by following veins deep underground. Some of South Africa's mines go down two miles. Placer deposits in rivers or deltas are usually worked by dredging or vacuuming underwater sediments.

For sheer destructive power, few human activities compare to gold mining. In both placer and lode mining, huge amounts of waste materials are generated. Miners produce, on average, nine tons of waste for every ounce of gold. To produce 2,170 tons of gold in 1992, they generated an estimated 650 million tons of waste. In fact, gold mining produces more waste each year than does iron mining, even though the world digs up 200,000 times more iron.

In placer mining, most waste ends up choking rivers downstream from miners' operations. The waste from lode mines is usually deposited in enormous piles or ponds. Much of it is contaminated with other metals, acid-forming chemicals, and solvents - most often cyanide - used to extract gold from ore. Mining wastes can cause acid drainage, heavy metal contamination, and other problems for centuries if not carefully stored.

Baubles, Bangles, and Beads

Beyond its scarcity, what accounts for the enduring demand for gold? One answer is that it possesses a range of qualities found in no other material. It is extremely malleable and ductile - skilled artisans can hammer it paper-thin or draw it into wire finer than hair. It does not rust or tarnish, and it is almost completely invulnerable to chemical reactions.

But the full explanation of gold's allure is more complex. Its worth is as much a matter of folklore and myth as it is practical: gold is valuable because value has always been measured in gold. Gold was used as money in virtually all ancient societies - Egypt...