Just down the hill from homes and a park in Copperton Metro Township sits a leaching reservoir and two large, lined pools stained by copper residue.
The leaching reservoir — dubbed the “Bingham Creek Reservoir” on Google Maps — is owned by Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation and stores wastewater from the Bingham Canyon Mine, one of the largest open-pit copper mines in the world and a massive source of toxic chemicals.
The Rio Tinto-owned mine produces copper used in electric motors and power lines, tellurium for solar panels and, in smaller quantities, such other precious metals as gold and silver.
As it does so, the mine also releases millions of pounds of arsenic, lead, selenium, mercury and other toxic chemicals – ones that can damage the brain and nervous system, cause insomnia and cause cancer – every year, according to data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxic Release Inventory, or TRI.
