Dear Ms. Hucal,

The June ED+C cover photo, usefully juxtaposes Rio Tinto’s new headquarters in their Daybreak development in South Jordan, Utah, against the background of Kennecott Utah Copper’s Bingham Canyon Mine waste rock dumps. Rio Tinto, as one of the world’s largest mining companies, owns both Kennecott and Daybreak. I had the privilege of originating and working several years for Kennecott on early, post- environmental-cleanup planning that led to Daybreak and the several other communities that will populate former mining-contaminated lands there, and have returned to my roots in green building certification. Kennecott Land Company is steering --- laudably --- a course toward environmentally restrained planning, design and construction within the development. The mine, however, continues to blast into the Oquirrh Mountains in pursuit of mineral wealth, creating the supply of copper, molybdenum, silver, gold and trace metals to meet our demand in the building and consumer goods industries. The mine’s moonscape of dozens of square miles of sterilized, dangerous lands is further reminder of the immense devastation inflicted by mining, worldwide, damage for which we must be partially accountable.

Recent push for ‘certified sustainable’ metals, including gold and copper, as well as for ‘sustainable water resource management,’ are debased by the sheer magnitude and pervasiveness of mining, worldwide. Several enormous copper, zinc and iron mines are in the works in such ecologically precarious places as Bristol Bay, Alaska, southern Mongolia, and the north end of the Lake Baikal watershed. Positioned as it is above the east edge of one of the world’s largest and worst metals/acid-contaminated ground water contamination plumes, the Daybreak Rio Tinto headquarters building --- however beautiful and functional it may be --- should serve as a cautionary tale to architects, engineers, contractors, developers and all others who influence choices of land uses, town planning, building design and resource allocation, that our choices have profound environmental consequences.

In my nine years at Kennecott, I came to realize that it’s better to continue to mine from a responsibly developed facility than to open a new mine in a pristine area (the Pebble mine at Bristol Bay would be the extreme on that scale). Questions ensue. Is Kennecott Utah Copper a ‘sustainable’ source of copper, moly and other metals? Is the dumping of contaminants from ground water treatment into the Great Salt Lake, a globally critical habitat for migratory waterfowl and shorebirds, ‘sustainable’? Is the ‘grandfathered’ avoidance of reclamation of the old mine dumps you see in the photo (old dumps on an abandoned side of one of the world’s largest and most aggressive open pit mines) ‘sustainable?’ Is the prospective extension of the mine into a publicly-owned open space (Rose Canyon Ranch), a gloriously beautiful canyon of forest, glen and meadows, ‘sustainable?’

Sustainable sources of metals must match demand, emphasizing recycling and reuse. Recycling some metals, especially copper, is notoriously filthy, often producing dioxins and other chlorinated hydrocarbons from the burning off of insulation and circuitboard materials. Reconciling these contending, difficult resource needs --- for metals, but also for clean environments --- is one of the most urgent imperatives of the day for the design and building industry.

Thanks for your wonderful publication!
Ivan